AO…Congrats on getting your song in a movie. Can you tell us the name of it and when it will be out, what song it is, etc?
DRH…The movie came out in January. It's called Biker Boys and the song is called "Don't Look Down". The movie has a great cast. It has Lawrence Fishburn, Kid Rock, Lisa Bonet, and Derek Luke. It will be on my full length CD that will be coming out in July, but Don't Look Down is on the Biker Boy soundtrack.
AO…How long have you been playing music?
DRH…I have been a singer all my life, but I started playing guitar when I was 16…so that would be 19 years.
AO…What kind of guitar do you play?
DRH…Most people start on an acoustic and move to electric but I started on electric so I'm kind of moving backwards and just really falling in love with the acoustic and I haven't played the electric in a while.
AO…Is this something that you found yourself that you had an interest in, or did your parents encourage you?
DRH…There has always been a lot of music around. My mom always sang around the house and always wished that she pursued and became a professional singer but she never did that. She had a great fondness for the blues and John Lee Hooker. My dad was a huge Jazz buff. I was actually born in Illinois so the blues and jazz scene in Chicago in the late sixties when I was born was very vibrant. So there was always lots of music around. But my dad didn't play and my mom, she sang. So there were lots of records that I'm fascinated with.
AO…Did you teach yourself guitar?
DRH…Yes.
AO…What is the most challenging aspect of being a musician for you? (getting the notoriety, writing, touring etc. )
DRH…Touring in that as I get older, I start to collect things, and people that I love and I want to be at home around them. It's sort of a dual life. You pick a place that you'd like to live, and you put furniture that you like in it, and pictures that you like on the wall, and then you have to leave it. Leaving your personal comfort and the people that you love is the hardest part. At the same time the immediate gratification of live performance is great.
AO…How much time do you spend touring?
DRH…Not nearly as much as I used to. Probably just enough to get by. I think my notions of what success is have changed a great deal since my early 20's. I don't ever see myself at Madison Square Garden. Not because I'm not self defeating but I don't want to do what it takes to be gone eight months out of the year. It's just not something that I want to do.
AO…So your happy in the spot that you are in?
DRH…Yeah. It would be great to have a few more people at shows but in terms of the volume of the touring or the amount of the touring that I do, it probably averages out to about four months out of the year and it's not all together and I like that. That's comfortable and I still feel like I have some sense of what it's like to have a normal kind of existence.
AO…What else do you do in the meantime when you are not touring?
DRH…I do a little bit of everything. Some songwriting, I'm producing. I just signed a deal with a company that's been really supportive of what I do and I think they are going to allow me to find a niche for the kind of writing that I do. They actually facilitated the Biker Boy sound track. Writing a song for a movie and actually going to the mixing stage where they mix and seeing that whole thing was very fascinating. I was like "Wow, this definitely seems like something that I can do". So there's a bit of that and the producing and songwriting for other people. I'm just kind of a multi tasker.
AO…Going back to the movie, did you go see the movie and say, "That's my song!"
DRH…Yes. We went to the premier and we were sitting next to this guy. We didn't sit in the VIP area so we figured that most people sitting in the area we were sitting in did something small in the film like me or knew somebody. So we were sitting next to this guy and he asked what we did and he of course had never heard of me and I told him I had a song in the movie and it's like 11 or 12 minutes into the movie. It was kind of neat when it came on (whispering) "Ok…this is mine!"
AO…Well that's good. You got it right in the beginning of the movie while people are still paying attention!
DRH…(laughing ) Exactly!
AO…What is it about the creative process that intrigues you? The writing of the lyrics and putting thoughts on paper, or the music?
DRH…All of it. Creative is a derivative of create and it's also related to the word creator. So, for me a lot of times I'm just fascinated by just the intangibleness of it all. There is no formula to it. You know, if you add 2+2 it's going to equal 4. And a lot of times some of my best material I find I can listen to it and go "Wow, that's great!" and I don't feel like it's great because I did it. I feel like it's great because it came from somewhere else. Sometimes I listen to stuff almost as a casual listener so I find that it helps me stay in touch with the part of me that is spiritual and of the creator. And then also I'm a real hands on tactile guy. I like building stuff and tinkering with stuff. A lot of times when you don't have a song that comes from the creator a lot of it is just about craft and you have to figure out that this piece doesn't go there, it has to go here. Either way it's just really enjoyable.
AO…Do you draw on life's experiences a lot?
DRH…I think so. I've never focused on writing songs about things that were specifically going on in my life. Early in my career and as I have gotten older it's become a great outlet for me to express things that are going on with me and the people around me. 95% of my songs are about love either having it, losing it, finding it, looking for it, screwing it up.
AO…I know you taught yourself to play the guitar but where did you fashion your techniques?
DRH…Basically any guitar player I've ever listened too. I was into Stevie Wonder a lot when I was younger which of course isn't guitar driven but the tonality and a lot of the chord movement of his keyboard informed some of what goes on guitar but I never sat down and tried to learn any Stevie songs. Steely Dan, the same thing. In terms of lead playing I was really into Steve Ray Vaughn and early on I was really into Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen. I sort of figured where there was a point in my career where I'm either going to be the guy who plays really fast or I'm going to be the guy who writes the songs. So I decided probably out of laziness that I don't want to practice 10 hours a day so I'm going to figure out how to express myself and write my songs. So there is an awful lot that I wish I could do on guitar that I can't do. I tell people that I play my guitar well enough to get my point across.
AO…You are from Atlanta, but now live in Los Angeles. How do the music scenes differ?
DRH…In Los Angeles it's a much larger pool. It just seems a lot more diverse. I guess any music scene goes through its ups and downs and perhaps Atlanta is in a down period or maybe I'm just older and I'm not going to clubs every night. I guess it could be vibrant and still happening here in Atlanta. The scene in Los Angeles just seems to be a bit more tolerant and open. But then you've had outcasts that came from Atlanta and you have John Mayer that came from Atlanta those are certainly incredibly diverse. It seems that there is more of an outlet for those sorts of things in Los Angeles.
The other part of that is I've only been there six months so I'm not really sure how they differ! I haven't been there long enough to tell you! (laughing)
AO…You were on the Rock Boat last year and are going again this year. What did you think of it?
DRH…It was incredible! It's like spring break for adults. Spring break for people who know how to drink and stop before they throw up! (lauging) It was awesome. The artists that were involved, at least last year, there ability, desire and need to interact with their fans was very apparent and the fans were very appreciative of the fact that they could be walking down the lido deck and see whoever just hanging out and playing songs. It really was about the music and there was an opportunity for the artist to break down the wall between the stage and the fans and the fans loved it and they loved the accessibility of their favorite artist and the artists enjoyed being that close to the fans. And the artists really enjoyed being that close to other musicians. For a lot of us, were touring all the time so the only time I would get to see Edwin McCain is if were on a bill together or Sister Hazel is if were on the bill or happen to in the same town at the same time. So for all of these people that share a common fan base and sound and geographically from the same place, it's great for us to get together and hang out.
AO…Its like a reunion.
DRH…Totally! I'm very happy that I'm going to be there.
AO…Is there anything else coming up that we should look for?
DRH…I have a full-length thing that's going to come out in the summer. I will try and do some touring behind that in July.
AO…Do you have any goals for the future?
DRH…I would like to be in the position professionally speaking that I can tour when I want to. I don't think there will ever be a time when I wont tour at all or play shows. I guess the ideal thing for me I would be producing bands or producing artists and working with artists and being creative in that arena but certainly more central I'm at home most of the time kind of thing. I'll continue to put out records because it's my outlet and I feel I've been given a gift and I have to give back or acknowledge that fact. There are some people that are talented or crafty, but somewhere along the line I think that I've been given a gift because sometimes I open my mouth and I don't know where it comes from. (laughing) For me to not do it all would be like a slap in the face to the creator. So producing huge records and being creative and seeing enough success financially to allow me to do things that aren't as commercial as other things.
