Hootie & The Blowfish

Hootie & The Blowfish

SOLID AS A ROCK

After a Lengthy Hiatus, Hootie & the Blowfish Recapture Their Rockin' Groove
For the early part of the '90s, Hootie & the Blowfish were as ubiquitous on the radios of America as Waffle Houses are on the interstates of their Dixie stomping grounds. But after several platinum outings, the lil' ol' band from South Carolina began to lose a bit of steam and decided to take a break. During the downtime, the quartet played the odd show, and frontman Darius Rucker released a smooth, soulful solo album, Back to Then. Things in Hootie-ville started to get serious again in early 2002, when the band reconvened to record a back-to-basics, self-titled return to form. Five years after their last album of new material, Darius Rucker gave Barnes & Noble.com's David Sprague a cracked rearview look at the recent past.

Barnes & Noble.com: What brought about the decision for the band to take a break?

Darius Rucker: We'd been on the road pretty much nonstop since 1990, playing every show we could. It was time to take a step back and take a breather. It's not like we cut ties completely; we still played a couple of shows a month, and we still saw each other all the time.

B&N.com: Did doing your solo record enable you to bring something different to this album?

DR: I don't think it worked exactly that way. It was more a matter of having time to do the solo record that I wanted to, but with the intention of coming back to do another album with the band. Other things affected me, though -- having the time to relax, to come home and get married.

B&N.com: Which, if any, of the songs on the Hootie album surprised you -- insofar as they might've ended up radically different than when they started?

DR: It's sort of hard for us to surprise each other since we've been doing this so long, but "Little Darlin'," probably. That didn't really start out to have any country flavor at all, and we still play it real different live. That came about, actually, from Dean [Felber, bassist] and Don [Was, producer] sitting around and listening to a Fatboy Slim record.

B&N.com: Don Was would seem like an offbeat choice of producer for you guys. How did you hook up?

DR: We'd been talking to a lot of people, and when we met with Don, it seemed to connect immediately. Instead of playing him some demos, we decided to play the songs live in the studio, and he related to us where we wanted to go in terms of spirit and music.

B&N.com: Was making the album an arduous process?

DR: Not really. We did a few overdubs, but most of what you hear on it is what we were playing live in the studio. Mark [Bryan, lead guitarist] likes to mess around with things a little, but I'm really not much of a tinkerer.

B&N.com: The single "Innocence" has a really poignant vibe. Where did that arise?

DR: Just from my own search, really. Everyone seems to lose their innocence so early, and getting it back is just about impossible. I really like to feel little bits of it now and then, though.

B&N.com: You've done an album largely made up of covers, Scattered, Smothered and Covered, but you've never put a cover on an album until this disc's version of the Continental Drifters' "The Rain Song." How come?

DR: I just love that song, and I've loved it for years. I really wanted to do it, but only if Vicki [Peterson] and Susan [Cowsill, both of the Continental Drifters] were around to do vocals on it. To me, they really make the song.

B&N.com: Woody Harrelson also puts in a guest spot.

DR: Yeah, we met at a show and became instant friends. We just started hanging out and spent a lot of time together around the time we were making the record.

B&N.com: He's a well-known hemp activist. Did he teach you about its multiple uses?

DR: Oh yeah...I definitely know a lot more things to do with it now.

February 28, 2003