Tex Mosley, Max Hagen & Will Bentley. Photo by Edward Colver.
ABOUT
Neverland Ranch Davidians aren’t shy about butting heads with the supposed gatekeepers of popular culture, their name being a mashup which references the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson, and notorious Waco cult leader David Koresh.
Formed in Los Angeles in 2019, the group features vocalist/guitarist Tex Mosley, guitarist/vocalist Will Bentley, and drummer Max Hagen. Working from a primal bedrock, the trio is free to expand its sonic template to include tense blues grooves, greasy hip-shaking R&B, scuzzy high-voltage riffage, and bristling punk rock. Through it all, Mosley’s voice cuts like a knife — upfront, in your face, and immediate.
“I’ve always loved the minimalism of Suicide, and that less-is-more approach is hardwired into the Davidians’ DNA,” said Mosley. “That’s probably why we never bothered recruiting a bass player for our live shows. We’re huge fans of the Cramps and the Gories, neither of which had bass players, so we didn’t feel we needed one either.” Mosley’s roots in underground rock reach back to the late 1970s when he was learning to play guitar as a teenager. Raised in Philadelphia by a family with a deep appreciation of music, his parents happened to be friendly with the early Afro-punk quartet Pure Hell. On a visit to the Mosley household, Pure Hell bassist Lenny Boles overheard Tex playing his sister’s acoustic guitar. Impressed, he took the rudimentary chords he heard to his bandmates, and they became the framework for the 1978 track “No Rules.” As a gesture of solidarity, Pure Hell credited the young Mosley with the music.
Suspecting he might be on to a good thing, Mosley formed his first band, Bad Actor, when he was 16. When Pure Hell came to an end in 1979, drummer Michael “Spider” Sanders joined Mosley in the new venture. After catching Bad Actor warming up for the Circle Jerks and the Stranglers at Philly’s Starlite Ballroom in 1981, Circle Jerks manager Gary Hirstius convinced them to move west to Los Angeles. Upon arrival, they began to book gigs and eventually found themselves in the recording studio, although nothing from this era has ever been released. Bad Actor split around 1985. Incidentally, this was not Mosley’s only connection to the Circle Jerks. He and the band’s singer, Keith Morris, also had a short-lived band called the Whores of Babylon.
Since the breakup of Bad Actor, Mosley has stayed busy with a string of musical acts. In 1990, he played alongside Richard Elerick (AKA “Rik L Rik,” vocalist for punk bands F-Word and Negative Trend) on the self-titled debut album by the Slaves, released by I.R.S. Records. That same year, he joined the long-running L.A. rock group the Hangmen, an affiliation that lasted until 1997. In 1994, the Hangmen recorded an album with Australian rock vocalist Rob Younger (Radio Birdman, New Race, The New Christs) as producer. Unfortunately, the album was shelved and only a handful of tracks have surfaced in various formats over the years. Mosley has also played with the Neighborhood Bullys, the Duane Peters Gunfight, and Suzi Quatro.
Which brings us to Neverland Ranch Davidians. 2023’s “Spirituals from Life’s Other Side” EP marked the band’s recorded debut, and it was swiftly followed by a self-titled debut LP. Neverland Ranch Davidians made fans in Europe with Classic Rock Magazine’s Ian Fortnam awarding it “9 out of 10.” The group’s second album, Shout It on the Mountain, will be out in February 2025 via Heavy Medication Records.
MEDIA BREAKS
The Bad Copy (“Cactus Cooler Man” song premiere)
Scene Point Blank (Shout It on the Mountain announcement)