Transcript of an interview I recorded with Big Dad Ritch of TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION - 7/08/19. Full article here. MAL-
Right on the line, Ritch from TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION, Ritch, thanks for joining me today. RITCH- My pleasure, my pleasure. MAL- Let's just backtrack a little bit if you can just tell us a bit about the the formation of the band how you guys got together, RITCH- You know, you know wanting to start up a little band. So just started going around checking out local bands, and somebody might have a good guitar player and somebody might have a good drummer and somebody might have a good bass player and I just walk around and talk to the musicians that seem to be elite. And tell them when they come join my band or I'll beat them up. So that's how formed the band threatening people to beat them up, if they didn't come play with me. MAL- One thing that's always fascinated me, the name of the band, how did you come by that? RITCH- Well, you know, I'm from Texas, of course and you know, I'm just I'm proud to be a Texan and proud to be from Texas. And my parents were both hippies You know, my dad, is noted as one of the first people in North Texas to ever wear a bell bottoms, you know, we're always have these big, gigantic bell bottom pants when he was young, and my mom, she was just a long haired, you know, pretty little hippie girl. And they raised me with a lot of hippie ways. And I wanted to I wanted to make sure that when I formed this band that any fans that we could accumulate that they want to stay around the hang around for the long haul, and I wanted them to feel a part of it. So that's how we got the coalition and I just put them all together TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION, and it all relates back to one of my favorite things, which is THC. MAL- I read probably the best quote ever. When Loudwire was summing up the band. 'Sounded like the bastard that spawned from a threesome between MONSTER MAGNET, WILLIE NELSON and PANTERA'. How do you feel about that? RITCH- You know, that's awesome. That is absolutely beautiful, beautiful words put together to make an awesome statement. I'm a big fan of MONSTER MAGNET and have been ever since I first heard 'em. WILLIE NELSON, I've been listening to him my whole life. You know, I always tell everybody that. I'm the born again redheaded stranger. And I'm the new age new outlaw, redheaded stranger trying to pick up the where Willie and Waylon and all them outlaws left off. And PANTERA I mean, my goodness to be to be mentioned in the same sentence with those guys, that just makes you feel better than you probably should. I mean, but what's strange is that all three of those I'm very influenced by MONSTER MAGNET's vocabulary, lyrical content, not being afraid to reach or to go outside the box of WILLIE NELSON, his storytelling, song songs, how he can convey in three minutes. like a love novel, you know, he's just so good at what he does. And then, of course, PANTERA, who brought us what we all refer to as the power groove. And that's where I think TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION gets thrown in there because we have that great powerful groove that PANTERA had. So yeah, that's a it's a blessing to be, to have my name spoken with those great names. MAL- Right. Speaking of grooves, the new album, 'High In The Saddle', let's, let's talk about this. RITCH- Yeah, 'High In The Saddle', it's our I think it's our sixth album, overall. It's our first album with eOne. And we were lucky enough to be picked up by a great label like eOne and be able to get on that roster, a lot of great musicians, great bands, a lot of bands that I look up to, I mean, I'm always been a ZAKK WYLDE fan, big, gigantic fan of PRIDE AND GLORY and always loved BLS, of course, and then bands like AVATAR that you just, you know, when you go around, you go to festivals, you see certain bands on these festivals that are killing it, you know, they might not be the headliners, but like, you know, AVATAR and BLACK LABEL and bands like that, you know, CLUTCH, one of my favorite all time bands, but these bands or bands of these festivals that are just killing it now, I think that's, you know, how everybody discovered that TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION was at these big festivals, and they just go away talking about us, and you want to be the talk of the festival, so lucky enough to end up with eOne. But you know, this album here, we spent a little bit of extra time writing it, we had a lot more songs to choose from, felt like a lot of great songs got left off the album, and, you know, just this album, you know, it's, you know, the last album, there was some disappointments for me. I didn't feel like we had enough time, there was some disappointments and it felt rushed. This album didn't feel that way at all. It felt like we had all the time in the world to express the point we were trying to get across. And I'm happy with it. Very happy with it. MAL- Tell us about the song 'STEVIE NICKS'. RITCH- Yeah, you know, I always been a big fan of STEVIE NICKS. So I love FLEETWOOD MAC. You know, when people often asking me you know about members changing in the band, you know, it's hard to be out there in the touring world. Some people, they get bucked off the bull, and some people turn into anchors. And we all know how anchors are either gotta pull them up or cut them loose. So it's just kind of how it's been. And you know, I always tell everybody, don't worry about how many members have been in the band, because FLEETWOOD MAC had 26 band members before STEVIE NICKS and LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM ever even joined. So don't worry about it. members come and go. And that's what I tell all upcoming bands hey man just press on through, someone quits, or their old lady tells them they can't go just go without, you know, you just gotta keep on going. And STEVIE NICKS is just, you know, I just felt like I owed her something, you know, she's given me so many great songs. And, you know, when we talk about girls that you, you know, you inspire to be with you know, I, I always am attracted to the STEVIE NICKS kind of girl. You know, I always call it like, feminine, powerful, you know, she's, you know, a lot of girls, they think that power means, like, gotta act manly or be masculine, you know, but some of these girls should figure out that you can be powerful and feminine at the same time. And Stevie definitely has that down pat. So just kind of my way of paying homage to a woman I've had a crush on for many years. MAL- Hallelujah. How busy is the band these days? You mentioned the festivals before. How much is the band touring? RITCH- Well, we did. We went on a 10 week tour earlier this year, we do we have a lot of one week out, you know, we run off and do that, coming up here in August, we have a run where we're going to do with a biker rally up in Minnesota. And then we got an another show that we're doing for Harley Davidson in September, big festival up in Carolina. So that'll keep us busy. And then in October and November we'll be running out on another seven week tour. And then we always do stuff for Cancer Sucks and some Christmas stuff in Tulsa, Dallas and Eastern, right before Christmas. And then we always have big, New Year's Eve party in Colorado. Although we've already got about 12-13 weeks of touring in we'll have another 10 to 12 weeks of touring in before the end of the year. So we tour pretty heavily. Actually, back in the day, you know, we used to, we used to tour about 250 days out of the year. I think now we've got it down to about 175 MAL- Yeah, that's more like it. RITCH- Yeah, me a little bit more time on, I think some time on the lake fishing. MAL- You can't go on with that 'Sleep when I'm dead' stuff. You gotta take some time. RITCH- For real. MAL- Are you pretty big on those biker festival, biker rally things? RITCH- Yeah, you know, we play, we didn't play star just this year, we played it like two or three years in a row. And we this year, we had a few offers that were in other parts of the United States. So we weren't able to make it over there. But I'm sure we'll be back up there next year. And we we usually play about five to 10 biker rallies a year over here, some big some small. MAL- Yeah, okay. Is that where 'Ride Or Die' was inspired? RITCH- You know, 'Ride Or Die', in this in this world, you know, in the music business, you know, it's, you know, it's hard to make a friend that is a fan, you know what I mean? It's easy to have fans, and it's easy to have friends, you know, but you have so many fans, and we call our fans, our family, our extended family, you know, and we like to treat them like family, having meet and greets, eat and greets and stuff like that, you know, and getting to know people a little better. But some people you just end up getting to know even better, you end up really liking them and you're able to carry on a you know, a long a long term relationship. And there was a couple that we had met way back whenever TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION first started touring, and they were coming to every show up in the northern-mddle America. They were always coming out to the shows. And they just started bringing us food and hanging out. And we ended up drinking with them smoking with them and having a good time with them. And they became friends. And they were a lovely couple. They have been married when I first met them, they'd been married like about 33-35 years, somewhere in there. And they had this Harley Davidson. And I had asked him about the Harley and they told me, cos it was an old Harley. And they had told me that in the first year that they got married, they both had to work. And they both decided they wanted to have a Harley. So they put their money into this Harley Davidson invested, you know their money in it. And later on in life, you know, he went on to become an entrepreneur, was very wealthy. She was able to quit working and stay at home and be a stay at home mom and I had a pretty, you know, white picket fence type family life, you know, and they still had that same Harley Davidson and I asked him I was like, Well, you know, all these years all this good stuff. Why you still got that same Harley, you know, he goes without Harley's kind of like our marriage. It's been running hard, and it's been running long, and it's still running. And he said, it's mostly because we keep our marriage and the bike well oiled. You know, he's a little bit of a pervert, that's okay, you know, and they just had lived their whole lives together, you know, that bike well. He had lost her to cancer about three years ago, I think it was on their 30. They've been married for 41 years, I think. And she had passed away. And he had called me into told me about it. And I talked to him a little bit of trying to, you know, you know, try to just talk to him, mostly, just listen to him, you know, not say much, just listen. And then about three days after the funeral, he called me and he said, I'm fixing to go for a ride as my first ride since she passed. And it'll be my first ride alone on the bike. And I told him, I promise you, brother, you won't be alone. She's going to be there with you. Because as she was in life, she will be in death, she will be there for you. She is your Ride or Die Forever and always. And when I got off the phone, I knew I had to write that song. And it was very emotional for me, if you go back to the album's before, you can see that. You know, I don't really wear my heart on my sleeve. You know, our songs are all about having good times, rocking and rolling. Doing what you gotta do to get by to have a good time you know, drinkin and just good arena, good arena songs, good party songs, good driving around, you know, in your vehicle songs, running from the law songs, you know what I mean? And to have to sit down and write that song. You know, it was a, it was a tough one to pull out. I still, when I perform it live. I still am having you know, like the last couple of times, I'm starting to pull myself out of it. But I get a little choked up because the reason for the song and all the emotion for the song. It all comes over me. And it hits me pretty heavy. I mean, my guys in my band, when we first started doing it, they were coming up after the song going Hey, Big Daddy, are you all right? Yeah, man, I'm okay. I'm okay. Yeah, it's a it's a real song, man. And that's what we try to be as a real band that that writes real songs that have real meaning and can have a truthful and a real effect on someone when they hear it and that song's mighty powerful. MAL- Excellent. What a great story. Right, Ritch from TEXAS HIPPIE COALITION. Thanks so much for having a chat to me. Great album, 'High In The Saddle'. Best of luck with that. And once again, thanks for taking the time and taking my call today. RITCH- Hey, my pleasure, Mal. Thank you so very much. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |