Don’t let the name fool you: Hank3 is not your average country music singer. The grandson of the country legend has many facets to his musical rhythm, from twangy country laced with metal to his speed-bullet punk-influenced Attention Deficit Domination. He is not who you think he would be.
After spending years handcuffed to a record label he did not respect, Hank3 is now able to record his music his way. Releasing four recordings on the same day was an almost unheard of feat for any musician but he did it in 2011 with the double album Ghost To A Ghost/Gutter Town, 3 Bar Ranch Cattle Callin’ and Attention Deficit Domination and now he is out on the road bringing his brand of country and metal to his fans who accept the singer as a unique embodiment of a musical beehive.
Calling from his home outside of Nashville, where he hopes to one day “own a little bit of land and have a little farm”, this humble southerner spoke honestly about his bloodline, his love for The Melvins, and how good it feels to be free of the Curb Records albatross.
How does it feel to finally be able to record and sell your own music on your own label after all the problems you have had with Curb Records?
It’s definitely a good feeling cause I’ve had my creativity held back for so long. And all I’m wanting to do is try to put out different styles of music and do the best show that I can out there. I’m glad to be able to put out the different sounds that meant a lot to me and being able to have them all come out at the same time. I don’t know, I had to do something a little different, just changing it up a little bit and doing the overload on the different kinds of music is my way of doing things different. I always approach every record like it could be my last.
With Ghost To A Ghost, you have like thirty or forty songs on that one alone. Why did you put so many songs on that recording and not hold some back for another CD down the line?
That makes sense but it goes back to doing something different. Most CDs that you buy nowadays are ten songs; that’s just another part of what makes what I do different. I don’t think it’s ever been done in music history, all these albums across all these different genres, coming out on the same day. I’m pretty sure that’s a first. It all goes back to just trying something a little different, having fun with it, and that’s the main reason for the overload of the music, really.
How long did it take you to record everything? And did you know from the beginning that you wanted everything to come out at the same time?
I got off Curb Records January 1st and on January 2nd I started writing the country record. February 1st is when I started recording. So I knew I wanted to do it, at least do the country and the Attention Deficit Domination project at the same time. But while I was on a roll, that’s when the 3 Bar Ranch finally came up and I was like, well, I ought to go ahead and do all these. In the daytime I would be more serious on the country stuff and then at night I would let it loose a little more with the doom stuff and the speed metal.
Do you have a preference amongst all the musical genres?
I’m just really open-minded on all the different styles of music. I love bluegrass and I love classic rock and I love The Melvins. It’s really hard for me to say what style I like the best because all the different styles to me is what makes it unique.
Are you still doing your shows in different segments, with the country part then the metal part?
Yeah, I always do the segments to pay respects. Most of my fans are coming out to see the country part of the show. Not all of them, we have a very diverse crowd. But I want to make my fans feel like they got their money’s worth and that’s why the first hour and a half is the country. Then the next hour is the rock and then the hour after that is the speed metal stuff. That’s the main reason why.
So there is something for every one of your fans.
It took a long time to get that fan base and still to this day a lot of people don’t agree with what I do. At least I give a little bit of everything to try to make them all happy. But it is a long show. We go through a lot of different styles on the music and it goes back to making it different. And while I’m young enough and can still pull it off is another thing too. I might not always have the energy to deliver this long of a show with this many different sounds.
I hope to be able to juggle both styles as long as I can. That’s my goal. That’s the hardest part, juggling the two styles and that’s going to be tricky whenever I’m 50. You know, I always told myself I’d retire from the road when I was fifty. I’ve said that in a lot of interviews but who knows if that’ll be true or not.
How close are you to 50?
I got almost ten years to go. I’m getting old pretty quick (laughs). I’m trying to hang in there as long as possible.
You probably surprised people when you first started playing music because perhaps they expected you to sound more like your grandfather or even your father. But you’re coming out with all this other music that is so high energy.
It’s a tough one, trying to be your own person and coming out of what him and Hank Jr has done. I don’t care if it’s me or if it’s Dale Earnhardt Jr or Dweezil Zappa, it’s always a tough thing to do something different than a famous father. In my case, I have not one but two famous people before me. But that’s what made it unique and made it a little different.
Where did you grow up and what were you like as a kid?
I had a really normal childhood, pretty much. I grew up in Nashville until I was about eight to ten years old and my mom remarried and we moved to Atlanta, Georgia, for a little while. I went to public schools, I played sports, and then from like thirteen to fifteen I lived in North Carolina for a minute and then I ended up back in Nashville with my mom. It was a pretty average childhood. Most people think I was spending a lot of my time with Hank Jr on the road and stuff like that but I would only see him about a week or two out of the year. So I wasn’t really raised around it like Jack Osbourne or someone like that, raised on a tour bus. I had a pretty normal childhood. I played sports until I couldn’t make the grades and when I couldn’t make the grades I just really honed in a lot more on my music and my drums and playing guitar and hanging out with a bunch of different kind of people.
When did you first pick up the guitar?
Well, drums were my first instrument. I was on stage playing “Family Tradition” when I was ten years old with Hank Jr. And as far back as I can remember there was always a guitar lying around. I had one when I was ten to twelve years old but I wasn’t really getting as serious about it until I was like fifteen to twenty. That was really all that I would do, play drums and play guitar, something music oriented.
What was the first band or musician that caught your attention?
I used to get pretty excited when I was younger about Elvis Presley. My aunt would always play like Ted Nugent or ZZ Top or Heart. All those kind of classic rock bands would really get me ready to rock. I loved Queen growing up. I always liked the energy they were putting off. Black Sabbath and KISS. I got my first KISS record probably when I was like eight or nine years old. It’s really hard to say what band really took me to the next level. I would just have to say it was classic rock that really got me going.
How long have you been writing your own songs?
My very first song was more of a punk kind of thing in a band called The Gravediggers. It was just us trying to act like the Sex Pistols a little bit, singing with a British accent and stuff like that. It really didn’t have much of a topic except for just a bunch of strange words put together pretty much. So I was always writing songs a lot in the rock world from the time I was probably twelve to twenty; I was already coming up with ideas. I couldn’t understand how guitar theory worked but I could write songs and say this is “Saddle Sore” or this is “Devil’s Daughter” or whatever, stuff like that.
Do you have a song that you wrote that you’re the most proud of?
It would kind of depend. Sometimes it’s the singing where I’m definitely proud to have a song with Tom Waits. I’m really proud to have a song with Les Claypool. The song “Mad Cow” on 3 Bar Ranch was really important to me as far as just pushing myself to the next limits. As long as I’m writing a song I’m able to like bang my head a little bit to or get a little bit of an energy boost out of it, that’s usually the biggest payoff. Like the song “Low Line” on Gutter Town. It’s a weird strange song but I’m really more proud of that one. Most people probably haven’t listened to that one that much.
When you sit down to write a song now, do you use a guitar or a piano to pull those songs out?
If I’m writing a country song, I always sit down and just hit record and usually sing off the top of my head. Let’s say I got in a car wreck. I would sit down and I would hit record and start singing about my car wreck. Then I would go back with the pen and paper and write down what I think is more important. Playing rock, I always do the rhythm guitar first and then the drums second and then the lyrics are last. It’s always just a little bit different of a process.
You said earlier that you played drums on stage with your dad when you were about ten years old. Was that your first time on a stage performing?
Yes. Maybe before that I might have been walked out on stage and people might have said, “This is Hank Williams’ grandson” or something like that but as far as me playing an instrument in front of a bunch of people, it was my first. And that was at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. The cool thing is it’s on tape so I was able to get a copy of the tape. The speakers were really loud and the crowd was really crazy and you feel the heat of the lights and for a young kid it’s definitely a lot to take in. I guess it kind of helped put me on the path to what I want to do.
What was the first band that you were in?
The very first one was The Gravediggers, just me and a couple of my best friends, just hanging out and me singing in that English accent and having fun. But that was the very first basement/twelve year old band that I was in with my friends.
Do you remember the first concert that you went to?
Well, my very first official big show was Adam Ant in 1984 and he’s getting ready to come back in February. That was my first real like big production show. And I’d been to a lot of acoustic or country shows before that but for me that was the first big band that I really got to go out and see, with my step-father. I was impressed. I’ve always liked what he’s done. They had two drummers in that band so that’s a whole other aspect that I loved about his sound. It was a lot of fun. I’m wanting to go see him again but I just got to see if I have the time to get away and check it out.
You’ve met a lot of people in your life. Do you remember the first rock star that you met that made an impression on you?
Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover from The Melvins. I was definitely really excited about meeting them and developing a friendship with them. I was really also stoked when Phil Anselmo got to see our band playing in Nashville. That was always a really big deal for me, having him out in the audience checking us out and then coming up saying hello to everybody after the show. Those two stood out to me really intensely.
What is your all-time favorite album and what makes it so special to you?
I’ve always had trouble picking out a favorite album for me. I mean, there’s so many good ones out there. Doesn’t matter if it’s Black Sabbath’s Sabotage or AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds or Dead Kennedys, there are all kinds. It’s just hard for me to answer that one.
What about your first tattoo?
My first tattoo was a smiling sun, basically an old Grateful Dead logo, and I was trying to have something that wasn’t too offensive for my mom if she found it. I drove to Dancing Dragon in Kentucky and that was the very first one, on my left shoulder. I still got it. I’ve never covered any tattoos up. They’re all there and I don’t have that many compared to how many offers I get from friends and fans that do it out there. I maybe have ten or twelve. My son probably has more than I do now.
You once said in an interview that “Music is the best psychiatrist out there”. Do you still believe that?
Yes. I think it’s really helped people through a lot of hard times. People are feeling really depressed and can put music on and it helps them feel better about themselves. It’s not all the time; sometimes music can add to that fear or scary feelings you might be having. But for most of the time I think it’s there to help a lot of people get through hard times.
So what kind of projects are you currently working on?
It’s for a friend of mine and his name is Alamo Jones. He worked with Johnny Cash for a long time and he asked me if I would mind recording like three or four songs of one of his guys so I’m just going through and trying to get a good sound for them, playing drums on it, engineering and mixing these demo songs. So that’s what I’m doing.
And then I’m mainly just going to be touring. I still have to break even on my record and I’m going to be touring the States and hopefully Europe and Australia and maybe Japan if I’m lucky. So I’ll be doing a little bit of everything.
Bus or van?
I’ve been running a bus since 1995. I was like, if I’m going to be playing in this many shows and I’m going to be running a crew of twelve people and pushing eight thousand pounds of gear every day, I want to make sure my guys get rest. It also protects us a little more. I’ve had someone hit our bus doing 80 miles an hour and if we’d been in a van we’d definitely been killed. So there are a couple of ways to look at it but for right now while I can afford it and break even with the tours and stuff like that, I try to give everyone a good place to sleep.
Bruce Springsteen has one of the best bands in music and next week we visit with The Boss’ guitar player Nils Lofgren, who talks about opening for Jimi Hendrix as a teen, playing the harp and how his new solo album explores getting older with his rock & roll spirit intact.
