So I imported it onto the iPod, grabbed a nice cigar, jumped in the car and began to drive down the lonely back roads of my small community. Wayne was right.
Hancock’s wanderlust was instilled at an early age as his father often changed careers, moving the family from Texas to Kansas to the East Coast. But before the lure of the road seized Hancock, he was caught up by an equally strong call - that of music. “Hank Williams was the king of my record player. I had a – I’ve still got the record player sitting here, ‘course it doesn’t work, but for sentimental reasons I can’t let it go, you know? But, I listened to a lot of Hank Williams, a lot of Glenn Miller – big, big, big Glen Miller fan, I still am,” he explains. “My parents were from the World War II-era, so I had all of the swing records, you know, Stan Kenton, Artie Shaw, all those guys. I remember sitting in front of the record player one time, this was in Kansas, about ‘74 and I’m like 9 years old, I’m bored out of my fucking head. All we’ve got - we’ve got a Beatles album, the fourth album, which I love the Beatles, especially the early stuff, that’s really cool stuff. And we had a Beach Boys album and I didn’t really understand it. Even as a little kid I was kind of like, eh, wasn’t really my thing. Then I had all these swing records. I was over at a friends’ house and a song was playing and it gave me that feeling, that feeling that a good song gives you, makes you feel good. And so I was trying to find that feeling in my mother and father’s record collection and I found it in swing, is where I found it.”
This dual love of music and the road proved too strong to resist. “I don’t know if it’s the rhythm of the vibrations that make the world go ’round or what, but everything, especially with music, any kind of good music, you can see things that relate to what you’re hearing. Which I always found very interesting,” he laughs.
After graduating High School, Hancock signed up for a four year stay in the Marines. When he had fulfilled that commitment he moved back home, serving two years in the Marine Reserves and trying his luck at the College life. “I tried college, but it just wasn’t my thing. I took psychology, I thought, this will be great, it will be about, you know, psychology, what else would you think it would be about? It was more about current events. And I remember the woman - and remember I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps, so I am all gung-ho – the woman says, ‘Jane Fonda. When we say her name what do you think of?’ I said ‘Traitorous Bitch’,” he recalls with a laugh. “That was not the right answer. They were looking for product or business conglomerate or something. I realized that was not where I was supposed to be.”
But like many of us at that time in our life, what we want to do and what we are told we are supposed to do seem entirely at odds. “You know, it took me a long time to find what I was supposed to do,” he says. “In the back of my mind I always wanted to be a singer, but the world says you have to do other things to make a living, that your dreams are not viable unless its dollars and cents and all this stuff, so I tried to find myself in that market for years, but I was very unsuccessful until I came to Austin. It wasn’t ’til I came here that my life started going somewhere.”
But before he made it to Austin, he made a couple of detours to try to make that dream a reality. “I did the Nashville ‘pilgrimage’,” he recalls. “I was 24 when I went to Nashville and banged around over there for awhile. It was interesting. They weren’t really interested in music, you know, they were more interested in cliches and what the other guy was doing to sell records and wanted everybody else to sound and look like that guy. And at the time, that was Randy Travis, and Randy Travis sounds like Lefty Frizzell, you know, it just goes right on down the line. When you’re in Nashville you have to sound like a certain thing and what I learned from that was that that wasn’t where I wanted to be. I got such a dose of it that I just quit trying altogether, you know, to do anything with it. I just started drifting around the countryside in my car and I’d pull into a place and play for four or five hours, make enough money to eat something and get down the road. I did that for a year or so.”
Once he made it to Austin, he began to meld his influences to create the signature Wayne Hancock sound. “[Growing up] we had all these show tunes. We had South Pacific, Oklahoma, The King and I, My Fair Lady. We had all these musicals so then I had the Broadway effect, like you’re singing walking down the street. You’re belting it out. So I took that aspect. By the time I got old enough to start listening to Hank Williams, when I was thirteen years old, I took the Big Band aspect, the feel good big band moving, then singing out, belting and then mixed that with Honky-Tonk and Swing. But kind of the same thing Bob Wills had, under a budget, can’t really afford the players, I had to size it down. And that’s how I came up with what I came up with. And I would much rather tour with a four or five piece band, but we’re just now getting to that point where we can do that, you know. With the new record out, and it everything goes right, I don’t see why we can’t do that in the future.”
And that sound has served him well. In 1995, Hancock released his debut album Thunderstorms and Neon Signs. Produced by Lloyd Maines, the album met with immediate critical success and lead quickly. In 1997, ARK21, an independent label owned by Miles Copeland, former manager of the Police, signed Hancock and released That’s What Daddy Wants. When that release met with success, ARK21 reissued Thunderstorms and Neon Signs on their label.
1999 was a bittersweet year for Hancock. He released Wild Free and Reckless, again to much critical acclaim. But in that same year he ended his affiliation with ARK21 and, more importantly, lost his father to cancer.
Rebounding in 2001, Hancock released A-Town Blues on Bloodshot Records. He hit the road again racking up as many as 250 dates a year with his band plugging away the miles with him.
After playing so consistently and honing their chops, Hancock and the boys brought the live recording Swing Time in 2004. “The whole reason I did Swing Time was to kind of let – you’ve got these studio albums with all these great solos and I wanted to show everybody that, yeah, we can do this live too, you know?” he says.
And live is where the group thrives often putting on shows that are two to three hours in length. “I’ve always been blessed, man, I’ve always been blessed with being able to hook up with really great musicians and entertainers, you know. And guys that were always as solid in character as they were on stage, you know, that’s a real blessing. I’m real happy,” says Hancock.
For his newest recording, Tulsa, Hancock took his road band (lead guitarist Eddie Biebel and doghouse bassist Chris Darrell) in to the studio with steel guitarist Eddie Rivers, lead guitarists Paul Skelton and Dave Biller, trombonist Bob Stafford and John Doyle on clarinet. With Lloyd Maines returning as producer, Hancock set out to pay tribute to the road and to one of his favorite towns. “I’m singing about Tulsa because that’s the town,” he states. “Whenever we go to Tulsa we always have fun. Everybody comes out to see the show and we usually play two and a half, three hours, you know, when we go through Tulsa. It’s always just a big party, man. The Hot Rods come out, everybody’s dancing and have a good ole time and partying it up ’til morning, and its fun. That’s what I’m talking about going there.”
The album continues Hancocks’ reputation as one of the leading purveyors of modern Texas Swing containing rollicking songs such as the title track, “Shootin’ Star From Texas” and “Goin’ To Texas When I’m Through.” Recorded in two and a half days the album was done completely live with Hancock calling out, in true Bob Wills fashion, which band member is to take the next solo.
To support the album, which was released on Oct. 10, Hancock and band will be, as usual, hitting the road. “Yeah, I’m on the road quite a bit, especially in the next three months, we’re really hoofing it,” he says.
As the band continues, he hopes to be able to add another member to the team. “I’d like either a steel player or a horn player,” he notes. “What I really would like to have, I would like to have a trumpet player. Someone who is really fluent at playing off the sleeve, without any music and make it just wail. I’m thinking that maybe a lot of these players out in New Orleans that might have been displaced, maybe there would be one of them that would be interested. It’s a good paying gig, you know?”
As his songs find their way into the soundtracks of road trips across the country, Hancock hopes to continue making music as long as he can. “My motto is, I’ll quit when I’m dead,” he laughs. “I’ve got a song called “Highway Bound” and it says that, it says, “I’ll never retire, I’ll quit when I’m dead, I was born to run this highway and that’s where I’ll stay. That’s pretty much how it is.”
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