Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 28, 2006 23:31:30 GMT -5
Gary Hoey
Interview
October 10, 2005
Ever since the release of 'Animal Instinct' in 1993, Gary Hoey has been one of the most consistent and tasteful guitar instrumentalists on the scene. The Boston native hit in a big way just when Alternative and Grunge were all the rage, making the fact that Hoey's version of the Focus classic "Hocus Pocus" hit # 5 on the Billboard charts even more remarkable. The extremely talented guitarist's story didn't begin there however. As far back as 1982 he was asked to audition by Ozzy Osbourne to fill the vacancy left by the tragic death of Randy Rhoads, flying out to California after calling in to a Boston rock radio station. Playing over the air on the spot, in the process he managed to make an impression on the spot when Osbourne was making the rounds during a radio tour. While Hoey ultimately didn't get the gig, it did inspire him to relocate to California, where he eventually hooked up with former Cats In Boots vocalist Joe Ellis and Quiet Riot's Frankie Banali in the glam metal band Heavy Bones, with whom he wrote and recorded a self titled album, which although didn't make the band stars, still remains a solid, underrated album, one that's become somewhat of a collectable these days. In addition to the aforementioned 'Animal Instinct' Hoey has released a succession of critically acclaimed recordings, also scoring the soundtrack to 'Endless Summer II', as well as the extremely well received 'Ho! Ho! Hoey' series of Christmas guitar music, always following his own muse, never succumbing to any trends or fashion. His latest album 'Monster Surf,' true to its name is a monster of an album, containing 12 rockin' "Hoey-ized" cover versions of Surf classics, also featuring 2 originals as well, and is a must not only for fans of Surf guitar but great guitar in general. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Gary on the eve of a trip to Asia, where he was to conduct several Fender guitar clinics, also playing a date along the way with Eric Johnson in Hong Kong.
Special thanks go to Sherry Hallenborg for coordinating, and a BIG thanks to Gary for doing this interview for Rock N Roll Universe!
Rock N Roll Universe : Gary, first of all, thank you for taking the time to talk with us we really appreciate it.
Gary Hoey : My pleasure man. I'm happy to do it, I'm glad you guys got me on.
RNRU : Your new album 'Monster Surf' is comprised almost entirely of reworked versions of Surf classics. How did you come about making an album of Surf music?
GH : Well, I scored 'Endless Summer II' in '94, so that was what first brought me to the whole Surf world. It just seemed like it was time to get back to doing another Surf album. I had been pretty good friends with Dick Dale, the King Of Surf, time had passed, and I thought "You know what, I've just got to get back and do a really cool Surf record". It was right before the summer, so I thought it might be fun to do that kind of album.
RNRU : What is it that draws you to Surf music?
GH : When I was a young kid, I was actually drawn to Surf music. I'm not really sure why, I grew up on the East Coast, not in the Southern California scene. But, I remember telling my mom when I was really young that I wanted her to buy me these Surf 45's like "Surfin Bird," "Wipe Out," and stuff like that. I don't know, there was just something about the sound that really drew me in. This was before I even played guitar. Then, when I started playing guitar, like any kid I got into Black Sabbath, I listened to Jimi Hendrix, Zeppelin and stuff. Then when I moved to California I met Dick Dale through doing 'Endless Summer II', and that kind of brought me back to the whole Surf sound. It made me realize that it was something I really liked, but I definitely did not grow up playing Surf music in my bands or anything.
RNRU : You recorded all the songs in New Hampshire in the middle of winter. How did you get yourself in the spirit of things?
GH : I got myself in the mood by basically putting on a bunch of old Surf movies and played them in my studio pretty much 24/7. I made my wife put on a bikini, covered her in coconut oil, made her walk around the house like that during the winter. That gets you in the mood.(Laughs)
RNRU : Were these all songs that you knew from memory, or did you have to go back and revisit them before recording for the album?
GH : Some of them I knew, some of them I didn't, some of them I discovered, songs like "Baja" and "Penetration", those were songs that I'd heard years ago but I couldn't remember them, and I pulled out all my compilation Surf albums. I went on the internet and bought a few compliation records. I just kind of started listening, and thought "Oh, this one's got a cool riff, this one works great"..I heard a version of "California Dreamin'" by The Beach Boys, I had heard a version that they had done that was just amazing because they had all the harmonies in it. I always liked The Mamas & the Papas version, but when I heard The Beach Boys' version I said "Man, if I could ever do this on a guitar, all the harmonies on the guitar, that'd be really cool." That's how "California Dreamin'" came about.
RNRU : Are you pleased with the response that you're getting for the album in terms of sales and radio play thus far?
GH : Well, you know sales and radio play, it's hard to put the word "pleased" in with anymore.(Laughs) Everybody's downloading stuff for free, you know I put my name in one of the search engines the other day and 180 of my songs came up, so that didn't make me real thrilled. You know what, I'm finding that the fans, the people that like my music... the guitar fans, surf fans are e mailing me every week saying "Dude, love the new record." One guy said he thought it was the best thing I've done in the last ten years. That to me is a success, when the fans really like it. We've been touring live with it, people are going crazy at the shows when we break into the Surf stuff. I have a lot of old timers saying "Hey, thanks for putting some adrenaline back into some old, great songs." That's how I measure success. We're definitely selling enough records where we're making a living. We've well over recouped the cost of the record. The radio thing for me is interesting because I'm on about 350 radio stations a year. I get on a lot of radio tours, we do a lot of promotion for shows, but I don't get the same kind of spins and the same kind of airplay that I used to get just because of the nature of the business these days. With Clear Channel owning all the stations it's just much tighter now. But, I'm kind of lucky because I have a niche, the radio stations will pop my record the week I'm coming to town. Maybe the next week they don't play it as much, but it's okay because it feeds what I'm doing, and I feel very lucky to still be in the game.
RNRU : Well, many bands, particularly those from the 80's, early 90's, no matter how successful they were seem to face an uphill battle getting any new music played on radio these days due to the restrictive formats..
GH : Well you know what? I think it's getting back to the 70's. It's getting back to when bands used to put out a cool record and just tour their butts off, kind of get the word out on the street. No one's relying on MTV anymore, it's like a new approach, and a lot of bands are still being able to do it.
RNRU : How big of an effect do you think the internet has in terms of promotion in that aspect?
GH : I think the internet is amazing. It's an incredible thing, because for me I have a pretty massive e list. Every show we go out and get people's names on the e list. When I tour radio stations, the e mail gets flooded right after I'm on the radio. I love it, because I can get e mails from fans and I can answer them in ten seconds. I actually read all my own e mail personally, I stay on top of my fan mail, read every single one, and most I'll send back some sort of response. That part of it I love, there's an incredible communication right now directly with the fan mail. We have a "Hoey Army", we have about six thousand people throughout the country right now. These are people who we mail posters and flyers directly to their homes. They go out and put them up all over town. We get them back stage passes to the shows, and I know some of these people personally now. That to me is like guerilla warfare, doing it rough and ready. I love what the internet has done. We don't underestimate any sites on the internet that promote bands.
RNRU : You're a surfer yourself. How did you get into surfing?
GH : I used to go to the beach a lot when I was a kid. We lived not too far from Salisbury Beach, in the Hampton Beach area. Pretty much all through the summer my mom and dad would get a cottage and we'd hang out.I did a lot of body surfing when I was a kid, my mom couldn't even get me out of the water.(Laughs) When I moved to California, I lived there for seventeen years, and I got out in the water and kind of played around a bit, but I had a difficult time. In the early 90's, when I got ready to do 'Endless Summer II', I met Kelly Slater, Rob Michado, some of the best surfers in the world, and became friends with some of those guys. They showed me a few tricks as far as surfing goes. That's really when I got introduced to it in a big way, with 'Endless Summer II'. I'm not a great surfer, but I learned enough to get up and catch a wave and enjoy the kind of experience that it gives you.
RNRU : Speaking of 'Endless Summer II', you scored that, and recently you've been recording music for ESPN as well as a new TV show 'Behind The Garage Door' for the Speed channel. How does composing a movie or TV score compare to composing your own solo albums?
GH : You have to be a little more versatile, and a little more accomodating. For ESPN it's very easy for me, a lot of stuff I do for them, like 'Full Contact Sports' or 'The X Games' is kind of high energy sports stuff. It fits really good with rock guitar. It's a good marriage. For that I just kind of pick the pace, what's going on with the scene, and I just kind of create something that feels good. That's not as tough for me, it's sort of in the vein of what I do. Scoring TV shows, you've got to be a bit more versatile. For 'Behind The Garage Door', I'm sort of doing everything from really moody, atmospheric stuff to almost country chicken pickin' stuff for some of the redneck kind of style I do.It's kind of going all over the place sylistically. 'Endless Summer' was the same sort of thing. One minute I was doing something like reggae, the next minute I was doing something latin, then acoustic. For me, I find writing for film extremely easy because when you look at the scene it generally tells you what you need to do. If you see two people walking on the beach holding hands and the sunset's coming down, that tells you sort of how it's going to be. If you're looking at a Waimea Bay wave, guys riding a thirty foot wave, it's definitely going to be a high energy song. I let the scene do the talking for me. Most of the time, if you really watch it carefully you can find at least the flavor. The way that they edit the film is amazing, because the editors actually edit it at a pace, and a tempo where as a musician if you find that tempo, all of a sudden your cues just start to hit perfectly. Sometimes I'll write a piece and it's not working, then I'll slow it down a couple beats a minute, or speed it up a couple beats and all of a sudden everything just locks in with the way that they're cutting the film. So it has sort of a pace.
RNRU : Music in a movie or TV show can change the whole thing, depending on what type of music you use...
GH : Oh absolutely. You can look at a film, and if you mute the sound, it becomes flat. As soon as you turn on the sound, it becomes three dimensional. It adds a whole new energy. It can make you feel drawn into it, it can make you feel excited, it can make you cry, it can do whatever it's supposed to do. I think music is a very important part of the scene.
RNRU : You also have a new Christmas collection coming out 'Twas A Rock N Roll Christmas'?
GH : Actually, that's been put on hold. It's probably going to be out next year. We didn't make it for this year, because I've been touring so hard. It's just about done, but we decided we're going to pull it back until next year, so unfortunately it will not be out this year. We are doing a big tour this year, we'll be out touring the Christmas stuff. We're going out as the "Gary Ho! Ho! Hoey Rockin' Christmas Show." We're going to be in the Midwest... Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Lansing. We're going to be down in the South, Memphis, Nashville, Charlotte. Some areas in the South, and then on the East Coast.
RNRU : Who were your influences when you were starting out musically?
GH : My biggest influence in the beginning were Black Sabbath, they were a real big one for me. As a band, I really got into their music, and it made me want to play a lot. Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, those were guys that I loved. Then there was the bar room rock n roll that we used to play such as Foghat and ZZ Top. Those were really big for me, then later on I discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan and started digging back in the blues like B.B. King and Albert King, some of the early blues guys. I spent a lot of time playing the blues. As a guitar player I certainly discovered Al DiMeola, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, those guys were definitely big for me. Growing up in Boston, I was very diverse, I listened to all kinds of music. I have a big appreciation for lots of styles.
RNRU : How important do you feel that it is for a guitar player to listen to diverse types of music?
GH : I think it's important. I get a lot of guitar players that ask me "Hey, how do you get out of a rut"? Because every musician ends up in a rut here and there. I tell them sometimes it might be that you're just doing the same thing everyday, maybe you need to change it up to kind of shake your brain in a different way. If you're only playing hard rock, maybe sit down one day and learn some blues, or learn a country tune. Just do something to give yourself a different inspiration. I think it makes you more versatile if you can explore different styles of music. You'd be surprised how it might add some different dimension to what you're doing.
RNRU : To listen to one style all the time makes things pretty one dimensional...
GH : Absolutely. For some people, that's cool, there's a lot of bands that have a certain style, they stick with it and that can work. But I think if you're trying to be an instrumentalist, or more of a musician you've got to stretch out. It's like a relationship, if you come home and your wife's got pork chops every single Tuesday, spaghetti every Wednesday, it's gonna start getting old. Once in a while you get a taste for Chinese food. (Laughs)
RNRU : Speaking of Black Sabbath, there may be some people who aren't aware that after Randy Rhoads passed away, you auditioned for the spot in Ozzy's band. How did that come about, and what was that experience like for you?
GH : It was awesome. I was one of the biggest Black Sabbath fans, their music to me was just so awesome. I was in Boston, and Ozzy came through on a radio tour looking for guitar players. He had kind of an open casting call all over the United States, he had over nine hundred people try out. I overheard him on the radio, he said "Hey man, we're looking for a guitar player, call up the station and let's hear what you've got." So, I called up, I put the phone down and actually played right over the air. They said, bring a tape down, so I went down to the station and gave it to them. About a week later, I got a call that said Ozzy really liked your tape and we want to fly you to Los Angeles for another audition. That was a really big thing for me, and we flew out and I tried out for the band. I didn't get the gig, but I had a great experience, got to actually play with Ozzy a couple of times, they had me back. Ozzy and Sharon told me "Gary, if you come out to California, you'll probably do really well if you're actually living out here." So, I immediately left the East Coast, relocated and I found my manager and signed with Warner Brothers Records in 1991.
RNRU : What was your impression of Ozzy at that time?
GH : He was really cool, he was definitely not as fried out as he is now. He was a little more coherent, you could almost understand what he was saying. (Laughs) I thought he was cool, he knows how to pick guitar players, he's got a great ear. You don't realize how much he's paying attention to. I found him to be very insightful, he gave me a lot of inspiration. He told me "Dude, you can handle this gig no problem so don't think it's anything personal." He said some nice things to me.