Brooks Hudgins is a long origin story, but we’ll give you the Spark Notes. Dallas born, Tennessee baptised, and raised in LA in an aspiring Hollywood family, the root of the fruit came from a guitar and an early interest in the potency of booze and prose. Much of the music was gleaned from teenage years in Hollywood sparring with his parents over child acting, getting to know the local law enforcement, and shadow puppeting the biggest and brightest celebrities.
Disillusioned by the false summit of a childhood in LA, Brooks went to film school in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he learned more about music and clubbing than film by tenfold. An early heavy techno DJ career saw success, running nights at the infamous Sneaky Pete’s and DJing for SUBSTANCE, with Soundcloud touting him “one of the best young DJ’s in Scotland. “Brooks couldn’t scheme a visa, so he split the difference between LA and the UK and settled in New York, where the songwriting of his youth clicked with the influence of his college years, and the never-ending game of “Beat the Demo” began.
Writing and recording track after track in his stripped down Bushwick basement studio, and working at the ignominious Flatiron hellhole Sugarfish at night, Brooks finally got the courage to quit his job and face the music. Drawing on his screenwriting degree, Brooks wrote and executive produced an 8 episode season of an iHeart Podcast country musical podcast for MGM and WME, featuring Billy Bob Thornton, Miranda Lambert, Dennis Quaid, and Craig Robinson. He quickly turned and burned that money into the studio album to complete the musical vision rooted in a decade of songwriting and storytelling.
In early 2020, Hudgins teamed up with classically trained violinist turned record producer Grant Gardner at Corner Store Studios in Ridgewood, NY to record what would eventually be tormented into Drive Thru Communion. With little experience, and a lot of unexpected global news nigh, they recorded an alt-country album with flashes of brilliance and maimed by a lot of head scratching inconsistencies.
Glide is proud to premiere “405 South” from Drive Thru Communion, out this December, a junkyard pop number that moves with cryptic alt-rock of EEELs and Beck and a novel upstart brand of showmanship.
“405 South is essentially a breakup song, it’s got some bitterness, but is mostly about moving on – lookin’ ahead, you know? Aimlessness can be scary but looking back sucks even more. Taking a sacred wound and making it a scar you can learn from – maybe even be proud of. Some growth. But definitely some regret too” describes Hudgins.
