Sat 10/15 @ 8PM
For the last 15 years, Kent-based singer-songwriter Roger Hoover has explored his Americana, blues and folk roots with the Whiskeyhounds and the Magpies. While those acts garnered regional attention, breaking out of Northeast Ohio proved to be elusive.
However, change is afoot in the singer-guitarist’s career. Hoover is about to enter a new chapter with the release of his solo debut Pastures, which is filled with stories about the everyman. The American songwriter has booked an Oct. 15 album release show at Peninsula’s G.A.R. Hall.
CoolCleveland talked to Hoover about the impetus behind Pastures and why he’s hoping to seize the moment.
Congratulations on Pastures, which is your first true solo effort. Why did you feel the time was right to go at it alone?
Stylistically, I’ve always used American roots music as sort of a foundation of what I do. That much hasn’t changed, but with this record, I didn’t take as much input from people playing on the record as I did in the past. I just relied on my intuition. It’s a lot more organic for me to go about it from a solo approach. I can work by myself. It was much easier than getting a band together and rehearsing. When it came time to record the album, the players came in and with very little rehearsal just cut the tracks quickly.
In terms of your past releases, specifically band projects, how is the material on Pastures different?
These songs can either be played with a band or solo, which a lot of the stuff in the past that I recorded relied on a piano part as a hook. And to play some of those songs live without having those band members, it seemed sort of like a rip-off to me because everything was so vital. But now I can take this band on the road or go solo and still get the same emotion across to the audience.
Tell us about a few new songs that have you excited?
One of the songs is “Just a Little.” I’m really proud of the song in terms of songwriting and craft but also the way the band performs it. We’ll be performing that quite a bit in the next few weeks. There’s rowdier stuff on there too. A song called “Dusk,” that’s really a throwback to like Slim Harpo swamp blues. There’s a song called “Always on My Mind” that I wanted to write as a love song but writing a love song is too sort of cliché for me. So I did some digging and found something to base a love song off, which was a shipwreck on the Ohio River back in the 1870s. The song really comes across well with the audience. It’s a lot of fun to play.
It feels like Pastures is a real jumping-off point for your career.
I feel this is the end of a chapter and it’s starting a new one as well. This is the first record I have that has label support, publicity behind it. I’ve got a radio team behind it. And there’s going to be a lot of touring. I’ll be doing Europe next year. So it’s definitely a new chapter.
How daunting it is to have a machine behind your career?
You know, it was very daunting at first until I realized I could pick and choose who’s on my team and who I’m surrounded with. I was fortunate enough the label allowed me to do that, and I’m really excited with who I have working for me and the long-term goals we have set.
What are those goals?
Within the next six months it’ll be much larger. We just got off the Americana Music Fest and really turned some heads down there. We’ve already played 15 or 16 states in the past six months and played for some big audiences at festivals. I think our long-term goals are to keep expanding and building larger audiences regionally and across the sea. And then we’ll just keep expanding from there and head out west and to the south as well.
It sounds as though after 15 years of playing around Northeast Ohio, you’re ready to take a big step forward.
It’s happening now. And I think there’s a lot of things early on in my career that sort of either self-sabotaged or things just weren’t right that got in the way. Unfortunately the Whiskeyhounds and the Magpies both sort of crumbled under a lot of pressure and for a lot of different reasons. And then in 2010, I got divorced and had to sort of rebuild. What the divorce taught me was I wasn’t really a complete person at the time. I met my current wife, and she’s really helped me grow as a person. Last year she said, why don’t you really give it a shot? She said get a label, get a publicist and a manager. All of these things that seemed ridiculous happened. So I think the time is right for me now. I’m in a much better place and ready for whatever comes my way.
Ticket for the G.A.R. Hall show are $15 in advance, $20 day of show.