March 16, 2015 – Bruce Crump, Jr. (Molly Hatchett) was born on July 17th 1957 in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1976 he became a member of southern rock band Molly Hatchet, appearing on their most successful albums: 1978’s ‘Molly Hatchet’, 1979’s double-platinum ‘Flirtin’ With Disaster’, 1980’s ‘Beatin’ The Odds’ and 1981’s ‘Take No Prisoners’, and playing on hit singles such as “Flirtin’ With Disaster”, “The Rambler”, “Power Play” and “Satisfied Man”.
Crump was a member of Molly Hatchet from 1976, through the turn of the ’90s – save for a brief absence around 1983. He got into the band, Crump once said, almost by accident as a kid in the Jacksonville, Fla., area.
“I was a senior in high school,” Crump told in an interview in 2013. “Somebody told me about Molly Hatchet, so I snuck out one night to see them. And then through some mutual friends I heard that their drummer was leaving, so I contacted one of the members to see if that was true, and he said, ‘Yeah, we pretty much don’t have a band.’”
Something clicked. By 1978, Molly Hatchet was on tour promoting a platinum self-titled debut. The follow up, 1979’s Flirtin’ with Disaster, became a Top 20 smash, selling more than three million copies on the strength of its beloved title track. Beatin’ the Odds, released in 1980, also went platinum, but then 1981’s Take No Prisoners barely cracked the Top 40, and Molly Hatchet’s hitmaking days were over. They remained a huge concert draw, however.
With his departure Crump relocated to Canada and joined Streetheart, appearing on their 1983 live album ‘Live After Dark‘. However he quickly returned to Molly Hatchet to be playing on 1984’s ‘The Deed Is Done’, 1985’s ‘Double Trouble Live‘ and 1989’s ‘Lightning Strikes Twice’ before exiting for another time.
Molly Hatchet lost original frontman Danny Joe Brown in 2005 and founding guitarist Duane Roland passed a year later, but the band continued under the leadership of guitarist Dave Hlubek, who was the last remaining original member until he too passed in 2017. Crump memorably joined the later edition of Molly Hatchet, during a 2004 performance at Richmond, Va.
When not involved in band activities, he had a home business providing drum lessons, “Drum Lessons by Bruce”. He was also a licensed real-estate agent and briefly a website designer.
Bruce Crump later started a new band, called Red Star Crush. At the time of his death from cancer on March 16, 2015, Bruce played in the Jacksonville, Florida-based band White Rhino and the newly reformed China Sky. He was 57.
