Connole has been a singer, guitarist, and/or songwriter for many bands, including the Jetzons, Billy Clone and the Same, the Strand, Cryptics, the Pearl Chuckers, Busted Hearts, the Revenants, and Suicide Kings.
[3] After decades of cyclical drug use, Connole eventually reached a point of steady sobriety on his birthday of 1990 (November 6).
Later he worked for sonicbox.com, a company in Silicon Valley which developed a technology that allowed listeners to access high quality internet audio.
[5] In 1978, Bruce Connole and Mike Corte, both were old highschool friends, started playing together in a garage at first, and at some point the band "Billy Clone and The Same" formed.
The band consisted of Mike Corte (vocals), Bruce Connole (guitar), Damon Doiron (bass), and Darrell Gleason (drums).
The Jetzons was a new wave band out of Phoenix, Arizona whose original members included Damon Doiron (bass), Bruce Connole (guitar and vocals), Brad Buxer (keyboard), and Steve Golladay (drums).
In the 1980s the city of Tempe, Arizona's musicscene was seeing a surge of many bands who were influenced by Connole, eventually coming into international prominence with the signing of many local bands to major record labels, including multi-platinum recording artist the Gin Blossoms in the early 1990s, fronted by guitarist Doug Hopkins, formerly of the Moral Majority, 1981 and later the Psalms during the early 1980s, before establishing the Gin Blossoms.
"[1] He has also called the Jetzons an "overrated New Wave cover band," further suggesting that the music did not reflect his actual sensibilities, instead being mostly a preoccupation with what was trendy during this era.
[4] However, he has also insisted that the Jetzons and his other musical projects were sincere artistic efforts which reflected his tastes at the specific times they were made.
[1] When the Phoenix version of the Jetzons broke up, Bruce Connole and Brad Buxer moved to Los Angeles, where they re-formed the band and added musicians, Lloyd Moffitt (bass) and Craig Romero (drums).
This unintentionally sparked renewed interest in the controversy which claimed that Michael Jackson contributed music to the game without receiving credit.
[12][13] However, in regards to the "Ice Cap Zone theme," and its similarity with the song "Hard Times," current available public records from the US Performance Rights Societies ASCAP and BMI show Buxer is listed as an ASCAP affiliated songwriter, and Connole as a BMI affiliated songwriter.
[18] The Strand was a trio which included Connole (guitar and vocals), Damon Doiron (bass) and Alan Ross Willey (drums).
Connole had been struggling with heroin addiction and had moved to California when Doiron called to ask him to return to Arizona to form a new band.
Growing up in Arizona, Connole frequently heard Country music, but he took a personal interest when he was 17 and feeling sorry for himself in a drug treatment center.
In the late 1980s, he taught himself to play the banjo and country guitar and wrote several songs which eventually became part of The Revenants first CD.
[28] In 2008, The Suicide Kings released a self-titled album on Blue Plate Music, a subsidiary of John Prine's Nashville label Oh Boy Records.
This band was made up of Connole (banjo, lead vocals), Keith Jackson (guitar, back-up vocals), Paul Schneider(bass), Kevin Pate (upright bass) Jason Graham (drums), Kenny Love (drums) and Amos Cox (mandolin).
[30] In 2003, Bruce Connole (and Busted Hearts) won the award of "Best Stage Shoes" from the Phoenix New Times for his black and white wingtips.
Additionally, Connole and former Jetzons bandmate Brad Buxer performed with Stevie Wonder on The Woman in Red soundtrack from 1984.