I played bass for this original band out of Indy from 1995 to 2001. The band consisted of “Kokomo guys” but were based out of Indy. The band featured Todd Cravens-Guitar,Vocals, Drums, Bass, & Keyboards. A.J. McKinney-Drums,Vocals, Guitar, & Keyboards. Jason Sheroan – Bass, Guitar, & Vocals. And from 1997-2000 Rob Barr- Guitar & Vocals. Initially we called ourselves the Brassmasters, but later changed our name to Master Blaster because people thought we were a horn band. The name actually came from a highly sought after guitar pedal by Maestro called the Bass Bassmaster, which was the secret weapon in Todd’s pedalboard. We got tired of explaining it, so we went with Master Blaster (which was the name of a Stevie Wonder song).

I was visiting Todd one day when out of nowhere he said, “Dude, you should play bass in our band because our bass player just quit!” I agreed to give it a try but didn’t even own a bass amp! Playing with these guys was different at first, exciting, and thankfully ended up being a really good fit. Musically, we were very original and were an “acquired taste” sort of band. Most of our songs were a melodic rock bass players dream and I NEVER got tired of playing them. As a result, I became quite proficient on bass, forging my own style of playing. Even to this day, I play bass with the same exact approach as always, no matter what kind of music it is. I’ve always gravitated towards melodic bass players like Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick), Chris Squire (Yes), Paul McCartney (Really?), Robert Sledge (Ben Folds Five), and Doug Pinnick (King’s X), so I wanted to be as melodic as possible when writing bass parts for the band.

We were the very definition of a “garage band” as we tried to record most of our songs ourselves. We used this to our advantage because the style of the band was very low-fi, aggressive, abrasive, melodic, and sorta psychedelic at times. So the lack of slick recording equipment helped define our “sound”. Sort of like Guided by Voices in a way. Needless to say, no one sounded like us and vice versa. I was sort of an odd fit for them because my musical tastes were similar, yet totally different from theirs. That being said, we had all been long time friends and shared many of the same interests in bands. It’s just that when it came to writing songs, I was just getting started and was in to “pop rock”, where these guys had already had local glory in a band called Soulpaint. Soulpaint were SO CLOSE to getting signed when the grunge movement hit, but it never panned out. Soulpaint has done several “reunion shows” over the years, with yours truly being the bass player. It’s not likely that there will be any more shows, despite interest from fans.

Master Blaster was considered a “musician’s band” because our shows always seemed to bring in a lot of musicians. It was really pretty flattering. Your normal listener would usually run for the hills because they just didn’t get it! But for those who did, we were considered one of the best and most unique bands in town. We played numerous shows in Chicago with the band Rock Star Club, played all major original music clubs in Indy, Kokomo was good to us, and even performed at a Cheap Trick Convention at the Holiday Star Theatre during a “Battle of the Bands” FOR the members of Cheap Trick! It was amazing. We didn’t win because the band that did was from Japan, and really did a great job imitating the band. They deserved to win, but we definitely ROCKED. It was to be expected, since 50% of our band practices consisted of us jamming on Cheap Trick tunes!

Todd and Aj were the primary songwriters in the band. I contributed on a handfull of songs, as did Rob. I was more involved in the recording/mixing aspect of our songs, Unfortunately, we had no money and not enough equipment to do it right. I have all of our master reels dumped from 1/4″ tape to Pro Tools, so i could remix and edit the songs if I wanted. It would be very time intensive to do so though, so I’m not likely to. I left the band in 2001 after the birth of my son, and the others went their separate ways. Todd and his bombshell bass playing wife Sarah are in an outstanding local Indy band called Dark Matter Halos, and Rob plays with the “best of the best” in the Kokomo based band Inside/Out. AJ was one of the best drummers I’ve ever played with, but I don’t believe he’s involved in music which is just plain SAD.  To be honest, no one really knows what he’s been up to as he’s somewhat reclusive and private. Anyway, enjoy these songs for what they are. We always hoped that these would be “demos” and that we’d be able to record them properly, but it never panned out. So these songs are forever etched in stone, ringing snare drum and all!

Stay Tuned for some Master Blaster music…