Hello, could you introduce
yourself to the listeners?
Hello! This is Michael. I am
the drummer, manager, and one of the songwriters for The Comancheros.
What can you tell me about
your musical journey to this point?
I started by playing in a punk
band with my brother, we did a few death metal bands in our teens, and I
started playing country when I was in college. Tanner and I met when I was in
graduate school for Greek and Latin. It wasn’t long before I dropped out of
grad school to focus on The Comancheros. It’s been full steam ahead ever
since!
How would you describe your
sound?
HEAVY & WESTERN. We wanted
to know what it would sound like if Van Halen did a Waylon Jennings cover
album. Van Waylon, if you will.
What inspired you to get
into music?
Personally, I was home-schooled. My parents did not play music, so my brother and I started private
music lessons around age 12 and it quickly took over our lives. We were never
big into sports and it was the first thing we were really good at.
The Comancheros recently
released the tongue-in-cheek ‘Happy Birthday to Me’. What can you tell me about
the track and the meaning behind it?
Jon wrote that song in about 15
minutes on his birthday during quarantine. Tanner and Jon are roommates, so
they were stuck together. Tanner walked by Jon’s room at about 8:30am (Natty lite
in hand) and said “happy birthday, you should write a song about a guy who is
alone on his birthday. Anyway, I gotta go take a shit.” By the time Tanner was
done with his shit, Jon had written: “Happy Birthday to Me.”
The band has toured with
some notable luminaries such as Whiskey Myers. Blackberry Smoke, The Cadillac
Three etc. What can you tell me about that experience?
That has been a blast!
Blackberry Smoke has been really generous and always fun dudes. It was great to
meet the guys in The Cadillac Three because Kelby played on our album “Too Old
to Die Young Now” and Jaren has supported the “Heavy & Western” brand quite
a bit. One dude in Whiskey Myers has a sweet Star Wars tattoo.
What is a typical The
Comancheros show like?
Sheer beer fuelled Dionysian
revelry. The Greek festivals would see a week of dancing, drinking, and
partying. People were known to be torn limb from limb. They set the bar for
partying and that’s what we strive to hit.
The band has released two
albums, and recorded a cover of the Lynryd Skynryd classic ‘Mississippi
Kid’. What can you tell me about the albums, and the decision to cover
this particular track?
Our bass player worked on the
idea for “Mississippi Kid” with a previous band that broke up when we scalped
him for The Comancheros. He was jamming it one day at practice and we just had
to try it! We worked it over quite a bit, but it was his idea to make that a
full band, heavy song.
I read the band has had a
sauce named after them. That is a pretty cool claim to fame. How did that come
about?
We used to jam with a guy named
Vann. He is known for disappearing every few months and doing god knows what.
He’s a veteran, he has worked pipelines, and who knows what else! He randomly
moved to Texas and started a hot sauce company. He offered us to do a special
blend and we were totally down! We’ve been really happy with it, and everybody
seems to love the flavour.
Does the band have plans for
a new album?
Memphis to Mexico releases on November 25th this year! We are so excited for
this album. Richard Young from the Kentucky Headhunters produced it, and it was
a fantastic experience.
And finally, what is next
for The Comancheros?
We’ve got a lot in the
pipeline. So much is still uncertain, but 2023 is gonna rule!
Social Media
‘Happy Birthday to Me’