From their newest label cut in June of ‘08 titled “Connected; Max Impact & Silver Wings”, comes one of The USAF Band’s hottest new songs, “Locked and Loaded”. The song was written and recorded by member of the Band’s rock group Max Impact who are directly back from playing the tune on deployment throughout the U.S. Central Command Area Of Responsibility (AOR). After a rigorous tour, Max Impact rocked out singing over 68 performances throughout the region. The band performed not only for deployed Airmen and other service members, but also performed for children at local orphanages, schools, and even for students at a music conservatory. Max Impact is composed of guitarist TSgt. Matt Geist, who composed the music, TSgt. Robert Smith, who wrote the lyrics and plays the drums, MSgt. Ryan Carson and MSgt. Regina Coonrod, the band’s singers, and bassist and TSgt. David Foster, and TSgt. Adam Dempsey the sound engineer.
With powerful and dynamic lyrics, each stanza of “Locked and Loaded” is meant to exhibit the complete synergy of each imperative component of the fight. For instance, lyrics for the combat control Airmen who are calling in the drop says:
“Walk in the shade of the clouds at night,"
"Crawling in the dirt, calling an A-10 strike,"
"Dancing in the shadows, lives are on the line,"
"Bombs are gonna fall, just in time.”
Gripping and compelling to their deployed audiences, one Army soldier told singer MSgt. Ryan Carson after the concert," said Carson. “I’ll be doing my morning PT to this one. “Your iPod is your weapon over there, if you don’t have it your lost.”
“Here is the cool thing about music; anytime you hear a song you are instantly transported back to where you were when you first heard it. If I hear a Rascal Flats tune, it immediately takes me back to Nebraska with my wife’s family.” Carson explains music’s power regarding memory, “You can be in the middle of Afghanistan, put in a song and be carried back to a Junior High dance where you met your girlfriend for the first time.”
A critical component of the band’s mission was to lift the spirits of deployed Airmen, remind them of home, and give them a strong sense of hope to continue on.
“I told the guys in the band, 'Don’t ever take our job for granted, because you could save a life tonight,'" said Carson. "There might be somebody out there tonight that is doesn’t want to be here anymore, but if we give them a little piece of home, and a little bit of encouragement, then they remember all those people who love them back home, and the way life really is, and they might just change their mind.”
The message behind the song?
“We wanted to show that everybody’s got a piece of the fight, whether you are an Airmen standing-post, or an Airmen on the flight-line. Your daily mission, contributes to the big picture of the war, and that’s what we tried to do with the song,” said Carson.
In an interview with the music Composer TSgt Matthew Geist, also the band guitarist said, “Our song, 'Locked and Loaded,' received more comments on the tour, and they were most impressed that it was an original song by our band.” 
The lead singer for “Locked and Loaded” MSgt Ryan Carson, whose favorite phrase at the beginning of each concert is, “We’re going to rock your face off!” started out as an Opera Major at the University of Wyoming when the Air Force picked him up. Carson wanted to help the Airmen focus on why you do what you do for the Air Force.
In addition to raising the moral of deployed Airmen, Max Impact conducted some unique concerts to connect with many of the local citizens by performing at the School for the Deaf, where by vibrations the student’s clapped hands and feet to the rhythm, as well as scream out the lyrics to each song.
“The students were surprisingly more responsive compared to most of our audiences," said the vocalist MSgt Regina Coonrod. "The kids were really into the music; they were all up singing and dancing to the beats and vibrations." Max Impact also visited many local orphanages in the Kyrgyz Republic including one with more than 350 children.
Guitarist Geist commented, “At the orphanages, the kids were all five and under, so we played stuff like Old MacDonald, and the Happy Birthday song. We really tried to cater to them. And we played songs that were happy and upbeat, stuff that they could really smile. We wanted to play something for them with a repeatable chorus that they could learn to sing, so we played “Sweet Home Alabama." Every time the chorus came around, you have thirty to forty kids singing, “Sweet Home Alabama”, who did not even speak English.”
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Posted by Joseph Fordham, Air Force Public Affairs.
