Big Boss Sausage started as a novelty act with comedic intentions, but developed into a formidable band, whose music ran the gamut from hard rock and blues to funny, tear-jerking country ballads. Big Boss Sausage, formerly Serf Cowboy Solution, pursued independent ways to express its music. Sausage on the Mountain, where the band performed at the Hidden Valley resort in Vernon, NJ, in 2001, was the successor to the group's previous annual three-day summer event Rampage on the River in Barryville, NY. The band underwent numerous personnel changes since its inception in the early '90s, but at the beginning of 2001, Mingo Lodge (aka Matthew Checkur) was joined in the group by his brother, co-founder, and co-songwriter Dmitri Thomas (aka Thomas Checkur), both hailed from Woodbridge, NJ; bassist Les Keil, from Brooklyn, NY; and drummer Bill Muchler, from Chatham, NJ. Serf Cowboy Solution (later renamed Big Boss Sausage) released its debut CD, A Night of Hard Liquor and Venison Balls, recorded at Black Bear studios in Vernon, NJ, in November 1998. The band debuted under its new name in 1999 at the Heater's club on High Top Mountain, NJ. The band changed its name to avoid confusion. People had thought the group was a country band, which conflicted with the music it was playing, and also, there was a German heavy metal band called the Surf Cowboys.