Mention Monty Colvin to anyone who is a fan of the Houston rock scene and you are sure to get a big response. Monty was one of the founding members of the band Galactic Cowboys, whose blend of heavy metal, excellent melody and vocal harmonies put them on a par with other Houston favourites Kings X.

When the Galactics split in 2000 Monty was the first to set up his own solo project, Crunchy. When asked about Crunchy Monty affirms, "I set out to do something on my own, the way I want it and I am pretty happy with the way it turned out."

Monty's career started with a band called The Awful Truth who, hilariously, were signed up by label Metal Blade after splitting up. From the ashes of The Awful Truth emerged the Galactic Cowboys. The Galactic Cowboys comprised of former Awful Truth members Monty Colvin (bass) and Alan Doss (drums) as well as Ben Huggins (vocals) and Dane Sonnier (guitar). Sonnier was later replaced by Wally Farkas, who appeared on all GC albums from 1996 on.

When signed up by the David Geffen Company the band hoped for big things, releasing the excellent "Galactic Cowboys" in 1991 and then "Space In Your Face" in 1993. Unfortunately for Monty and his bandmates bungling managerial decisions (including neglecting to put the bands name on their album!) and misfortune conspired against the band. "They promised us the moon and never came through with anything. It was really disappointing because we thought we would be a huge band, but we put out a couple of really good albums that never really done anything. After that they dropped us and made it look as if it was all our fault, maybe because we sucked or something." The lack of promotion clearly still riles though - "They didn't promote the albums or put us out on tour with any big bands. It was a waste."

After an enforced layoff GC came back in 1996 with the phenomenal Machine Fish. An angry ripping record, it still retained a lot of the band's original sound with excellent melodies and soulful harmonies evident throughout the album. "At the time I was going through a lot of stress and things like that that are really expressed on that album. I think that all of the frustration and things that we were going through at that time show on that album."

The Galactics released further albums on Metal Blade, including the distinguished "At The End Of The Day" during 1998 and the bands only EP "Feel the Rage" in 1996. Unfortunately sales were disappointing and the quartet released their final LP "Let It Go" in 2000. "It was almost three solo albums on one disc, because I wasn't even living in the same town as them any more and I had already written songs to do my solo thing. Then we decided to do one last album, so we kind of came together and done our own songs."

Soon after finishing the final GC record Monty announced the formation of a new band, Crunchy. With a less complicated straight ahead rock approach Monty hopes his new band will succeed where the Galactics failed. "I was going for a straight ahead rock thing, Like Cheap Trick or The Foo Fighters, a straight-ahead rock thing with a lot of pop melody in it." How does it compare to GC's material? "It's kind of the popier side of the kind of stuff Galactic did, like Evil Twin. More Beatle-esque kind of stuff."

With a sound familiar and yet totally different from his work with GC the difficulty for Monty will be how his died-in-the-wool support from his time with Galactic Cowboys react to his new style. "I think that if you were a fan of Galactic because of the progressive metal sound we had then you may not like this as much. Just about everyone I have heard from that was a Galactic fan has really liked this a lot. The thing with Galactic was that it always had the melodies and the harmonies, that was always the foundation and to me whether it was a total metal thing wasn't important, because we always experimented with a lot of styles. I've been wanting to break away from the all out metal thing for a few years now and to make something a little more fun."

Following a run of material with metal as the main vehicle for his expressions Monty is clearly happy to be doing the type of music he loves. "With Galactic always had tons of songs and the other guys always wanted to write too and it got to the point where I wanted to go in the direction I am going in now, I wanted to be consistent. I didn't want there to be a big metal anthem in the middle of an album if it didn't belong there. Frankly I wanted to sing and play guitar."

The question surely on his fans lips is will they have the chance to see Monty sing and play guitar in their hometown? "Well I sure hope so, that's the plan. Right now we're playing locally in Kansas City and we've also done a few shows up north. Basically what we are doing is trying to get the ball rolling." What about further afield, like Europe and Japan? "Yeah I would love to. I feel that this type of music that I am doing now would go over better in England, Japan and places like that."

In addition to these plans Monty already has enough music written to complete another record. "I'm taking everything one day at a time. I mean I've got enough songs to do another album and that's my plan. I'm not thinking about slowing down in any way."

This is surely great news for Galactic Cowboy fans out there that have been missing their fix since the band split up. Monty's record "All Day Sucker" from SAR Records is available to buy now.