Trending
If the car radio hadn’t died in the beat-up Oldsmobile of Girls Guns and Glory founder Ward Hayden, he might not have discovered the seminal music of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, which would change his life.
“I had an Oldsmobile Delta 88 and my mom had a huge cassette tape collection, people like Dolly Parton, Jimmy Rodgers and Hank Williams, and she lent me tapes for my drive to school,” Hayden recalls. “The first tape I borrowed was Johnny Cash’s ‘Greatest Hits’ and it altered the course of my life. I fell in love with the sound.”
Starting as a solo artist, in time Hayden would form the band Girls Guns and Glory, which is steeped in classic honky-tonk country music, vintage rockabilly and Chuck Berry’s innovative rock ‘n’ roll style.
Voted by the Boston Phoenix as Best Roots act and winner of the Best Americana act at the Boston Music Awards, the band has been winning fans everywhere they tour. The U.K.’s Daily Telegraph praised their “energetic mix of fast rockabilly country songs to get you up and dancing and sweet classy ballads.” And Country Weekly noted: “With literally thousands of bands performing at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, it can be near impossible for a group to stand out. Girls Guns and Glory didn’t have that problem. The Boston four-piece . . . quickly became a must-see.”
The quartet features Hayden on lead vocals and guitar, Paul Dilley on electric and upright bass and piano, Josh Kiggans on drums, and Chris Hersch on lead guitar and banjo.
So how did Hayden come up with the band name?
“I’m a big fan of old Western TV shows,” he explains. “I was watching a lot of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger when I was going to perform my first shows. The theme of most of those shows more or less is girls, guns and glory, and when I said that band name, people thought it was funny. I thought I’d have it for one or two shows, and 10 years later I’m still Girls Guns and Glory.”
The group crafts a memorable sound that encompasses “classic country-and-western and pre-Beatles, Roy Orbison-meets-Everlys pop,” noted the Boston Globe, and Hayden says their music is rooted in early rock ‘n’ roll.
“That’s one of my biggest influences, the Chuck Berry sound,” he says. “That’s the core of the music we make today. It’s early rock ‘n’ roll with a twist of country.”
Listening to the band, one gets the sense that Hayden would have loved to be around Memphis’ Sun Studio in the 1950s, when the greats like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded.
“I love the Sun Studio era of music,” he says. “I actually got married at Graceland this past October. And I went to Johnny Cash’s boyhood home, it was amazing.”
On albums like “Sweet Nothings” and “Good Luck,” Hayden’s vocal approach has been compared with Chris Isaak, Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakam, and he sometimes shifts to a twangy, high lonesome vocal style.
“My voice does that high lonesome thing and it naturally wants to crack,” he says. “My voice thankfully fits country music.”
Last year, the band released the live album “Girls Guns and Glory Presents: A Tribute to Hank Williams.” It includes Williams’ classics like “Hey, Good Lookin'” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” along with lesser-known tunes like “Rockin’ Chair Money.”
“We’ve honored him every new year for the past six years,” Hayden explains. “He barely had a 6th-grade education, but he had an ability to capture an emotion in a three-minute song. I never get tired of listening to Hank.”
As for his own work, Hayden has been praised for his songwriting skills. One of his most potent compositions, “Centralia, PA,” recounts the tragic story of a town in Eastern Pennsylvania where a coal seam caught fire underground.
“It’s a town that has been abandoned,” he explains. “Many of the townspeople had illegally dug mine shafts into the coal, so the supply of oxygen can never get cut off and they’ve never been able to put out the fire. It’s going to burn for the next couple of hundred years.”
*****
It’s not often these days to hear up-and-coming musicians who can mesmerize an audience. Based on Oahu’s North Shore, brothers Ron Artis II and Thunderstorm Artis have been entrancing folks with their soulful, inspirational songs that defy easy categorization.
Sounding somewhere on a spectrum between Ben Harper and Jack Johnson, with a dash of Stevie Wonder, they infuse elements of funk, pop, folk, rap, blues and even flamenco into their original songs. And sung with the smoothest, silky vocals, many of their compositions are instantly memorable, the kind that you hear once and the melodies are etched in your brain.
Multitalented, in concert the two musicians slip between playing acoustic guitars and the cajon percussion box, with the occasional harmonica to help drive a blues song.
Named after his father, Ron Artis, Ron II is the eldest brother in a family of 11 children. Their dad was a well-known musician and mural artist who had a gallery in Haleiwa.
“I grew up around my pops, who played every kind of (musical) genre,” says Ron II. “He would listen to great artists like Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, music that has passion and meaning.”
“My dad stressed, I’m not going to teach you just one style,” adds Thunder. “So there would be Miles Davis, then Marvin Gaye, then Pavarotti, engulfing us in all of it.”
Their debut album, “What Music Means to Me,” highlights their gift for composing upbeat, meaningful ballads full of positive imagery.
Ron II says they love inspiring and uplifting people with their music.
“My dad once asked me, what’s my reason for playing music, and I said it’s to reach people, to give them something so that they feel loved,” he says. “The evening before, I had read in the Bible about if you’re only given ashes, give love back, if you’re getting hate, give love back. I feel that’s my reason. It’s so powerful to create music and reach people. We really focus on it (uplifting lyrics) because we’re planting seeds.”
Generally presenting an easygoing, laid-back musical approach, they pick up the beat on the blues number “Be a Little Light,” with Thunder wailing on harmonica, recalling the classic acoustic roots of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Focusing on their own material, they compose individually, and often spontaneously.
“We write most of our songs while we’re performing,” Ron II explains. “We go up on stage, look what’s going on, and write right then.”
Sometimes raps come spontaneously to Thunder.
“When I was younger, we called it spiritual improvisation,” he says.
One of the most moving songs on their album, “Before You Go,” was composed for Paula Fuga before they played together at the Doris Duke Theatre.
“I came across her doing a TEDx talk, telling the story of her history and how she had a rough beginning, and the song just started to grow,” Ron II explains. “We went up to her house and played it for her and she cried.”
“All of this pain, all of this confusion, will get you down,” they sing. “But don’t let it change you, just lift up your heart and fly. So before you go, we want you to know, that we love you as our own.”
* Ron Artis II and Thunderstorm will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s McCoy Studio Theater. Tickets are $20 and $30 (plus applicable fees) and are available at the box office, by calling 242-7469 or by visiting www.mauiarts.org.
*****
The nominations for the 2016 annual Na Hoku Hanohano Awards are scheduled to be announced Monday. Some recordings have already made the final ballot in categories, where there are five or less submissions.
Maui musicians already nominated include George Kahumoku Jr. and “Songs of the Hawaiian Cowboy,” and Jeff Peterson and “Oahu,” for Slack Key Album of the Year; Henry Allen and “Koele Mist,” and Jimmy C and “Love Wants to Dance,” for Jazz Album; and producers Steven and Lauren Burgess and “The Reflections Project,” for Compilation Album.