Nothing More Zydeco Birmingham, AL 10/6/15

The Monster Energy Outbreak Tour featuring Nothing More, The Color Morale, Turbowolf, and Separations at Zydeco in Birmingham, AL on October 6th, 2015. Enjoy!

Interview with Chad Staehly from Hard Working Americans

Tour starts today. What can we expect from that?

Well, we’ve got a few new songs that we’re gonna be performing tonight that are gonna be coming out on this record early next year so we’re excited to play some new songs and this is our first show together since last December, so it’s been quite a while since we’ve had a chance to play together. Everyone’s super excited.

Is there a city that you’re most looking forward to on this tour?

There’s a bunch of great stops on this run of shows between festivals and playing a bunch of our favorite places. One of our favorite shows from last summer was actually at Iron City in Birmingham. We’re looking forward to getting back there as much as anywhere.

What do you think are some of the struggles facing touring bands right now?

Well, I mean money. [laughs] There’s no other way to put it. It’s so expensive to tour, even if you’re crammed into a hotel room and downsizing as much as possible, just gas for a van and a hotel room every night is $500 plus, so it’s always a money thing that makes touring difficult. And then there’s the thing of a band can be like a marriage and it’s a very intense relationship with your bandmates and top of that you work together every day, you travel together everyday, you’re usually sleeping in close quarters, so navigating all that personal stuff is tough too, but I think the money thing is the most difficult piece of touring. A lot of bands come home from the road broke.

Do you have a favorite aspect of touring?

Well it’s the music. I always tell people that we get paid to be truck drivers or travelers and music is our hobby. That’s our passion and that’s what we love to do so those few hours of getting to play music is what makes everything else so worth it.

Do you have a strange or memorable moment from the road?

[Laughs] There’s a big ole’ list of those. Let me see if I can come up with a recent one. Just last night as we left for tour to head to Virginia, we hung up our tour poster on the wall and used this new app that will make a picture talk so now there’s a female head on our poster and now we’ve started to make her talk and say things and we’re calling her the voice of reason and she’s going to post something everyday.

The members of Hard Working Americans come from several different backgrounds and different eclectic bands. How do you find a happy medium when y'all are playing together?

Right now, it’s not anyone’s main project, although we all want to continue to do more and more with it, this band is a refuge for everyone. Everyone wants to be here doing this. We’re all having fun doing it. There’s no pressure. It’s just a fun thing. That’s what drives everyone to show up and do this together. It’s a lot of fun.

Would you consider Hard Working Americans a concept band?

You know, some could argue that. Todd, our lyricist and writer, he’ll think of an album in terms of a screenplay or a movie and he was the one that named the band so he certainly had some thoughts behind how this band was supposed to go. As far as I understand, of course, the guys who get up at 6 o’clock in the morning and go put in 12 hour shifts at the paper mill or the factory, they’re no doubt hard working Americans. But people from other walks of life are hard working Americans too

Do you have a personal favorite Hard Working Americans song?

I would say right now that it’s one of the new songs that’s gonna be on the new record. It’s called “Roman Candles” and people should be able to hear that hopefully at one of these shows coming up or when the new record comes out early next year.

What would you say is next for the band?

Putting out this new record. It seemed like everyone reacted really well to the first record, but it was an album recorded of other people’s songs so I think some people looked at like “Oh, these guys are just a supergroup or whatever that is just getting together for fun to do this record of covers.” There was certainly a bit of reaction like that, so to be able to put out a record of music we wrote together and that really carries our own voice, I think that’s exciting for everyone to take that next step together.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Well you know the old saying goes “Never miss a Sunday show” so we would just encourage everyone in Birmingham to show up and make Sunday night feel like a Friday night.

Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, & Starset Iron City Birmingham, Alabama 4/28/15

Halestorm always puts on the best live shows I have ever seen and tonight in Birmingham was no different. 

The first band of the evening was Starset. I was not quite sure what to make of them and I am still not entirely sure now. They were very astronautical. I think that is a word. 

They played

First Light
Rise and Fall
Down with the Fallen
Carnivore
Antigravity
Telescope
My Demons

Following Starset was Taylor Momsen's band, The Pretty Reckless. They are a great live band. I just wish Taylor liked photographers more. Her hair was in her face the first three songs and that made our jobs a little bit more difficult, but we managed. 

They played

Follow Me Down
Since You're Gone
Miss Nothing
Sweet Things
House on a Hill
Heaven Knows
Make Me Wanna Die
Going to Hell
Fucked Up World

Then, it was finally time for the almighty Halestorm. 

They played

Freak Like Me
Scream
Mz. Hyde
Amen
Dissident Aggressor (Judas Priest Cover)
The Reckoning
Rock Show
I Am the Fire (Double Neck guitar)
Dear Daughter
Drum Solo (Arejay)
Mayhem
Apocalyptic
I Miss the Misery

I Get Off
Sick Individual
Here's to Us

Before Dear Daughter, Lzzy told a story about her mother calling her one day and asking if she did a good job raising her kids. That conversation inspired her to write the song. That story made me cry like a freaking baby and then I wanted to call my mom. 

The evening was perfect and I cannot wait to see the band again at Rock On The Range in a few weeks.

Marilyn Manson Iron City Birmingham, AL 4/26/15

Last night, Marilyn Manson performed to a sold-out crowd at Birmingham’s Iron City.

Fans wrapped around both sides of the building, waiting and eagerly anticipating the night’s performance.

When the doors opened, the scene looked like a herd of rabid animals trying to make it to the front of the stage.

Leading off the evening was Knee High Fox from Los Angeles, CA. They were an average Manson-esque band led by singer Christine Connolly. They were intriguing enough to get the crowd in a frenzy for what was next.

Marilyn Manson appeared on stage through thick fog and bright, red lights.

Throughout the evening, he played fan favorites (The Beautiful People) and deep cuts (Third Day Of A Seven Day Binge) which made the hardcore fans freak out.

The full setlist:

Deep Six

Disposable Teens

mOBSCENE

No Reflection

Third Day of a Seven Day Binge

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (Eurythmics Cover)

Tourniquet

Rock Is Dead

The Dope Show

Killing Strangers

Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode Cover)T

he Beautiful People

Irresponsible Hate Anthem

Coma White


The evening was a weird, kooky evening for fans and by-standers alike.

Interview with Will Hoge in Birmingham, AL April 2015

Never in my years of doing music journalism did I ever think I would get to interview one of my all time favorite musicians.

I have listened to Will Hoge since I was eight years old. In September, I will be 20.

I cannot explain the happiness that came over me in that moment.

So here it is, my interview with Mr. Will Hoge. 

How has the response to Small Town Dreams been?

Really good. It’s been a pleasant surprise. You never know when you put out a new record what the response is going to be. I feel like with this one, I tried to really push myself to do some things that I’ve not done before or that I haven’t done in a long time and so there’s a part of you that thinks “This may push people away, but it’s still the record I wanna make,” but that hasn’t been the case at all. It’s been completely opposite.

What’s your personal favorite song on the album?

“Little Bitty Dreams” is the one I always come back to. I mean, I like lots of things about all of the songs, but that one, even just from the recording process, that is all one take. It’s the scratch vocal. We just went back and added one little pedal steel part and one part on the lead guitar track and everything else is exactly how it went down in the studio, there’s no click track. So it feels real alive, which I like.

Is that your favorite to play live too?

No, I don’t have a favorite live yet because some of the songs we haven’t even played live yet. It’ll be 6 or 8 months of playing the stuff before I can decide.

How is this one different from other albums in the past? I mean, aside from obvious reasons.

I don’t know, I feel like this one is… I’ve kinda done, I wouldn’t say concept records, that makes them sound so heavy, but records that have a theme through them. I’ve kinda done it with political records with the America EP and with Modern American Protest Music, but I don’t know that I’ve ever done it just on a regular album and I feel like maybe this one, even though I didn’t intend when we started to be that way kind of ended up being a real concise snapshot of this one little thing whereas I think all the other records are a snapshot of kind of the moment in time of where I was making the record, this was a snapshot of a whole theme.

How was the recording process for this one different?

Well, using a producer. For the last 4 recordings, I don’t think I’ve used a producer. I’ve just done them all myself. Using Marshall [Altman], I learned a lot from him because everybody that I’ve worked with, I tend to glean something off of production wise if they’ve got a different micing technique or a different way of doing something and there was some of that with Marshall but more importantly, I didn’t have to worry about the ins and outs of how we were doing things. I just had to worry about being the singer and the songwriter, which was really liberating in a lot of ways.

So the ACMs were this past weekend, let’s talk about that.

It was fun. It’s always fun to get to hang with those people, so many of those folks have become dear friends so it’s a great moment to catch up with all of them, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun as when they did it in Las Vegas. Las Vegas was way cooler, so hopefully they’ll go back next year.

Going back to the album, I know you’re friends with Vince Gill, but he was on “Just Up the Road”, right?

Mhmm.

Talk about that, how did that come about? That’s one of my favorites.

Vince is foolish enough to answer the phone when I call and always says yes. [Laughs]. It’s hard for me not to abuse that because I feel like I could just call him with every song and be like “Could you add anything?” because he’s so incredibly musical and well versed, way more than he gets credit for. You could take him a salsa record and he would find something awesome to put on it. I mean really, it’s amazing.

I believe that!

I knew the solo needed to be really big and epic in a way and there’s a lot of the cool guitar players that are afraid of that because they don’t want to do something that feels that way I think and I know that lead guitar players that are also lead singers play very differently because they think like a lead singer and not just a guitar player. It’s one of my favorite things about Vince. So when I called him and told him that I wanted him to stretch out and do something that was more of a rock guitar hero country solo and he was excited about it and he kills it everytime so it was great having him onboard.

So when people like Lady Antebellum and Eli Young ask you to cover your songs, I know it makes you feel great, obviously, but how does that come about or what’s your reaction to that? Have you ever turned anyone down?

I have never turned anyone down. I can’t imagine the situation, unless it were for like a product for something… the morning after pill or whatever [laughs] I mean I don’t know, I don’t want my song involved with that or you know, a tampon commercial. But artist wise, there’s not anything that I would not let somebody do. I mean one, they don’t really even have to ask, they can legally just go and register the song and do it. But in those situations where it’s happened, it’s always been something where I’ve gotten phone call. Charles from Lady Antebellum called me to ask if it was okay if they did it, and the Eli Young guys have always kind of communicated with me and I see them all the time. They didn’t even call to ask, they just sent word that they were going to do it. It’s just one of those things, ya know there’s a point where there’s this incredible feeling when you hear your own record on the radio and it’s really special. It never gets unspecial. And it’s a very similar thing in that situation. Ultimately in radio, there’s a program director who's taking the chance. He hears something in your record and goes “I think people in my city will like this and I’m gonna play it.” It’s the same kind of thing, I mean somebody that’s an artist or somebody that’s an A&R person at a label is hearing something you did and going “I believe that I can bet on this song for so and so to sing or for me to sing” and that’s a huge compliment.

So what’s next?

I mean for all intents and purposes, the tour for this record really kicks off tonight. We’ve kind of done some warm up shows and one offs, and this is gonna kind of ramp up a little bit throughout this week and then we just start getting busy with the road and we start getting busy with planning the European release in June and the tour over there in September. The rest of our summer tour will get announced I think May 5th or something like that and that takes us through fall. And post-Europe, we’ll come back and probably headline and there’s some co-bill things we may do and just writing a bunch. There are some songs that are getting recorded by other people, Craig Morgan just cut something last week. Two or three other things are kind of laying around from a writing standpoint.

Is there anything you want to add? It could be anything, like words or wisdom or…

I don’t have any of those!

[We both laugh for a few seconds.]

If I could I would, but no, I’m just excited you’re still doing this. It means a lot.

Winter Jam Birmingham, AL 3/21/15