Tony

My name is Tony Mullins and I've been playing music since around 1986. At 14 I joined a Southern Gospel group called "New Jerusalem". New Jerusalem played regionally almost every weekend. I'm very glad my career started out in Southern Gospel although at the time I really wanted to rock. N.J. gave me the opportunity to see how bands worked together and how to show up and set up for shows. We released one "Cassette" and stayed together until 1988.
Around the same time New Jerusalem parted ways part of NJ and some of my friends decided to put together something more rock based. The first carnation of this was called "Frontline". Frontline started out doing just covers but soon progressed into a great original rock band. Frontline also was my first joining of the minds with my brother. Shane was a founding member and played bass. After going through our second vocalist and looking for our third we decided to just downsize and let Andy Ballou fellow guitarist in Frontline take over as lead vocalist. Frontline included Mark Pleasant, Myself, Shane Mullins & Andy Ballou
We decided along with a new vocalist and sound should come a new name. This brought forth "Messiah Experience". Messiah Experience was my first band to see some success and popularity. M.E. set off to write all new material and we did just that. New songs, new singer and for the first time a much more aggressive and original sound. I wrote almost all of the music in M.E. and tried to pay tribute to all the great southern rock bands and songs I'd ever listened too. M.E. played all over Kentucky and Tennessee and eventually started getting noticed thanks to a couple concert reviews all over the east coast. We played huge festivals from Illinois to Georgia and was actually picked up by a distribution company. This got our music all over the U.S. I still remember the feeling I had when I got my first letter (yes letter) from someone out west telling me they loved our Music. Well all things must come to an end and M.E. came to a grinding halt around 1993. Success was our eventual demise. Our drummer had many years in at a company and felt he either had to pick the band or his job and picked his job. There's two strange twists of fate that happened when Mark told us he had to quit. First, we just decided to fold instead of just getting another drummer. To this day I don't know why I didn't think of that. It seemed I guess we put so much time into M.E. as a team it was all or none. The second thing was not long after we broke up Mark lost his job due to an injury and never worked there again.
1994 through 1998 was and still is a Grey area for me in music. I had many failed attempts at putting anything together. My life during those years was hard and hectic. I basically played piano for a Church and thought about the "glory days" of Messiah Experience, thinking that part of my life was over. I set in with two or three different bands helping them out but only as a utility musician just filling a need for a specific show. During this time I don't know how or even remember how but basically traded, sold or lost all of my gear.... except for my Tele .
In 1997 I remarried and everything started falling back into place. I started looking for for a group of musicians that could work with me and put together an all original rock and roll band. After rehearsing with various musicians we finally fell into a groove that would start a chapter in my life I had only read about....
bigtone officially became a band in late 1999. Myself, Kevin Harmon, Kirk Justice & Josh Slone played a show in front of a tank. About the only thing I remember is Kevin pulled in to the parking lot to play the show and hit another car. Actually, I remember a couple things, our first show was the first time I met Dustin Everage who later became a big part in bigtone.
Here's a few bigtone facts:
bigtone went from 1999 until 2005.
We play hundreds of shows (over 400) and had thousands of rehearsals.
Many members changed hands but we always stayed busy. ( To see almost all of our members, etc go to www.bigtone.org ).
bigtone signed a record deal in 2001 and another in 2003.
We released two studio CD's and three Live CD's.
We headlined a national tour with True Tunes Records.
The song "The End" was voted 41 in the top 100 Christian Rock Songs of 2001.
I had some of the best times of my life on the road with bigtone. I met people from all over the world and made friends that have been a blessing to this day. bigtone kept me sane and kept me on the road playing up to 100 shows a year. We got to play shows with the biggest acts in the country and saw all the good and the bad of the industry. Terri my wife had the chance to go on the road with us and Terri and I saw the country in a 15 passenger van. I had a great time playing and writing in bigtone was like all things it came to an end. The cool thing was it wasn't a huge breakdown or "band" fight, it was just the end of the road so to speak. I think above all we all have to be happy with what we are doing and the music we make has to be fun. Even though we had shows and fans around the country, the style of music I was playing and the age groups I was playing to became "not fun". The final few shows went great but I knew I was ready for a change. Our last lineup was me, Josh Slone & Adrian Elswick. We had an awesome last year including a tour through the south.
Musically I took somewhat of a break in 2005 and only played in a Praise and Worship band at church for the next 1 1/2 years. I think musicians are born musicians and they don't have a choice in the matter. We have to write...... to perform...... to create. I've known people to quit playing music because of family or wives or something and it eventually almost drove them crazy. I can't quit being something that I was born to be. After over a year off from being in a band situation I felt the creative juices flowing again and decided to start one more time with something new...........
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