RandallMarsh.net

Randall Marsh was raised in Bushnell Florida a small rural town  about seventy miles south of Gainesville. Marsh remembers sitting in his  second grade classroom. The high school marching band practiced on the street in front of the local elementary school. The sound of those snare drums stirred something in him. He often got in trouble marking up his desk using pencils as drumsticks. Joining Jr. band in sixth grade Marsh got access to the real thing. The sound and feel of actually striking the drums himself was a thrill that has continued throughout his career.
 
Marsh wanted to rock and Jr. band wasn't cutting it.  He talked his mom into ordering a red sparkle drum set from the Sears catalog when he was thirteen. Since the arrival of the drum set things have never been the same. With no drum teachers in the area Marsh had to figure things out for himself. He got some records, listened real close and figured out what each drum and cymbal were doing. Not an easy task the way things were recorded back then. Not long after came his first band, The Grasshoppers. High school dances, teen parties, things were really rollin'. A couple of years later the second band, The New Frontiers, these guys were from a larger nearby town and older than him. Marsh wasn't old enough to drive so the guys had to come forty miles to pick him up for practice. This band even did a James Brown revue. Later in his high school years the band had to break up. A couple of the members already out of school had to join the national guard to keep from going to Vietnam.
Then came a year or so of  practicing and the occasional jam.  A frustrating time for Marsh living in a small town with a lack of musicians. A music renaissance was on the horizon! Hendrix, Cream and others were really starting to explode. Marsh was praying for graduation and then moving on to where the music and action was.
     
At last! High school was over! Marsh moved to Tampa for a while but that wasn't happening. Then on a suggestion from a friend he moved to Gainesville................Bingo. Gainesville Florida 1969. A liberal college town in a conservative state, it was an oasis. Lots of college students from all over the country, the world for that matter. Marsh needed to find a band so he went to the local music store and put up an ad. Mike Campbell answered back, not bad for the first round in G-ville. With Campbell on guitar, bass player Hal Maull and Marsh, Dead or Alive was born. 
                      
Dead or Alive was a band that would start a song, sing for a minute or two then jam and experiment for half an hour. They didn't have much in the way of original material but did they have major fun. That continued until the bass player, Maull, decided to take a different path. Marsh and Campbell were left hangin' without a bass player. Living in the same house (The Farm) but not able to secure a new bass player they decided to find what they could separately.

Another ad was put up in Lippham's Music store. This time Mudcrutch answered, not bad for the second try in Gainesville. Marsh heads over to Jim Lenahan's (lead singer) garage with his drums in the back of a 1964 Ford Falcon station wagon for an audition. A scruffy looking bunch, Mudcrutch, with their long hair and western shirts were Tom Petty, Tom Leadon and Jim Lenahan. They ran through a few songs. Marsh noted a country influence that put him off a bit at first but these guys could rock and he liked the way Petty played bass. Things looked good, so on to a  rehearsal a few days later at The Farm. Someone mentioned a second guitar was needed so Marsh went to get Mike (Campbell) out of the back room. They were impressed with Mike. Three weeks of rehearsal later the band played their first gig at Dub's Steer Room, a local bar.  

Five years later the band moves to Los Angeles and secures a record deal. An album was recorded, a single released and then the band broke up. Not a good time but life went on. After that Marsh played every kind of gig imaginable. Sometimes playing in pick-up bands with his old band mate Benmont Tench. Tench who had joined Mudcrutch a couple of years earlier back in Gainsville after Tom Leadon had left the band. Tench at that point was also on his own. Marsh was determined to stay in L. A. and find another original band. That was tough after being used to the talents of Campbell, Petty, and Tench. 

A couple of years  and many bands later Marsh did an audition with Dean Chamberlain and Michael Ostendorf  (Code Blue) an unknown Hollywood band that had tried out scores or drummers. Marsh was used to auditions often being  a waste of time (lackluster bands) and was only half paying attention. But again lighting struck, these guys were good, damn good and had cool original songs. Then four months of rehearsing, working hard to get it perfect. It all paid off after playing some clubs around Hollywood as they had the interest of several major labels. Code Blue continued playing around  Los Angeles for a while before settling on a deal with Warner Bros. The band did an album and a tour opening for Thin Lizzy, shortly after the band broke up. Code Blue was a really good band that should have gone the distance. The album was re-released a few years ago on Rhino Records, plus bonus tracks.
 
After a couple of years looking for a project that would be fun and satisfying but with with no luck, Marsh became a bit jaded and burned out on the Hollywood/L. A. life. Longing for a simpler life, Marsh began looking for a small town not too far from L. A. He did find such a town, Ojai.
 
Marsh has pretty much been in Ojai ever since. Working on various projects and his own songs, Marsh enjoyed the small town atmosphere. Spending much of the nineties driving back and forth from Ojai to the San Fernando Valley to record at Mike Campbell's home studio (Ron Blair on bass).  Campbell, a prolific songwriter, enjoys working on and demo-ing his own songs. Then in 1999 releasing The Blue Stingray's CD recorded at Mike's studio. (Mike Campbell, Ron Blair, and Randall Marsh). Also in the same year Marsh recorded several weeks pre-production with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for the Echo CD. For a while Marsh also played with Ron Blair and Jackie Lomax doing live gigs around the Ojai area.

Marsh returned temporarily to his hometown in Florida in 2006 to work on his family's one hundred year old home. A short time after returning to Florida Marsh got a call from Petty about recording a CD with the Petty, Campbell, Tench, Leadon, Marsh lineup. A Mudcrutch album. A date for the sessions was set and in 2007 the CD was recorded. Some months later a limited tour of California was completed. Starting November 11, 2008 a Mudcrutch documentary will be shown on VH1 Classics. On that same date a four song CD from the live shows will be released. Mudcrutch has the intention of future fun and adventures.  Stay posted!  
 
Marsh has since returned to California and is working on new projects.