People may think that the children of movie stars and musicians have it easy. Well sometimes they do and other times they dont. At the age of 33 Hank Williams III has had quite the colorful life. Hes done nearly every drug you can find. Hes been playing music since he was a kid and after years of being stuck in country western loop hes broken out with the double disc album Straight to Hell.
Buy Straight to Hell
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Hank Williams III: Nada. Just got done walking the dog.
DRE: What kind of dog do you have?
HW: My dog is half-hound, half Doberman and Ive got two strays that Im hooking up with homes. Ones a foxhound and the others just a black-looking dog that you always see running around that no one really picks up. Ones going to St. Louis and the others going to Oklahoma.
DRE: Youre a very benevolent person.
HW: Yeah, man.
DRE: What inspired Straight to Hell?
HW: Ive been in the game for ten years and I only have two albums to show for it. Do the math, that aint correct. My dads got 87 records out. Frank Zappa had 80 out by the time he died. Most people with a contract all you got to do is turn in songs. Since I've been sat on for so long I gave them 13 on the regular album then another 12 on the second record.
DRE: There are two CDs on this album; do you consider them two separate albums?
HW: I consider them part of a whole. One's kind of done right, the other's kind of done wrong. As far as the first CD, it's got all your regular type songs and that other stuff. The second CD, some of the songs are just me, a guitar and a tape recorder. That's the way I look at it from a production standpoint of view.
DRE: The second one is more like noise music.
HW: Yeah, more ambient. Unlike anything that's come off Music Row for the last ten years. Lot of samples leading into songs, that's all it is.
DRE: What made you want to do something more ambient?
HW: With the stoner bands I'm into, sometimes their whole CD is nothing but a hidden track. Sometimes you got to listen to 40 minutes of noise before you hear one song. When I was on federal probation, I did probably over about 2000 hits of acid. That probably had something to do with it, too. Illegal drugs they couldn't find in my piss.
DRE: How many years were you on probation?
HW: That was five years, from the time I was 16 to 21. I was living with this crazy family of 12 people and all we did was take acid and fuck around in the jam room, when I was doing my gigs with Buzzkill and stuff. I'm sure that has something to do with getting my brain to where it is.
DRE: How old are you now?
HW: 33.
DRE: Do you take drugs anymore?
HW: I might take some here and there but I just can't take it as much as I used to. The immune system ain't holding up. If I take a hit now I got to take four days to recover. I'm not partying on the road or nothing. Sometimes I get to do it after a tour once in a while, but that's about it. My way of partying is taking a hit and playing music on drums or guitar. It's not going to a bar and getting wasted with friends. I'd rather sit by myself and look at the different patterns you can come up with.
DRE: I'll bet you get some real dirty-looking groupies coming to your shows.
HW: Here and there. We get some of the crunchy ones, some of the more punk rock girls, we get some train-hopping kids. Those are probably the dirtiest, train-hopping kids. We get a pretty wide variety, from 18 to 80.
DRE: Do the 80 year olds think they are coming to see your dad?
HW: Maybe that's just how deep the Hank Williams name goes. They go to the show just to hear that one Hank Williams song. Sometimes making it all the way through AssJack. They tell me I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing your own thing and I'll respect you for that.
DRE: What made you want to cover your grandfather's song, I Could Never Be Ashamed Of You?
HW: That's a live thing. I pay respects to where I came from like to my granddad, my dad, David Allen Coe and Johnny Cash. We always have a 15 minute part of the show that's nothing but paying respects, simple as that. We give all those punk rock kids that don't know who the fuck who is in country music a little taste of some of the outlaws. They might identify with them in another eight to ten years when you get to their I want to kill everybody phase.
DRE: I spoke to the filmmaker, Melvin Van Peebles and he told me he sold the rights to his life for his son to make a film for a dollar. How much did you have to pay for your grandfather's song?
HW: I hope nothing. The lawyers figured it out. The one song that I really wanted on the record that didn't make it on was Satan is Real by the Louvin brothers. They wanted $25,000 dollars for a fucking 20 second sample. I said, "You're out of your fucking mind." That sucked. We had to go recreate it and not use the original cut. The very first person I opened up for was Charlie Louvin.
DRE: What did recording on the Korg D-1600 do for you?
HW: It sets an example that people that run the business. You don't have to go spend $200,000 on a studio and be in debt for the next four or five years. It's a $500 machine. Being in a studio isnt going to make people like your stuff better. Do it yourself. It ain't that hard. It's just songwriters and a jam room. It's the ultimate songwriting tool.
DRE: You covered Pills I Took from Those Poor Bastards, when did you meet them?
HW: I met The Minister at a Superjoint show in 2003. He came up to me and said, "Here's something you might like, it's what I do on the side." Next thing I knew, I was listening to that album for a year.
DRE: Do you think that it was inevitable that you were going to do country western style music?
HW: I resisted it for a while until a judge told me that playing music is not a real job, so it was time for me to get a real job. I wanted to show that I can play fucking music and pay your fucking back child support and all that shit. I got taken by a girl. After I got a girl pregnant on a one night stand she waited three years to take me to fucking court. They served me papers on stage and tried to squeeze $50,000 out of a 19 year old kid playing drums. Her dad was a pig. Three years is the longest you could wait to collect that money. In court a judge told me to give up music and get a real job. Thats when i signed my soul to the devil, Mr. Mike Curb [Chairman of Curb Records].
DRE: Have you always played music?
HW: I always thought I was going to be a player, yeah. I had my first drum set when I was nine. I was in a band by the time I was 15. They were more metal, punk rock, hardcore. As I said, I always thought I'd be a player but I didn't really care to be up front or anything like that.
DRE: Do you play venues that arent country western style?
HW: It took a good five years for us to get the respect of the rock clubs. Now we play nothing but rock clubs.
DRE: You guys travel overseas yet?
HW: I've been over there. I said I wasn't going back until I get a rock album out. Whenever I get a rock album out, I'll go back and do it. Things have changed. Being in a Superjoint Ritual brought a whole new awareness to the kids in black. We'll have a much better time when we go back over there.
DRE: How did you hook up with Phil [Anselmo]?
HW: When I was 17 I was playing drums in a band called Buzzkill. Phil was in town here at a studio and when he wasn't doing vocals for the album, he was going to other shows. After one gig we hung out and talked.
DRE: Do you go online much?
HW: Oh yeah. When I bought my computer, I bought it for gaming and porn. Now I use it a little bit for business. You're talking to a man who won a $30,000 truck for racing in a game online.
DRE: What happened?
HW: Out of a thousand drivers I made it to the final four and walked away with a brand new, 2001 Toyota Tundra.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Straight to Hell
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Hank Williams III: Nada. Just got done walking the dog.
DRE: What kind of dog do you have?
HW: My dog is half-hound, half Doberman and Ive got two strays that Im hooking up with homes. Ones a foxhound and the others just a black-looking dog that you always see running around that no one really picks up. Ones going to St. Louis and the others going to Oklahoma.
DRE: Youre a very benevolent person.
HW: Yeah, man.
DRE: What inspired Straight to Hell?
HW: Ive been in the game for ten years and I only have two albums to show for it. Do the math, that aint correct. My dads got 87 records out. Frank Zappa had 80 out by the time he died. Most people with a contract all you got to do is turn in songs. Since I've been sat on for so long I gave them 13 on the regular album then another 12 on the second record.
DRE: There are two CDs on this album; do you consider them two separate albums?
HW: I consider them part of a whole. One's kind of done right, the other's kind of done wrong. As far as the first CD, it's got all your regular type songs and that other stuff. The second CD, some of the songs are just me, a guitar and a tape recorder. That's the way I look at it from a production standpoint of view.
DRE: The second one is more like noise music.
HW: Yeah, more ambient. Unlike anything that's come off Music Row for the last ten years. Lot of samples leading into songs, that's all it is.
DRE: What made you want to do something more ambient?
HW: With the stoner bands I'm into, sometimes their whole CD is nothing but a hidden track. Sometimes you got to listen to 40 minutes of noise before you hear one song. When I was on federal probation, I did probably over about 2000 hits of acid. That probably had something to do with it, too. Illegal drugs they couldn't find in my piss.
DRE: How many years were you on probation?
HW: That was five years, from the time I was 16 to 21. I was living with this crazy family of 12 people and all we did was take acid and fuck around in the jam room, when I was doing my gigs with Buzzkill and stuff. I'm sure that has something to do with getting my brain to where it is.
DRE: How old are you now?
HW: 33.
DRE: Do you take drugs anymore?
HW: I might take some here and there but I just can't take it as much as I used to. The immune system ain't holding up. If I take a hit now I got to take four days to recover. I'm not partying on the road or nothing. Sometimes I get to do it after a tour once in a while, but that's about it. My way of partying is taking a hit and playing music on drums or guitar. It's not going to a bar and getting wasted with friends. I'd rather sit by myself and look at the different patterns you can come up with.
DRE: I'll bet you get some real dirty-looking groupies coming to your shows.
HW: Here and there. We get some of the crunchy ones, some of the more punk rock girls, we get some train-hopping kids. Those are probably the dirtiest, train-hopping kids. We get a pretty wide variety, from 18 to 80.
DRE: Do the 80 year olds think they are coming to see your dad?
HW: Maybe that's just how deep the Hank Williams name goes. They go to the show just to hear that one Hank Williams song. Sometimes making it all the way through AssJack. They tell me I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing your own thing and I'll respect you for that.
DRE: What made you want to cover your grandfather's song, I Could Never Be Ashamed Of You?
HW: That's a live thing. I pay respects to where I came from like to my granddad, my dad, David Allen Coe and Johnny Cash. We always have a 15 minute part of the show that's nothing but paying respects, simple as that. We give all those punk rock kids that don't know who the fuck who is in country music a little taste of some of the outlaws. They might identify with them in another eight to ten years when you get to their I want to kill everybody phase.
DRE: I spoke to the filmmaker, Melvin Van Peebles and he told me he sold the rights to his life for his son to make a film for a dollar. How much did you have to pay for your grandfather's song?
HW: I hope nothing. The lawyers figured it out. The one song that I really wanted on the record that didn't make it on was Satan is Real by the Louvin brothers. They wanted $25,000 dollars for a fucking 20 second sample. I said, "You're out of your fucking mind." That sucked. We had to go recreate it and not use the original cut. The very first person I opened up for was Charlie Louvin.
DRE: What did recording on the Korg D-1600 do for you?
HW: It sets an example that people that run the business. You don't have to go spend $200,000 on a studio and be in debt for the next four or five years. It's a $500 machine. Being in a studio isnt going to make people like your stuff better. Do it yourself. It ain't that hard. It's just songwriters and a jam room. It's the ultimate songwriting tool.
DRE: You covered Pills I Took from Those Poor Bastards, when did you meet them?
HW: I met The Minister at a Superjoint show in 2003. He came up to me and said, "Here's something you might like, it's what I do on the side." Next thing I knew, I was listening to that album for a year.
DRE: Do you think that it was inevitable that you were going to do country western style music?
HW: I resisted it for a while until a judge told me that playing music is not a real job, so it was time for me to get a real job. I wanted to show that I can play fucking music and pay your fucking back child support and all that shit. I got taken by a girl. After I got a girl pregnant on a one night stand she waited three years to take me to fucking court. They served me papers on stage and tried to squeeze $50,000 out of a 19 year old kid playing drums. Her dad was a pig. Three years is the longest you could wait to collect that money. In court a judge told me to give up music and get a real job. Thats when i signed my soul to the devil, Mr. Mike Curb [Chairman of Curb Records].
DRE: Have you always played music?
HW: I always thought I was going to be a player, yeah. I had my first drum set when I was nine. I was in a band by the time I was 15. They were more metal, punk rock, hardcore. As I said, I always thought I'd be a player but I didn't really care to be up front or anything like that.
DRE: Do you play venues that arent country western style?
HW: It took a good five years for us to get the respect of the rock clubs. Now we play nothing but rock clubs.
DRE: You guys travel overseas yet?
HW: I've been over there. I said I wasn't going back until I get a rock album out. Whenever I get a rock album out, I'll go back and do it. Things have changed. Being in a Superjoint Ritual brought a whole new awareness to the kids in black. We'll have a much better time when we go back over there.
DRE: How did you hook up with Phil [Anselmo]?
HW: When I was 17 I was playing drums in a band called Buzzkill. Phil was in town here at a studio and when he wasn't doing vocals for the album, he was going to other shows. After one gig we hung out and talked.
DRE: Do you go online much?
HW: Oh yeah. When I bought my computer, I bought it for gaming and porn. Now I use it a little bit for business. You're talking to a man who won a $30,000 truck for racing in a game online.
DRE: What happened?
HW: Out of a thousand drivers I made it to the final four and walked away with a brand new, 2001 Toyota Tundra.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 24 of 24 COMMENTS
milloux:
So rad. Nice call out to Those Poor Bastards.
mrdeeds:
He puts on a fantastic show, glad I have been able to see him