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2/24/2024 The High Hawks (from the album Mother Nature’s Show
The High Hawks (from the album Mother Nature’s Show available on LoHi Records)
Suitable to Soar…Chad Staehly of The High Hawks Offers Insight Into the Band’s Influences and Inspiration (by Lee Zimmerman) Given the fact that they could be considered a one-off supergroup of sorts, there was no guarantee that The High Hawks would stick around to deliver a follow-up their 2021 eponymous debut. Yet with their sophomore set, Mother Nature’s Show, they’ve demonstrated the fact that with all the talent at their command they weren’t content to be a one-hit wonder. That’s hardly a surprise considering the fact that four of the six members are seasoned songwriters and they’re a prolific bunch at that. Vocalist and guitarist Vince Herman is a founder and frontman for Leftover Salmon and singer/keyboardist Chad Staehly hails from another Roots supergroup, Hard Working Americans, as well as Great American Taxi. Bassist Brian Adams and drummer Will Trask were also members of Great American Taxi. Vocalist, fiddler, and guitarist Tim Carbone plays in the band Railroad Earth, while singer/guitarist Adam Greuel is a veteran of the band Horseshoes & Hand Grenades. As a result, Mother Nature’s Show is as expansive as its title implies. It’s essential Americana, from the insistent sounds of “Fox River Blues” and “Temperature Is Rising” to the rugged resilience of “Somewhere South”, the perky pace of the title track, the funk-fueled “Blackwater Voodoo”, and such instantly infectious offerings as “Radio Loud”, “Shine Your Blues”, and “Top Shelf, Rock Bottom”. So too, the sentiment shifts as well, veering from the rockier sounds of “Somewhere in the Middle” and “Same Old Stories” to the emotional embrace shared by the tender ballad “This Is What Love Feels Like”. The Alternate Root was recently given the opportunity to speak with Chad Staehly, who graciously gave us his thoughts about the prowess and personalities involved with this exceptional ensemble. Lee Zimmerman (LZ) Congratulations on this wonderful, wonderful album, Chad. It’s like a down home journey. There’s some great storytelling shared in these songs. Chad Staehly (CS): I’m so glad you dig it. We always tell everybody that we formed this band so that we can have an excuse to hang out. And that's the god’s honest truth. We made a band so that the six of us could hang out together, because we're all old friends from the festival circuit. And some of us have played in bands together before. So, it's truly a passion project. And what's fun about it is that there's no expectations with this band versus maybe with some of our day job bands. People expect a certain thing from Leftover Salmon or from Railroad Earth or Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. But with this band, there are four songwriters, everybody brings the songs in and we kind of just get to let it loose and do whatever we want with the songs. It's really fun to have that that freedom. LZ: It sure sounds just like a great time, and that maybe it’s as much play as it is work. Still, it’s obvious you put a lot of effort into it. And what a great feeling it must be to gather with your friends and make music. CS: I'm glad that's translating to the listener, because that's definitely how we went in and approached it. We got to hang out at Pachyderm Studios for like eight or nine days up in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. That place is a real jewel in the rough. You live right there — there's a house of the on the five-acre property, the studio is like just a short walk away and it's just like the ultimate play pad. You can really focus in on what you're doing. It was last January, pretty much exactly a year ago, that we were there. The snow was flying, and there was nowhere to go, nothing else to do except focus in on making this record. So, what that allowed us to do was immeasurable. It just really opened up a giant toolbox for us to work with including tons of instruments, all great gear and a great crew that works there. It just really makes it all easy and allows us to do the best work we want to do. LZ: So, when you're in a band, and you tell the other members something to the effect of ‘I think I'm gonna go off and do my own thing’ or ‘I have other people I want to work with’ is there any resentment from the other musicians? CS: That's a good question. We're all human right? And we all have egos, some bigger than others, and some more fragile than others. We all have levels of jealousy. We all have insecurity. So, all those things definitely come into play. I think that when band members from one band start to do another project, there's probably some folks in their current band that get a little uneasy or upset or jealous. I'm not saying that's happening anywhere with these bands, but it definitely can happen. I mean, I've been on the other side of it, and have had those feelings. They're human, you know? LZ: As you say, it seems only natural. CS: I always say that being in a band, and having traveled in bands for 20 or 25 years, it's like, they're your wives, man. Your band members are all like wives or partners, domestic partners that are working together. That's not an easy thing. It's a very intense relationship. So, yeah, I think there's probably some of that that happens, where maybe other band members get a little bit miffed that someone's going to doing something else or they’re choosing to play in another band. LZ: Hopefully though, they’re happy for you. CS: Especially kind of in this jam, grass and Americana scene, it’s all a very close knit community, and everybody plays with everybody, whether it's at a festival where one jumps up with another band, or people collaborate in one-off projects. It's all it's all a big, great giant community, and everyone gets along really well. LZ: So do you see The High. Hawks fitting into that category of a supergroup? CS: I guess it kind of creates that impression and it was the same with Hardworking Americans too. But, it's understandable. I think people want to label things and categorize them. All that we like to call ourselves is to say we're a Super Friends Group. And beyond that, I'd like to say this is a band of joy merchants. It’s really the positivity that comes from this group of individuals — individually, collectively, musically. It's really special and that's why we're together wanting to play together. If you want to refer to it as a supergroup or any of those monikers, that's cool, too, we’re just grateful for the fact that people are paying attention to what we're doing, right. LZ: So, when you come into a group like this, and everybody is so accomplished, and so skilled at what they do, is it intimidating at all? Do you feel like ‘Oh, my God, there's a high bar, I got to bring my best shot here’. Does that feeling enter into it at all? CS: Not with this group at all. I certainly felt some of that with Hardworking Americans, walking into a room where there’s somebody like Dave Schools from Widespread Panic, because of his illustrious history. That's not to say that but I didn't know those guys as friends before that band started out. I put Todd Snider and Dave Schools together to play a gig and they had so much fun. They wanted to do more of it, so we started talking about making a record and put the band together. The High Hawks came together out of total friendship, plus, we had all worked together in various capacities. So, there wasn't any of that. There was really the best environment I’ve ever been a part of in terms of being supportive, and like feeling really safe to like introduce a new song. I think all the songwriters in this band maybe have had situations previously, where we felt a little intimidated or insecure about presenting a song we had written. But with this group, everyone’s really supportive and ready to latch on to something you've written and support it and try to play a part in it, and give it a shot versus kind of like turning up their nose or giving it a half-assed effort. This group is really an incubator for creativity and support. It's really special that way. LZ: So, nobody has to feel like they're the George Harrison of the group? CS: This whole thing's a little young yet, so maybe that'll happen at some point. But no, I think all four songwriters would say that they feel 100% safe and secure in presenting some new song or idea. And I think that goes for our rhythm section, too. They're not songwriters, but the parts that they come up with and what they do allows everyone to feel supported. There’s no ‘you should play this, or could you play that?’. It's like, that's cool. That’s what your heart is saying. ‘Let’s use that. That's great. Let's, let's roll with that’. There’re just no expectations with this. This is art for art's sake and friends for friendship’s sake. So, it's, it really opens it up to make it a really cool space to hang out in and create. LZ: So, nobody feels like their ideas aren’t being represented? CS: I don't get any of that. I don't feel any of that. When you've got a group of well seasoned human beings, and everybody feels comfortable in their own skin, you can avoid a lot of that. This isn't a beauty contest. We're all in this together. We want to be here doing this. That’s something I always tell people what they ask me about this band. And I think it really speaks to what we are and who we are as people and why we're doing this. I take care of a lot of the managerial duties and logistics, and I've never had anyone in this band ask me how much they were going to get. LZ: That’s really something special. CS: I think that's a really cool thing. It really speaks to the love that goes into this band, and how everybody wants to be here. It's kinda like old college friends. You know how women will go off like on a lady's trip or a sister's trip or old fraternity brothers will take a ski trip. Well, with the High Hawks, that's kind of like our guy’s getaway. We all get to go hang out and play music. We love hanging out with people we love. It's really cool that way LZ: So, was the intention all along that this would be an ongoing effort. One might have imagined that the thought behind the first album was ‘let's get together. Let's do it. And then we go back to our day jobs’. So, was there always the idea that there would be a second album? CS: When we originally booked the first group of dates, everyone just wanted to find a space to hang out. It had been threatened for years amongst us all, that we'd get together and play at some time and in various conversations. So finally in the fall of 2019, we all discovered a hole in our calendars. And then we booked some shows. We showed up in Colorado, because that's where the first shows were at that time, and Vince was still living in Colorado. So, we went up to Vince's house, and we sat down and pretty soon the songwriters started pulling out some songs they had been working on with kind of like this project in mind. But we also thought we'd be playing cover songs, maybe some back catalogue stuff from other bands, or our earlier careers, etcetera. But all of a sudden, one after the other, we started pulling up the songs that we had written. And then all of a sudden, we found that lyrically and musically the songs were starting to flow. LZ: That must have seemed so fortuitous, like it was fated to happen. CS: We were like, oh, man, these songs are so cool. They all fit together, and we've developed this sound all of a sudden out of nowhere. Let's make an album. And then the first album came together. That was right before COVID started. So that kind of got put on the shelf for a minute. Then it came out in 2021. We had some great album release shows. It was all really well received in the press, radio, and all that, and it was like, well, we got something here. And then we continued to play some shows. And then all of a sudden, it was like, let's make another record. Vince and Adam write a whole lot. Vince had moved to Nashville, and so he’s writing in a bunch of different writers’ circles in Nashville. He's got songs just flying out of his brain. So, there was a lot of material, for this and for their other day jobs. So that that kind of brought up the second record. And thankfully, we've got this wonderful support from our friend and executive producer Jim Brooks, and from Lo Hi Records. LZ: Given your busy schedules, it seems like it would be somewhat of a challenge to get everybody on the same page and focused on this particular project when there's so many other things everyone’s involved with, including their day jobs. CS: It's not easy as far as that goes. As far as calendar space of organizing periods of time, it's really difficult. It's tricky. Because not only does most everyone have a regular full-time band or gig, everyone does a million other things. Three or four guys in the band produce records and work on video and film stuff. Tim has a studio of his own. Adam’s got two or three other bands, and Vince has his solo band. It's crazy, but everybody in this band is a workaholic, although I don't know that I would refer to it as work because it's all just labors of love. And everybody just stays at it. And we figure it out. It’s not easy, but we're able to find some time periods when we can get together and play and record and make records. It’s just about people wanting to do it. So, we figured out how we could find the time and space to do it. LZ: In the press materials that accompanied the new album, the songs are described as a kind of a a travelogue. Is that how it was first imagined, to create these aural impressions and kind of take the listener on a roadtrip so to speak. CS: Honestly, we didn't set out to do that. It really revealed itself after we got done with the record. We were sitting back at home a couple of weeks afterwards, and we had the rough mixes, and then I actually started the thread of this among the band. It struck me as I was listening to the running order of the songs. Usually, it's like you're going to press and scrambling to put together a running order for the album. But we had been holed up in northern Minnesota more or less snowbound. It was really wild. The last song we recorded was that song “Shine Your Blues”, the song that ends the album, which has a very New Orleans feel. And then there were these pieces in between the songs that just started to really show themselves like, wow, there's kind of the story that's unfolding. All these things all kind of started to open up. Thematically and lyrically, there was like this whole thing that just kind of showed up. It felt like it was moving along the river and kind of like Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, kind of floating along the river and taking in this musical landscape where all these forms of music were born and raised right here in the good ‘ole USA. That’s something that this band can do, the result of all the different backgrounds and ingredients that come into this stew that we make. LZ: In listening to this album, traces can be heard of some genuine archival influences, such as The Band and the Grateful Dead, specifically the latter in their American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead era. It’s a similar homegrown, down home, natural organic sound. Were those albums an influence on you? CS: We were all born and raised at different times. This band spans three generations. Vince and Tim are borderline baby boomers. Brian and I are Gen Xers right down the middle of the road. And then we have two millennials in the band. It’s kind of a really cool thing to have these different generations come together. Those two bands you mentioned are major influences, but then there's a whole bunch of other stuff that goes into it as well. I attended Grateful Dead concerts. And then after Jerry passed away, that's kind of when I found the Jam Grass and kind of alternative Bluegrass scene, so to speak. Then I kind of went into that through the backdoor of David Grisman and Old And In the Way. The Telluride Bluegrass Festival and all that whole world kind of was like a continuation of the Grateful Dead world to me in the fact that people would go camp out at these festivals and hang out for three days, kind of like we would for a three-day Grateful Dead run. LZ: It’s part of the populist precept which drives bands like yours and so many other groups these days. CS: It was that community that led me to bands like Leftover Salmon and Railroad Earth and I felt transported back to another era, one that had to do with the rich history of our nation. All those bands just would encapsulate all that and put that it all together and celebrate it. I hope The High Hawks can be a continuation of that, because it's so important. All these new frontiers of music are awesome, and we need those, but we also need to stay in touch with these Roots forms of music. And that's really, I think, part of what The High Hawks want to do. We're trying to continue that tradition. Like those other bands you mentioned, we have four unique singing voices that are their own thing, but they also fit together through the storytelling thing. That's part of our folk tradition. It’s part of our DNA really, right, I mean, it's print. And so, celebrating that and trying to be a vehicle for that, I think, is a big mission of this band, for sure. LZ: So, you do feel like you’re actually on a mission then? CS: That’s very astute of you to point that out and mention it and talk about that. You know, it's not necessarily top of mind. I don't think it’s a conscious thing we're trying to do. We talk about the roots of this music we play. We talk about all these old records we listened to from the 1920s and 1930s. That's all part of our lexicon and what we've learned from. So inevitably it just comes out. When we go to sit down and create a song, it’s just a product of who and what we are. It's like you said at the beginning of this conversation, it's a very organic thing. There's nothing contrived here. It’s not like we set out to do this or do that or try to be the next Band or the next Grateful Dead or any of that stuff. We just happen to wear our influences on our sleeves. Listen and buy the music of The High Hawks from AMAZON Visit The High Hawks website for more information Spotify EMBED: <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/5z80uTTpwU2ZJdTo1y96IL?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe> The Blog Tags widget will appear here on the published site.
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