Rick Dean-guitar, Cookie Monster-bass, Jason-drums
Influences
franklin, the pyramids, venetian blinds, crossing jordan, fair meadows, smoldering intestinal outbreak solution, ally mcbeal, being COVERED in mud, scones, lice, burning rivers, flaming gorges, shitty turtles, jack-russell hennessy, cedric the entertainer before he sold out, gacy, gumby, amphetamines, muppet babies, the scattered brain of an infant, michael myers, jason vorhees, the reading pit, guys named art, ed poe, electrical stains, the original backwoods bluesman muddy potatoes, booger ramsey, roseanne, white plains...
Muzzy is off the hook! They like to make noise together with instruments. Sometimes they sing songs in front of people in exchange for money paper, and sometimes they ask for nothing in return. It’s usually quiet after they sing songs. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but Joaquin Phoenix has lice.
Hailing from Aurora, Indiana, a small, rural burg on the Ohio River 15 miles outside of Cincinnati, where they all went to high school together, the band’s three members—bassist Nicholas "Cookie Monster" Backman, guitarist Rick Short and drummer Jason Reed—first formed Muzzy in 2002, and now boast more MySpace friends than the population of their hometown. "I've tried on your mom's bra" says Rick.
According to MySpace, this Ménage à trois' spiritual influences include “Franklin(not the cartoon), tainted sips, the pyramids, River Creek Village, trees, grass, the sky, venetian blinds, Dearborn Plaza, crossing the ocean just to take a bath, being chased by the police through a swamp, utilizing parasites, smoldering intestinal outbreak solution, scones, lice, burning rivers, flaming gorges, shitty little turtles, Jack-Russell Hennessy, Cedric the Entertainer before he sold out, Gumby, venareal scratch, the apostrophe bill, mother’s milk, and the scattered brain of an infant".
Not to mention a musical resemblance to the grunge-pop of Weezer(who?zer), the eclecticism of Ween, the mature, thematic sexual element of the Bee Gees, the ghetto technique of Elton John, and most importantly, the transcendent universality of the Beatles.
You can hear all that and more on The Boathouse Sessions, the band’s five-song EP, recorded at, in typically straightforward, authentic Muzzy fashion, the group’s boathouse rehearsal studio on the banks of the Ohio, and produced by Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano and producer/engineer Chris Fasulo. "We were naked pretty much all the time" shares Rick.
“Mindframe” starts with a hip-hop riddim, segues into an industrial, robotic Devo vibe and ends up with a winding Biscuit guitar solo in its ode to “the man who rolls the dice” and “the man who pays the price” “Cold” boasts a loping country beat, soulful harmonies and the reason for the EP’s parental advisory sticker in its Faustian confrontation: “There’s a man in the back/And he’s got a gun/And he looks fucking pissed.” “Pickle” builds to a rocking climax in its tale of a perverse moral dilemma. “The Yellowest” offers an ‘80s new wave jangle to its tale of post-apocalyptic doom: “The threat is gone/We have to carry on/The world is spinning faster,” while “Carla” is a sweet love song tempered with ‘70s blue-eyed soul falsetto, equal parts the Bee Gees, Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates. "It all starts with petty boy drama!" Shouts Rick as he enters the room and our hearts.
“from their MySpace page
Top 10 Interesting Muzzy Facts:
1) Rick and Jason had a ska band in high school “with horns and shit,” but it “kinda didn’t work out.” Rick and Nich had been hanging out together, so they decided to start a new band. “I was totally down,” says Jason. “Just from the first time, everything clicked. We’ve been together ever since.”
2) Muzzy was named after the big green monster in a ‘90s TV commercial that teaches you how to speak French and German. It also represents “an unclear state of mind,” according to Nich. “I hate these bands with longass names that are just so cliché." "That's not where the name came from." Rick adds.
3) Muzzy once played a show at the Viper Room in L.A. “We have fans all over,” says Nich. “With the release of this EP, we’re planning on taking it to the next level.”
4) Muzzy still live in Aurora. “We enjoy being around here,” says Nich. “We find it really inspiring. It’s a comfortable place for us to write music. The closest city is Cincinnati, and the only music scene there is like emo and shit. It’s horrible, just an awful place.”
5) Muzzy’s musical diversity comes from their own wide-ranging tastes. According to Nich: “It represents the different kinds of music we all listen to. We grew up with country music. You can definitely hear that kind of thing with ‘Cold’ and stuff like that. We’ve all just kind of bloomed into our own thing. We just never put a cap on what we’re going to listen to. All sorts of stuff inspires us."
6) Muzzy makes music the organic way. “This feels very natural,” says Jason. “Seems like when we think too hard about something, it puts a block on things. A lot of times, when we’re together just hanging out, that’s when the songs come. That’s when we do our best material. When we put all three of our minds together, and it just kinda forms whatever happens.” "I find that for me, the best shit comes when I'm on a toilet, any toilet. Just sitting... waiting." Explains Rick.
7) Muzzy is not a joke band. “We have a sense of humor all our own,” says Jason. “But this is serious. It’s almost like you kind of have to know us to understand. We’ll write songs about this lady at the local Taco Bell, just all sorts of local characters.”
8) Muzzy’s current van was inherited from the local coroner, and now has a life-size T-rex spray-pained on the side. Dinosaurs are Rick's specialty. “We stick out like a sore thumb,” says Jason. Nich’s great-great-great grandfather founded the Aurora Casket Company. “I’m doing the music thing now,” he says. “Dead bodies later… maybe.”
9) Muzzy play a number of local gigs. “We’re playing a show tonight at a really small club in a podunk redneck honky-tonk,” reveals Nich. “We’ve had them turn out good in the past, and where it ended up like the chicken-wire scene in Blues Brothers. It’s fun to play for those people… it gives us something to do.” Rick goes on to explain that "Sometimes our shows end up more like that scene in Top Gun where Goose hits his head on the canopy."
"If there are other lifeforms out there, i just hope they know how to stop, drop, and roll."
“If you ever feel like everything is too much and the world is closing in on you and you wanna just give up, listen to Muzzy and everything will be just fine. Muzzy wants to sing their songs in front of people everywhere. It’s too bad they live in a very small forest, for now they must sing to the animals.”
"I have seen the future, and the future is dinosaurs." Booger Ramsey
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