Crazy Delicious will be returning to play for the street dance at this year’s Heritage Days festival.
“Mount Vernon Heritage Days has been one of our most favorite summer events the last few years that we’ve played, so we always look forward to our summer evening with Mount Vernon,” said Larry Kovarik, band member of Crazy Delicious, who provides guitar and vocals.
In 2020, Kovarik noted, the band, much like most of the state last summer, was shut down. It gave the band a new perspective and appreciation, he said.
“Just like the old saying goes, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,’” Kovarik said. “It feels so good to be back to normal this summer and we are very energized to be back playing all of our summer events.”
Since the last time the band played Heritage Days in 2019, founding member James Boeding had to retire from drums, due to some physical issues that have arisen for playing drums for more than 40 years.
“We were extremely saddened to lose our close friend and drummer of 12 years,” Kovarik said. “Our new drummer, Devin Royer, has been with us now for a little over a year. Devin is a very talented drummer and has been doing a fine job of getting up to speed with Crazy Delicious.”
Steve DeForest on bass and vocals, Alan Hafner on keyboard, guitar and vocals, and Nicole Miller on vocals comprise the rest of the five member band.
Crazy Delicious was started in 2007, and they are based out of Cedar Rapids.
Kovarik notes that the band has too many musical influences to mention.
Lead singer Nicole Miller was a country music fan growing up, so that influenced her sound. The rest of the band is primarily rock music influenced.
“I’d say the most important part of what we do is to play for our audience and not ourselves,” Kovarik said. “What I mean by that is, we really don’t play the music that we all like to listen to on our own, but we play the music that gets the best responses from our audiences.
“We truly do enjoy playing our music, especially when it puts a ton of people on the dance floor having a good time. Bottom line is that our music is all about our fans and audiences.”
Kovarik said this year’s return schedule has the band playing from Des Moines to all over Eastern Iowa. After a year off due to the pandemic, though, the band is excited for a very busy summer.
“Our summer schedule is always the best part of our band year, as we are outside and typically playing to fairly large audiences,” Kovarik said. “We love playing new events, but really enjoy playing repeat events like Mount Vernon Heritage Days where we’ve played for a few years in a row.
“It’s always great to go back to an event that appreciates you enough to bring you back over and over again. We see many of the same faces year after year and that’s an incredible feeling as a local cover band. We truly appreciate Heritage Days and are looking forward to an incredible evening of music, dancing and fun.”
Vocalist with Crazy Delicious Nicole Miller leads one of the songs at Robins Round-Up in early June. Crazy Delicious performs Saturday at Heritage Days.