“The music speaks for itself. We’re not a gimmick. We just have a message and a purpose that we want to bring to people.” – Brandon Mendenhall
The Mendenhall Experiment is a Los Angeles based band founded by Brandon Mendenhall in 2008. Mendenhall suffers from Cerebral Palsy, a neurological disorder that affects body movement, muscle coordination, motor skills, reflex, balance, and posture. At the age of 19, Mendenhall was determined to play guitar and decided to teach himself how. He was told several times that he’d never succeed, but that didn’t stop him from pursuing his dream. Brandon worked tirelessly to find solutions that would help him work around his physical limitations. The more people told him “you can’t do this”, the harder he tried. He beat the odds by developing his own signature playing style and before he knew it, The Mendenhall Experiment was born.
The Mendenhall Experiment has experienced many line up changes since 2008, but in 2014, Brandon found the “golden lineup”. Members of this “golden lineup” include: Mario Valdez (vocals), Brandon Mendenahll (guitar), Mike Lira (lead guitar/backup vocals), Bruce Lira (drums), and Nate Stockton (bass). Just this past weekend, they kicked off Day 2 of Aftershock on the Monster Energy Stage, the same stage that Tool, Chevelle, Disturbed, Avatar, Primus, and Avenged Sevenfold played on. They put on one hell of a show and blew the audience away.
Mike Lira wants people to know that though some of the band members are “differently-abled”, they are no different from anyone else. “A lot of bands like to say ‘they’re the band with the gimmick… the disabled gimmick’… you can say what you want… other bands stand for anti-bullying and this and that – we just so happen to have a band with a member that has cerebral palsy and can rock out just as hard as anyone else. You can say what you want, but we’re here and you’re not – we’re here to prove that we belong.”
Click ‘Continue‘ to see pictures of the band’s performance on Aftershock’s Monster Energy Stage
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