Line-Up One
Tony Crisafulli – Lead Vocals/Percussion 
Mark Killey – Guitar/Vocals 
Greg Willis – Guitar/Vocals 
Peter Downy – Bass/Vocals 
Greg Morris – Drums/Vocals

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We did the usual thing one night, sitting around trying to come up with a name. Tony suggested Mad Cow, everyone stopped and thought about and it was agreed we had a name. At the time there was the Mad Cow Disease going on overseas so we felt it was timely. I remember saying we should also play up on the word Mad, to make it something more than just five guys on stage. I came up with the Mad Cow the band not the disease tag with the word disease all blotchy like it was diseased. I also used Prepare for the stampede on the bio and website. I found the font for the name and used alternate lower and upper case letters. Mark Killey worked for an advertising company and he asked one of his colleagues if they could design something and the logo with a cow playing a guitar backwards was born.

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Unfortunately the playing up on the word Mad wasn’t really taken on board by some members of the band but Tony certainly excelled at it. He is the best front man I have ever had the pleasure to have worked with over the years. We go back over 30 years now and I love him like a brother, who else would? Some of the things he says and comes up with on stage, can have me in stitches so that I can’t even play properly!

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Tony got us our first gig at Engadine Tavern, he has a gift as far as talking to bookers or agents goes. In fact he was a booker working at Sphere for about 18 months before Mad Cow so he used his contacts, always a nice thing to have in any band.

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It was all going along quite fine, we were socialising a lot which I think is good for a band, we became friends. I had a long history with Peter Downy and we got on like a house on fire, I liked Peter a lot. Things started getting narky, mostly because some of them didn’t want to work too much and were treating it more like a Weekend Warrior thing. That's fine, I don't have a problem if that's what you want to do, but they were starting to knock back gigs and to me that's just not right. This led to Tony and I compromising too much and the band started to disintegrate. He and I wanted to take it to the next level and become more professional.

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One particular incident led me to re-think how I felt about the other members and I decided I wanted out. It was hard for me to do as I had genuinely liked them all. The atmosphere was just not right and this didn't sit well with me. Tony wasn't sure about leaving but eventually he could see it was never going to be the same, things had changed and there was nothing we could do to fix it. So we parted company with the others with the agreement that Tony and I would take the name and everything associated with it.

 

The next stage of Mad Cow wasn’t very pleasant at all for me. It started out somewhat OK, it seemed to be working but it soon became obvious to me it was never going to work. I decided to leave, I couldn't justify to myself any reason to stay.

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Line-Up Two
Tony Crisafulli – Lead Vocals/Percussion 
Grant Cardwell – Guitar 
Terry Cairns – Guitar/Keyboards/Vocals 
Bruce Fischer – Bass/Vocals 
Greg Morris – Drums/Vocals

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Tony continued for a short time with another drummer, but he soon realised it wasn’t going to work out.

 

Line-Up Three
Tony Crisafulli – Lead Vocals/Percussion 
Grant Cardwell – Guitar 
Terry Cairns – Guitar/Keyboards/Vocals 
Bruce Fischer – Bass/Vocals 
Mark Cardwell – Drums

 

Tony called asking if I was interested in coming back and starting a new line up as he was having the same issues as I had. I said I was but only if we did it right this time and get the right people. He agreed and the third line-up was disbanded.

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We decided to get professional management involved. This would take the pressure off us doing it all and have someone who could be the voice for the band.

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Enter Viv Hamilton. Tony had worked for a couple of Viv’s bands and I knew her from my days of working with Mark Laidler doing PA & Lighting for one of her bands Shooga Katz. Tony and I set up a meeting to ask her if she was interested in taking on another band and fortunately she was.

 

During the time of the second line-up Tony was working for a company where the new National Sales Manager turned out to be Enzo Magistro. Enzo and I had been in That’s Right! together and Tony would occasionally get up and sing with us. Enzo hadn’t been in a band for a while and the time was right for him to get back into it. When Tony spoke to him about starting up a new version of Mad Cow he was in like a flash.

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Viv set about finding some great players and we had our first audition/rehearsal. But the Keyboard player Steve Tapai and his wife Kerry who was the singer decided not to continue as she had just found out she was pregnant. But the Guitarist Craig Vine was interested so that was a good start.

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The next people Viv found Emilia Pirri-Depares - Lead Vocals/Percussion & Robert Bellenger - Keyboards turned out to be the right ones and we finally had a new line-up for Mad Cow and we were on our way ...... or were we?

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Line-Up Four
Tony Crisafulli – Lead Vocals/Percussion 
Emilia Pirri-Depares - Lead Vocals/Percussion 
Craig Vine– Guitar 
Robert Bellenger - Keyboards 
Enzo Magistro – Bass 
Greg Morris – Drums/Vocals

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After a number of rehearsals Craig decided it wasn’t for him and he left. This turned out to be a good thing for two reasons, he didn't really fit in with the rest of us anyway and Viv found another guitarist Perry Eves who turned out to be the right mix.

 

From August of 2007 this line-up stayed together till August 2015 when Perry decided he'd had enough and was planning to move up the central coast with his partner. It's a pretty rare thing these days to have the same line-up stay together for so long and something I'm quite proud of.

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Line-Up Five
Tony Crisafulli – Lead Vocals/Percussion
Emilia Pirri-Depares - Lead Vocals/Percussion
Perry Eves – Guitar/Vocals
Robert Bellenger - Keyboards
Enzo Magistro - Bass
Greg Morris - Drums/Samples/Vocals