Backwoods bravado, patriot’s pride, country soul, keg-thumping beats — these are the qualities that Moonshine Bandits have championed since they began their journey.  Armed with a hybrid arsenal of country and hip hop fusion, the California duo of Dusty ‘Tex’ Dahlgren and Brett ‘Bird’ Brooks are back with the grittiest, spirited and distinctly grass-roots release of their sixteen year campaign of musical badassery – “Gold Rush.”   If you ain’t about this life then you ain’t about shit.” – From the Track ‘Mud Money’ on the Moonshine Bandits latest release ‘Gold Rush”’   Since their formation in Los Banos California in 2003 the Moonshine Bandits have continued a campaign of crossover genre-bending musical mayhem that appeals to the eclectic, color-outside-the-lines tastes of listeners, aka The Shiners, and they fiercely refuse to have their tastes confined and filed into categories. “Our musical style has always been full throttle and in your face,” says Moonshine Bandit Tex.  Just like the rumrunners, bootleggers, smugglers and outlaws of old – the Moonshine Bandits provide a supply of the goods for the demand, defying the mandates and trends of mainstream pop culture.   The course of their career has seen ups and downs, hard partying and self-reflection. The Moonshine Bandits have crisscrossed the country performing hundreds of shows a year, ventured into branding their own beef jerky and moonshine, collaborated with some of the music business’s most prolific artists, outshined in the face of record industry roadblocks, earned a fiercely loyal fan following, and embrace the unconventional.  Hell, they’ve even had the honor of friend and adult film legend Tera Patrick spicing up a music video! It’s all part of a journey filled with good, bad and even some ugly, but ultimately the Moonshine Bandit philosophy is summed up by Tex and Bird’s joint statement – “We always felt there aren’t stops or boundaries if you pave your own lane.”   And now the Moonshine Bandits have hit the proverbial motherlode with the release of Gold Rush on their very own record label MSB. Taking its inspiration from all that embodied the struggles and successes of America’s extraordinary era when dreams were being made while hunting for that elusive precious gem. It wasn’t entirely about the dollar sign though.  The Gold Rush was far more dynamic in terms of the greater meaning and effect it had on all those who took part. Big or small, bust or windfall, for many people the Gold Rush ultimately provided the experience of building a new life in a wild place that had a code of its own.   “Our Gold Rush wasn’t always about the glitter because we took the long haul,” Tex says, and just like many of the hopeful dreamers who panned the creeks of the old west’s badlands, the Moonshine Bandits encountered their share of setbacks but never quit. “We got in the trenches,” Tex continues, “learned and got burned.”  The group’s Gold Rush reflects on a career that wasn’t about following some set of rules; this is about living by a code. Now with the debut of their own label, the group can fully exercise that code. “There’s a right way, a wrong way, and now there’s our way.”  Characterize it as rebellion, call it anti-establishment, or perhaps it’s a little bit of symbolic of an elusive time when there actually was Honor among thieves, but the Bandits simply see it as lessons learned from experience.   Thematically, Tex and Bird describe the Gold Rush album as homage not only to the band’s career journey but also, and profoundly, “a journey about the people we have come in contact with.  The people that inspire our songs.”  This is especially true of the track“Two Bar Town” which speaks volumes of the brick and mortar, mom and pop’s, local friends and corner watering holes that truly provided the foundation of everyday life, culture and economics in America. Tex says the theme is all about the ‘small town’ and despite the fact that ‘small towns’ have naturally changed with time that “doesn’t mean you have to, you can still be proud of where you came from and keep those memories forever.”

Born in Atlanta Georgia, raised in Central and East Africa, Crucifix spent much of his early childhood bouncing from continent to continent, soaking in a wide influence of music and culture. By the time he was eighteen, he was native to fifteen different countries and fluent in three languages, but it was his unveiling passion for music that would soon take center stage in his life. At the age of twelve he began teaching himself to play the piano, writing and producing his first music, recording from the comfort of his bedroom, making tapes and designing the covers by hand. In 2005 he released his first fully independent and self produced album “My Life’s Prayer”.   The controversial double disc debut took the HipHop Underground by storm, sealing in his unique and fluid signature sound. Mixing fast-fire Southern Rap with smooth Rock vocals, a touch of Soul and no holds barred lyrical content, Crucifix began to set a new standard for cross-genre music. By 2010 he had expanded his reach into film, his riveting life story was published in a book by the multiplatinum, Grammy, Dove and American Music Award winning band Casting Crowns, and he completed his third full length album "Cruce Signati", featuring Atlanta HipHop legends YoungbloodZ, Ceelo Green's Goodie Mob and Outkast's Dungeon Family, landing his first spot on FM radio and signing his first record deal.   In 2013 he had released his first full length reality style documentary, "Road To Chernobyl", made his first appearance on both VH1's "The T.O. Show" and MTV in the stunning cinematic music video "Splinter" with Bubba Sparxxx. By the end of 2013 he released his fourth studio album "Acid Reign" featuring Bubba Sparxxx, Nappy Roots and Sean Paul, making his first imprint on XM and worldwide Radio. In 2015 he touched the Billboard Charts Top 20 with both the Lacs' "Outlaw In Me" and Moonshine Bandits' "Blacked Out" albums, touring across the country ever since. Known for his intense energy and passionate, heartfelt delivery, Crucifix continues to push the limits of cross-genre music.