Cody Hanson Interview
By the looks of them, you’d expect Hinder to be all out Grunge rockers, so it’s a little surprising that their claim to fame is more of a ballad. “Lips of an Angel” catapulted the band to the mainstream in 2006, and while their debut album, “Extreme behavior” received mixed reviews, (ALLMUSIC dubbed it “one of 2005’s worst albums” but it reached triple platinum status) Hinder toured for the masses and their legions of fans, the Hinder Army, and have since released two more albums on their label, Universal. With no single doing nearly as well as the previously mentioned, the band is striving to keep things fresh, and hoping their latest album, “All American Nightmare” will produce a single as successful as, if not more so than, their major hit. I spoke with Guitarist and one of the founding members of the band, Cody Hanson, about all of this.
By the looks of them, you’d expect Hinder to be all out Grunge rockers, so it’s a little surprising that their claim to fame is more of a ballad. “Lips of an Angel” catapulted the band to the mainstream in 2006, and while their debut album, “Extreme behavior” received mixed reviews, (ALLMUSIC dubbed it “one of 2005’s worst albums” but it reached triple platinum status) Hinder toured for the masses and their legions of fans, the Hinder Army, and have since released two more albums on their label, Universal. With no single doing nearly as well as the previously mentioned, the band is striving to keep things fresh, and hoping their latest album, “All American Nightmare” will produce a single as successful as, if not more so than, their major hit. I spoke with Guitarist and one of the founding members of the band, Cody Hanson, about all of this.
Can you give us a little background info, how did the band form?
CH: Our guitar player, Joe, and I, we met in college. We had known each other for a few weeks, and we decided to throw a party and invite a couple cover bands to come and play, and that’s kind of how we formed. We played for a couple years, and then picked up Mike and Mark right before we signed our deal with Universal. Then we made a record, and that whole thing blew up, so we’ve been doing it ever since.
You’re most notably known for “Lips of an Angel,” was that song written from actual events?
CH: Yeah, absolutely. Austin and I were doing the writing, for the first record, and I had this guitar progression, and we were working it out, and he came in and told me the story, about what had happened. We came up with the line, “Honey why you calling me so late” and we kind of just went, ‘alright, we definitely got to write about that.’ It’s a situation everybody’s been in, so we decided to write it. It was really fast, I think we wrote it in like 15 minutes or something like that. So, the rest is history.
Does all of the writing tend to go that smoothly?
CH: ::laughs:: We do write pretty fast for the most part, but every once in a while you’ll get that song that you kind of have to dig in on, I think you know right away what’s a good line, or a good melody. So, everything’s usually pretty fast.
Is writing totally collaborative with you guys?
CH: Yeah, it’s always been us, and sometimes there’ll be co-writers involved. Especially on this new record, we did a lot of co-writes, with a bunch of different people. We kind of traveled everywhere and wrote with everybody that we could think of just to put a different flavor and different elements into it.
“Lips of an Angel” was actually covered just a few months later by country artist, Jack Ingram. What was that like?
CH: That’s awesome. Anytime your music gets out there for more people, and in a different genre, that’s cool. The fact that somebody liked our song enough to cover it, or thought it was a big enough hit to cover it, that’s just always awesome.
“All American Nightmare,” is that what you guys are touring for right now?
CH: It’s been out for about a year. Its early days for the record for us, we’re hoping anyway. We’re only on the second single; it’s kind of doing its thing, so we’ll see what happens. We’re hoping that we can release a few more off of this one. We’ve been touring since before the record came out. We’re actually in Peoria right now, and then we have a couple weeks off, then a few more shows. Then we’re headed back out for about seven weeks, starting up July 14th.
What do you guys tend to do during that off time, and in between recording?
CH: I don’t know what everybody else does. I kind of do my own thing. I’m constantly working in the studio, and with other bands, and writing songs, just always working on music.
Do you play with other bands, or are you more like a producer? What goes on with that?
CH: I do a lot of writing and producing for other bands.
Anybody of note that we should be looking out for?
CH: I’m actually co-managing and co=producing for this band called “Nine Left Dead” they have a single coming out, July 12th, I believe, and then the album is coming out in August, so that’s a cool project, everybody should look out for that.
You guys did a music video for the cover of “Born to be Wild” for NASCAR. Are you guys NASCAR fans?
CH: We don’t really get a chance to pay attention much, but it’s huge so you definitely have to respect it. We don’t really get into it a whole lot, but I understand why other people do, that’s for sure.
That was a very politically correct answer…
CH: ::laughs:: hey, can’t f*** up any contacts you know!?
Now, there’s a rumor out there… that you guys send someone out into the crowds of your shows, on a search for “hot chicks” to give VIP passes too… any truth to that?
CH: Well, yeah, uhm, that’s absolutely ::long pause:: definitely true. We have an assistant, and we send him out with passes, to find the best looking ladies. We sit on a bus and stare at each other all day, that’s not a lot of fun; we have to mix it up.
So you mentioned you have the album that’s been out for about a year, but when do you decide it’s time to go back in and start writing and recording again?
CH: We’re always coming up with different ideas while we’re out on the road. I guess whenever we see this thing kind of start to slow down; we’ll hit it hard, and go back in and start working for the next one. But this one’s still going strong, and I think we have a lot of life left in this one, so we’ll see.
Where does the influence for your writing come from?
CH: Most of the time its personal experience. There’s always something happening to one of us that will influence us. Or we just have to look around and see what’s happening in the world, or the industry. It kind of depends on what we’re feeling, or what we’re going through at the time I guess.
Once this tours over, what are you guys planning on doing next?
CH: We’re going to be headlining, coming up in July, for a while. We’ve got “My Darkest Days” coming out with us, and that band I mentioned earlier. I’m not sure who the fourth band on the bill is going to be yet, but we’ll be headlining for a while, and hopefully we can keep that going.
Alright, well, I really appreciate the time, Is there anything else you want us to know, or do you have anything you want to say to your fans, or people who may just be discovering you?
CH: Well, we’ve been around for a long time, so hopefully most of the readers have checked us out, but if not, I think this record is a really deep record, a really strong record. It’s not like most rock records that you go and check out, and it’s a few singles, and the rest is filler. We’re really proud of this record; we worked really hard on this. We’re really focused on the singles, “What Ya Gonna Do?” So go out and request it! Our fans are bad ass. They’re always ready to party and throw down, and we love that. For all those people who have supported us and come out to shows, I just want to say thinks, and hopefully they’ll stick with us.
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