Miss Crazy Interview with Kate Lohnes

Kate Lohnes
Monitor Staff Writer

If you like your bands with wild face paint and crushing metal guitar, then South Texas College is delivering the goods.
The college’s Office of Student Life is hosting its third concert in three months on Saturday, said concert coordinator Pete Luna. Like previous concerts, the show is free and open to the general public.
The first concert, Nov. 11, featured emo/punk band Race the Sun, while a Jan. 5 class registration kick-off event hosted a slew of local bands. According to Luna, the concerts are there to remind the community that STC isn’t just about academics.

"We want them to come out and experience the college culture, to visit the campus and see what we have to offer," he said. "We want people to know that not only is it a college, it’s a place that also has an active student life."
While several of the previously showcased bands have been punk or emo groups, STC’s third show features a line-up that’s more rock and metal. Headlining the show is Miss Crazy, a KISS and AC/DC-influenced quartet out of San Francisco, Calif. The band has been together since 2005, said lead vocalist Markus Allen Christopher, and plays music that they say takes the high road over other modern rockers.
"It’s timeless music," Christopher said in a phone interview. "It seems like a lot of the emo bands out now are really commercial bands and have the same thing going, with the same kind of singers and the same production. We wanted to go with something timeless, like the arena rock with your fists in the air and rock T-shirts on. We wanted to bring something back that is missing today."
Miss Crazy put out its self-titled debut in early 2006, Racer and Christopher said. The band’s second tour, which begins Jan. 12 in California, will plug the album while visiting places they missed on their first tour. The group will play three times in the Rio Grande Valley, including a second show in Brownsville the same evening as the STC concert.

"We have a good Texas following," Christopher said. "It caught us off guard. There are a lot of rockers, man."

The Rio Grande Valley has its fair share of rock and metal lovers, said Dave Benitez, guitarist for local rock/metal band Warryor who also will play the STC show.
"There’s a big following here for that kind of music," he said. "People here can definitely relate to that."
Benitez said he thinks the combination of Miss Crazy, Warryor and The Alicat Project makes for an exciting concert.

"I’m familiar with (Miss Crazy) and with them as a band," he said. "They sound pretty good. The Alicat Project, we play with them about every other weekend, and stylistically we’re all pretty similar. The Alicat Project and Miss Crazy are more into the glam rock and we’re more into the metal, but a lot of people classify us all as ’80s rock. I think it’s going to be a good show."

Kate Lohnes covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4427. For this and other local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.
STC Concert Series