Couple hopes to take ‘Crush Route’ to success

REVERE – Revere musician Michael S. Firicano and vocalist Marcella Ciambra have had considerable success over the past year with their rock cover band MSF, playing gigs throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and this summer the two put together another band, Crush Route, to perform original music.Firicano, 43, last year advertised online for a female vocalist for MSF, which led him to 29-year-old Ciambra.”We started out as friends and then found we had really great chemistry and a lot of things in common and that led to a crush, and we decided to take that route,” said Firicano, a bus driver by day, in a recent telephone interview with The Item. “Then it dawned on me that [Crush Route] is a good name [for a band].”MSF, which gets its name from lead guitarist Firicano’s initials, also includes, Steve Ramos of Lynn on drums, Steve Dillard on bass and Paul (Rosey) Ranzo on guitar. The band continues to perform at nightclubs and events locally and regionally with its extensive catalogue of classic and contemporary rock, acoustic and pop hits, including Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Bad Company, The Who, Heart and even Lady Gaga.Crush Route, meanwhile, is a project Firicano and Ciambra launched last summer to record original music. The pair, using a small digital 4-track, a keyboard, laptop and guitar, self-produced their debut CD, also titled Crush Route, and posted its tracks online.”We do it from home. I’ve always written and recorded my own material on the side,” said Firicano, who learned to play guitar by ear as a child. And the tracks on the Crush Route CD run the gamut from rock, techno and pop.”There are really no rules with us. We’re inspired by different things, different concerts we go to,” he said. “Newer songs we’re writing now are inspired by love.”One track, a ballad “War Against Love,” Firicano said, “is about love being difficult, that you have to go through battles to achieve some kind of bliss.”Ciambra, who works by day in the finance department of a Boston consulting firm, said, “I’ve always loved singing but couldn’t start taking lessons until my 20s. I had extreme stage fright and had never sang in front of people ? Now, making music and singing [with MSF and Crush Route] every weekend is amazing, and all I want to do.”Firicano and Ciambra have also had some acclaimed talent show competitions, including Community Auditions produced in Boston and aired on Channel 38, and are waiting to hear if they made the show’s finals.”We’re constantly trying out for singing competitions,” Firicano said, adding the couple has their sights set on America’s Got Talent.Meanwhile, Firicano said he’s enjoying playing the local and regional MSF shows, and mixing a couple of the Crush Route tunes into those performances.To hear original songs from Crush Route, visit crushroute.com, or for MSF performances, visit msfband.com.Sean Leonard can be reached at [email protected] You Go? The MSF band performs locally at The Brickyard in Lynn, 9 p.m. Sept. 15; at Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, 1 p.m. Sept. 22; and at The Cove in Revere, 9 p.m. Sept. 29.