Sister Hazel

Saturday night I found myself sitting in an RV, watching the Alabama game with four Gator fans. But this was no ordinary RV; this was the Sister Hazel tour bus.

Sister Hazel talked to the Valley Planet about playing at outdoor festivals, their fan base, and their newest record, Before the Amplifiers.

I was able to sit down with bassist Jett Barres and lead guitarist Ryan Newall. Ken Block, lead singer and primary songwriter was also present, but he had laryngitis and wanted to save his voice for the show.

A lot of musicians say their favorite venues to play are festivals.

“We love it. We get to see the bands ourselves. Being a musician, it is nice to be a fan again. And of course the food.”

Among the Sister Hazel fans, it seems most everyone’s favorite song is ‘Change your Mind’. Would you guys agree?

“At this point we have so many songs… the cool thing we hear from our fans, is it’s actually across the board, out of the whole body of music, how it affects people in different ways. ‘Change your Mind’ was a very impactful song. We get stories from them (the fans) saying how it changed their perception on life, it brought me out of this funk. I think that’s why we have a career fifteen years later. We keep putting out songs that inspire people.”

You have this reputation for being very fan driven.

“We realized early on that the key to sticking around and playing music and being able to create music is the fans. For some reason, not all bands get that. Let’s listen to what they have to say. We go out and meet them, and get that response from the shows, and we feed off it on stage. There’s a connection with the five of us with our fans. “

Case in point, your newest record, Before the Amplifiers was produced because your fans asked for a live record?

“We’ve always enjoyed playing our songs acoustically, and we thought it was a good opportunity to set up a show with a live environment, but also in a studio. The record captures not only an acoustic side to this band, but the intimacy of being with our fans. “

I left their RV, and after twenty minutes, Sister Hazel took the stage, opening with Shame, a song off their Absolutely CD.

With a crowd ranging from millennials to baby boomers, everyone appeared to be having a good time right from the start. Right behind me were two fortysomethings (who were able to sing all the lyrics word for word) that had driven from Nashville to hear the band.

Ken Block never let on to the crowd that he was ailing. He sounded a bit hoarse when talking to the crowd, but was all business once on stage.

Helping out with some of the vocals, rhythm guitarist Andrew Copeland, sang a cover of an old Outfield tune, ‘Use Your Love Tonight’. With his incredible vocal range, Copeland nailed all the high notes to the song. Incidentally, Copeland played the entire set barefoot.

During the performance, Block kept giving updates to the Alabama/Georgia game; shouting out the score to the approving roar of the crowd.

The band is a very close-knit group, and one of the few bands around that still maintains their original line-up after touring together fifteen year. During the solos you could even see the band members clowning around with each other.

During their hour-long set, Sister Hazel played songs like ‘Champagne High’, a semi-autobiographical song about attending an ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The inspirational ‘Change your Mind’ was also a crowd favorite.

The biggest response came when the band played their signature song, ‘All for You’, a top ten hit from 1997. At one point during the song, Sister Hazel turned the microphones towards the audience, as the crowd enthusiastically sang out the chorus.

The performance closed with ‘Happy’, which is another uplifting song from the band’s catalog. After hearing them live, I now intend on adding a few more Sister Hazel CDs to my music collection.

You can listen to more Sister Hazel songs, and learn more about the band by going to their MySpace page at: www.myspace.com/sisterhazel

Ed Killingsworth