Chris ‘Crispy’ McVey Biography

mcveyChris started playing drums at age 8, trading the set to his brother for a plastic guitar with fish line strings less than two years later. By age 12, Chris had upgraded to a $50.00 K-Mart special.

At age 14, he started a project with his neighborhood friends called “MINSTREL” writing original music as well as playing obscure covers by Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Rush, Heart and Steely Dan to name a few.

He joined DARTAGNIAN at age 17, playing the bar and club circuit in Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, Washington. Because the drinking age was 21 at the time, Chris was forced to set at the sound board during breaks for 4 years. This band is where he meet Joe Solina, a great drummer, who would later talk Chris into going to New York.

By age 23, Chris flew to New York City to join Mantacore Recording Artist STRAY DOG with Joe Soliona. Chris was originally enlisted to play bass and sing background vocals. Within a few months, he moved to lead and rhythm guitar and sang the majority of the songs. This is where he met Walt Kulwicki, an awesome guitar player, who would join Chris in several projects to come.

At age 25, Chris formed ‘NO•X•Qs’ with Walt on Guitar, Bob Kelly, another awesome musician, on Bass and Chris Nerone, killer Drummer. They played largely original music, with selective covers from Tower of Power, Deep Purple, Whitesnake and the Dixie Dregs.   

Approximately two years later, Chris formed Scarlett O’Hara which enjoyed tremendous regional success on the northeastern club circuit. Steve Loges on Guitar, Tyrone Cannon on Drums and John Stokley on Bass.

In 1991, Chris started to collaborate with Nick and Chris Muslin on a project called “RAREBREED” which is an ongoing project today. RAREBREED released their self titled debut album in 1995 and the follow up is due to be released this year. Chris still continues to fly back to South Jersey to keep this an ongoing project and will for the foreseeable future.

By the early 1992, Chris decided to move to Florida with the coaxing of Walt and the two of them formed a Duo called “THOSE GUY’S”.  Dave Besley was playing with The Seiners when he joined the group in 1993, and 6 months later we added a drummer.  And the rest is history!  

In 1996, Chris was recording both at his home studio ( 4-Track Cassette ) and as the resident engineer at Jazzmin Recording Studios in Jacksonville, Florida. This is where he had the chance to work with Billy Annin on Drums, who had collaborated on a number of tunes, and Barry Dunaway, formerly of Yngwie Malmsteen and Pat Travers’ touring band on Bass. He also worked with Dusty Barber (who played guitar with Jacob Armen on his recent Warner Brothers release). And Brian Austin Greene and had a tune of his own put on Brian’s Debut release. His biggest joy was engineering and co-producing the 1997 release of “Econoline” by Mike West and Myshkin from New Orleans. Chris has been and is still close friends with Mike and Myshkin since he caught them at Mardi Gras in 1995 and booked them into the “Milltop” in Saint Augustine where they still are booked on a regular basis to this day.

In 2000, Chris formed a platform for his original idea’s and tunes called CrispyTunes, Inc. He also finally moved into the digital world with the purchase of a Roland VS 880EX 8-track recorder. This move inspired a new spark of writing that produced around 60 tunes and idea’s in an 18 month period. Chris say’s, “Getting the Roland was the most productive move I made since I started writing back when I was 14! Thanks Roland!”

In 2000, Chris also had the pleasure of meeting, thanks to Billy Annin, Craig Bush. An accomplished Vocalist, Keyboardist, Guitar/Bass player and Song Writer. Chris has already collaborated on 3 songs with Craig. One of them appears on this site. Chris and Craig are on the same page musically and there will definitely be more collaborations to come. Craig has his own home studio that most musicians would die for. A Mackie d8b and a Mackie HDR2496 recorder as well as a nice PC based Pulsar and a Roland VSR 880 that Chris and Craig use to swap song idea’s out with each other.

In 2001, Chris also toured with Chuck Nash Band on Bass and Vocals for a 5 month period and had a lot of fun!!

In late August, 2001, Chris is back with Those Guy’s again and having a BLAST! He’ll be playing with Those Guy’s live for the foreseeable future. Writing and recording with the band on the upcoming new Those Guy’s album. Chris say’s, “We are having more fun now than ever AND we are writing some pretty nifty tunes as well!”

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