CVNW February 2013

the rest of us…it’s sad because the industry takes a certain marketable commodity and pushes it and promotes it and tells us it’s good – it used to be Def Leppard, Van Halen, but now those are bands that have longevity because of their fame and their devoted fans, but that’s not the demographic that the industry wants, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears control the world, American Idol, the X Factor – we could sell out the Whiskey for a record company, and they’ll say “wow, you guys are great but we don’t care because you’re not pop, and we don’t feel the world will accept you and your makeup, even though you’re dam’ good.

If you came out when Def Leppard came out, you’d be collecting royalties and doing a reunion tour…” And I tell you, ACDC, Def Leppard, RATT, KISS, Motley Crue, they all know who I am, sometimes it’s hard not to feel like they are all about themselves and not about helping or breaking in a new band that was influenced by them, and that’s sad.

CVNW: What are some of the biggest hurdles you’ve had to overcome?

The recession – it killed the second tour. The government f**ked up the USA to where we couldn’t do the things we did on the 2006/2007 tour because we didn’t have the same privileges from the club owners (they said “we used to pay you $1000, now we’re going to pay you $250, and sorry, that doesn’t work for me), so we had to write good music and record good albums so that people would purchase our stuff over the internet, and that pushed us farther into the underground than we wanted to be at that time, meanwhile tour gigs were being cancelled despite the fact that we were receiving such good reviews (or because of…?). I can be as badass as I can be, but right now it’s just to the underground fans, which I think has to change.

CVNW: How do you think the internet has represented or held up your music?

The internet is the reason that M!SS CRAZY exists today, and sells records, MySpace was responsible for our touring with social media promotion.

CVNW: Is that a positive force for change?

I hate social media, but I have to be honest, it’s the best way to go. I have a social media page (MySpace) for myself, and I have over a million plays on my music, M!SS CRAZY has over 1.5 million plays, we have over 100,000 friends, and I finally joined Facebook several months ago and have been using that as well.

CVNW: Tell us how you’ve evolved musically over the past several years?

I think we have really stayed true and have not had to evolve, because we’ve had time to do what we wanted to do. The new album is an elaboration of M!SS CRAZY II and Freakshow – as in “hey, I can write like this, or I can write like this” – it all refers and reverts back to arena hard rock.

CVNW: What spurs you to write a song, I’m a melody guy, and a riff dude – I’ll come up with a riff and have no idea what I’m going to sing to it but when I take the time to come up with something cool enough riff-wise and I don’t know what the lyrics are, I’ll just sing some stuff but perfect the lyrics as time goes, it’s almost a stream of consciousness. I’m the kind of guy who closes his eyes, and when he tries to write a riff, it’s not a new type of riff like Lady Gaga or Linkin Park, but I write things that Ace Frehley would write, or Jaymz Hetfield would write, so I use my