Photo credit: Michael Weintrob
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
With the nature of The High Hawks being a band of Super Friends that only get together for a limited amount of dates each year, we don’t have a tour vehicle of our own. We take whatever means of transportation needed to get together, wings, skateboards, brooms, airplanes, trains, cars, busses, and sometimes we’ll even walk. There’s a bonus in not owing a permanent tour vehicle. There’s never any repairs that need to be made! We do have a lot of miles on us collectively though, it has to be in the millions.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
We’ve all been doing this for so long that we don’t skimp on meals, food and eating is one of the great rewards of being on the road. We relish in every bite, sometimes it’s healthy and sometimes it’s a big, juicy cheeseburger. Whatever it is it’s going to be good food, and as the great Warren Zevon said, “enjoy every sandwich.”
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I play a digital piano and digital organ so I don’t have any strings. Vince changes his guitar strings for every gig. I think he has some kind of artist endorsement deal but it’s probably still at least $5/set of strings if not more. I’m not sure how long the strings have been on Tim’s fiddle but I know it has been a long time. Fiddle strings I believe are like bass strings, you don’t want to change them and they rarely break! I’m not sure if Adam even uses strings, being a good ol’ boy from central Wisconsin, I believe he uses some twine and whatever else he can find to string up his guitars.
Where do you rehearse?
We’ve had multiple rehearsal spaces along the way to get The High Hawks up and running, our favorite being a barn located in the heart of the Driftless Region on the Wisconsin/Minnesota border along Pine Creek. We did some rehearsing there at the height of Covid 19 so we were masked up and spread out in the barn.
Our first ever rehearsals were in Vince’s living room outside of Boulder, CO about 9,000 feet up in the air back in 2019.
Currently sound check before shows is our time to work up new songs or fix parts of songs that are broken. Other than that, we try to keep making records and carve out time to get in the studio and create new songs.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
I cannot remember what I wrote as a first song or a sample lyric. As the oldest sibling of 4 kids, I do remember always making my siblings be in a band with me when we were kids, one of our hits we’d perform was Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl”.
Describe your first gig.
My first rock and roll gig was playing at an old classic bar in De Pere, WI that our drummer’s family owned. The three of us had met in high school band and decided to start a trio that had a focus on the band America’s repertoire along with some other songs. I can’t remember if there was a cover charge or not, but we played in the back room of the bar to maybe 30-40 people.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
I’ve never had a J O B. I don’t even like to say the word.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
After getting married back in 2008 and wanting to start a family with my wife, I knew I would have to diversify my revenue streams so that I wouldn’t need to be on the road 200 days per year. In addition to remaining a performing musician and songwriter, I got into artist management as well as joining a couple of record labels. All of it allows me to still be creative, work in music and have balance.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
You only get one chance to make a first impression so make sure you’re ready to go out and perform as that band/name/entity. You want to make sure you are curating the best possible art you can when you decide to try to do it professionally and for an audience.