CVNW February 2013

Bottom line, Bruce and Brandon are part of who I am, and who I am is Brandon/Bruce but playing the music of my influences (KISS, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Cinderella and even Fastway).

CVNW: Where did M!SS CRAZY get the name?

The name originates from 6 months prior to me starting the band; I was in a band with my sister, and she was hard to work with, and while I did a lot for her, I still nicknamed her M!SS CRAZY – Kim (original bassist) and I were in my sister’s band and we left to form M!SS CRAZY. CVNW: Where does the album title GR!P come from?

Chris Jordan came up with it, and I think it best represents what our music does, and what our music stands for, the intensity of our new album, how it grips you and holds on to you. GR!P is gripping, absorbing, and the feeling of power this band has to offer.

Look, when you play hard rock and you do it well, it resonates – when we did our first album and toured after, I saw the reaction of the people we met, and the looks in their eyes, what it meant to them, what it meant to me, I lived for those moments, those towns we played, those albums we sold – that stuff means more to me than almost anything I’ve done in my life, and inspired me to do M!SS CRAZY II, Freakshow, the Markus Allen Christopher album, and now GR!P. It told me that this is who and what you are, if you’re going to do it, it needs to be top notch.

CVNW: When was your first show?

In 2006 at a club called the Quarternote in Sunnyvale, CA – it was jam packed CVNW: How did you feel waiting to head on stage?

I was hyped, couldn’t wait to get out there – I was not nervous at all – I’m so confident with what I can do, so into rock n roll so wholeheartedly, that I just don’t get nervous (here he gets distracted by YUMMY mozzarella sticks for a minute) – that show set the path and tone for the whole tour – Kim was with me, DT on drums, and Manny – and we played this show, and it was packed, and everyone understood what we were doing, that we were bringing back something that had been missing from hard rock, guitar oriented rock music, and I felt that the bands that I admired so much weren’t delivering that type of music anymore, so I started the band because I wanted to hear music that was not currently in the music industry, filled with stuff that was not 70’s/80’s influenced rock (AC/DC, KISS, etc), so in a way, I started this band to give myself the music I wasn’t getting in the industry.

I’m all about genuine hard rock, and if you’re going to be in a band like M!SS CRAZY, you can’t just mess around and just be in a band; I admire Cinderella, AC/DC, KISS, Ozzy, I’m going to write songs that matter, that rock, not songs written by some of the hack bands of the 80’s like (deleted). Out of the Cellar, the first Poison album, anything from Stryper, Back in Black, those type of bands set the tone for hard rock (with KISS, Motley Crue, etc). It’s like you have the Madonna’s, the Lady Gaga’s, and then you have 50 bands that have 1 hit in 1 year by mimicking them – but M!SS CRAZY is not a mimic, it IS Def Leppard, KISS, Kix, Cinderella; I emulated the best from that genre so that I wouldn’t be a one hit wonder like many imitators, so that we’d be a lasting band with music that spoke to people and music that rocks all the time.

M!SS CRAZY is all of those bands in one.

CVNW: What is one of your most memorable show(s)?

Without the weirdness of Dancing Dan…I’d go with Sheboygen, WI. We played there 2 times about 6 months apart, and you couldn’t have fit another person in that place, maybe an employee. Those people in Sheboygan, WI are so pure, so righteous about rock, I almost felt as if I didn’t deserve to play there. Philly, packed crowd, great fans, great people we met afterwards. Cherry Hill, NJ (the Cherrywood) – packed, sold out, great people, great fans. Des Moines, IA. Hempfest in Seattle. Opening for Buck Cherry in Arizona Cardinal stadium was a major rush and a thrill – all the time I was thinking, “holy crap this is where the Arizona Cardinals play”; I played 3 nights at the 50 yard line, unbelievable.

We’ve played everywhere – places where there were only 50 people because you couldn’t fit 60, and even those shows meant as much to me as playing in front of 35,000 people at Hempfest. I love an intimate