Their members are as diverse as their sound, hailing from all around the world with influences spanning from gospel to Jamaican reggae.
Lead singer Rob "Crow" Belcher, transplanted from Italy to San Francisco. Crow first found his voice amongst holy surroundings.
"My father's a minister and so I was always in a choir. According to him I've been singing since I was four. I was fifteen years old when I realized singing and playing the piano gets girls. So I said, ‘I wanna do this for a living!’ I was in an R&B group called On ’N On all the way til I was nineteen. Then I had a child getting ready to be born, and I got dropped of my label. I had no money, so I dropped out of school. I ended up joining the military and became a paratrooper. I did that for six years. When I got out, I started doing music again in another band, Zulufat, and we were trying a European label. We were all ex-soldiers, and we wanted to come home to the states. We had to pick from Nashville , L.A. or New York . We figured we could probably afford Nashville ."
Terry Greene, the Stonecrossing drummer from Virginia Beach , Virginia , says he was born to be a musician... or even pre-born.
"Singing just runs in my family, y'know? I’ve been singing since I was in my mom's womb. 'Please let me out of here! It's kinda damp and weird in here!’” he laughs. “Really, I can't pinpoint when I actually started doing music because it's always been in my family. I’ve been playing drums since I was two, just wanted to beat on pots and pans. My mom said if I beat one more pot and pan she would beat my butt, so I had to learn how to play drums." he recalls. "My biggest influence would have to be my grandfather. He definitely got me started with doing music, with the old R&B classics, stuff like that. This rock thing just kind of fell in my lap, but I like it, so this is what I'm going to do."
The baby of the band is Pedro Barnes, who found his love of the strings in Jamaica where he learned to first play on a box guitar.
"I was born in Jamaica , the West Indies and moved to New York City . From New York, I got a track scholarship and went to Auburn University, where I saw Victor Wooten and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones playing. I’m like 'that looks great. I wanna do that.' I came to TSU, and after a couple years of playing in different bands, I fell into these guys."
"Literally fell into us." puts in Terry.
"Fell into your company." Pedro retorts.
"The person who was setting us up with him just gave me a name, Pedro Barnes. So when I went to go meet him at a Wooten Brothers gig, I was looking for a Mexican. Never told me he was a Jamaican." Crow says laughing, "He just told me Pedro Barnes. So I'm looking for a Pedro."
Pedro continues, "I started playing the bass guitar in '99. I'm pretty much self-taught, and I tried to take all genre of music mastery; salsa, reggae, African beat. I do a little bit of everything; reggae drums, reggae guitar, I play keyboards and base. My first song I actually played was Jive Talkin' by Beejees. Growing up, my father used to bring all these albums. My Father and Mother are my biggest influence. Also growing up with Bob Marley, Peter Touch, and coming to the states."
Though Stonecrossing may not yet have hit the mainstream, and are, but yet, just a drop in the ocean of popular music, their music and the message it brings ripples from one shore to the other.
"Dealing with the whole aspect of success, you really can't quantify success after a certain point, because pretty much if we make it big as everybody, says you still gotta stay on that level. You gotta keep on making the new album, keep on improving, and stay on top.” explains Pedro.
Terry agrees, "If you become too content where you're at, then you've failed in my eyes. So you might as well keep pushing, keep doing it better 'til the day you die."
Crow’s outlook is a little more laid back:
"I already feel like I'm successful in my music because I'm happy with what I'm doing right now." Crow says, "When I was younger, I was so focused on getting famous and making money. Then, as I started doing it, I realized I'm probably never going to be rich doing this. But I continue to do it, and I love it, so now I'm meeting guys like this and growing in my music, getting better at what I do. I feel like I've already reached success. I'm already here."
Regardless, they have truly become brothers in music, bonded by friendship and laughter.
"We're in Coco Beach and we're playing this song on stage and Crow is just getting into it. He's singing, he's jumping around. The whole time he's jumping around, he's not noticing that the mike cord is wrapping around his legs. He jumps up and next thing you know, Crow is on his back, on the floor, does not move for the rest of the song. For the next three minutes, he just lays there singing. And we are dying laughing. We're looking at him on the floor and he's, 'Will someone please help me get up?'” Terry says, laughing at the memory.
That bond grows with each soul that their music touches, young and old.
"Some teachers we know who come to all our shows work at this elementary school, and we went and did a Read And Rock program for them. We also did an Alzheimer's benefit concert, Forget Me Not. That was cool. We like doing stuff like that. We love benefits, we like doing stuff for people that just enjoy music."
Terry sums it up:
"This has actually been the first true band that I've actually gone through obstacles with that stuck around to work through that. Going through members, songwriting styles, and really just becoming really good friends. We're pretty much family."
| written by Joshua Schrader
