Johnny Hickman is best known for co-founding the band Cracker. His fiery lead guitar sound and spirited co-writing give flavor to that band's alternative radio hits, including Teen Angst, Low, Get Off This, and Eurotrash Girl. Cracker, founded in 1991 with childhood friend David Lowery, has nine full-length releases to date. Kerosene Hat (1994) remains an alternative music collection staple. Lowery and Hickman together are seen as godfathers of the alternative music scene, who turned gently away from plaid-clad grunge in the 1990s with more countrified and bluesy stylings. Their collaboration with the jam-band Leftover Salmon in 2003 further proved that no one genre could contain them. Cracker's most recent album, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009), garnered indie press rave reviews, with the song "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out" finding its way into the soundtrack for the cult TV hit Californication. Cracker (Lowery, Hickman, drummer Frank Funaro and bassist Sal Maida) continue to tour internationally, with a future release likely to appear in 2013.

After teaching at the college level for 2 years and defending a Thesis on friendship, Ed Anderson earned a Master’s Degree from Illinois State University in Interpersonal Communication in 1997. Upon completion of graduate school, Ed promptly took to the road where he remained for the next 15 years. Most notably he fronted the Bloomington based rock & roll band Backyard Tire Fire and over the course of a decade wrote and recorded 6 albums and 2 EPs and toured relentlessly through 45 states and 5 Canadian provinces, sharing stages with ZZ Top, Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, Cracker, and Govt Mule (to name a few), gaining national and international attention along the way.

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