{"id":803878,"date":"2020-02-06T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=947428"},"modified":"2020-02-06T08:00:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T15:00:32","slug":"neil-hagerty-is-back-as-howling-hex-and-hes-100-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/neil-hagerty-is-back-as-howling-hex-and-hes-100-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Hagerty Is Back as Howling Hex and He\u2019s \u2018100% Real\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Fat Possum Records gave Neil Hagerty the finances to record his most recent record as Howling Hex<\/a>, he made a pledge. \u201cEveryone in the Midwest is walking around high and dying on OxyContin,\u201d Hagerty tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201c[I told the label] that I would just drive around in the Midwest for 200 days next year with this new band the Howling Hex. Because this fits the times. It\u2019s a mess out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

That album, Knuckleball Express<\/em>, drops April 17th \u2014 and Thursday, Rolling Stone<\/em> is premiering the first single \u201cLies.\u201d The album also features singer-guitarist Nicole Lawrence and producer Clay Jones (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello, Townes Van Zandt). It was recorded in Hagerty\u2019s hometown of Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Lies\u2019 is sort of my motto, man,\u201d Hagerty says. \u201cI mean it\u2019s just effective. A is a lie is a lie. You know, even if you have 100 million people believe it, the energy that you need to sustain that, you know, isn\u2019t worth it. So, I try not to internalize lies. So, this is kind of a fun romp. If you want to die, believe in lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song, and album, is everything you\u2019ve come to expect from the former Royal Trux<\/a> member: Screaming electric guitars, harsh-edged vocals and a kind of self-aware absurdity. \u201cI play rock and roll,\u201d he says. \u201cYeah, it\u2019s got a little spice, a little more clownish. You know, it\u2019s never meant to be heavy. It\u2019s like it\u2019s ridiculous on the face of it. But that was supposed to be the line. There\u2019s a line where you\u2019re looking across the gap and joining the hands and not mocking each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cRock and roll is what\u2019s missing in bands these days that take a generic approach to playing that\u2019s almost machine-like,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe don\u2019t need that anymore because machines can actually do it. I don\u2019t see what the difference is between a precise human drummer playing to a click track and EDM. There\u2019s some weak dad-rock stuff being distributed now by people my age, so I\u2019m just trying to up the ante. I get on stage and say all the words I believe in my daily life. Not every dad can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Royal Trux ostensibly reunited for 2019\u2019s White Stuff<\/em><\/a>. The band, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema, was active from the late Eighties to the early Aughts, breaking onto the scene in the aftermath of Nirvana \u2014 a period of time when major labels were fiending after alternative acts. They signed a massive contract with Virgin Records but soon decamped to indie label Drag City when the major label and alt band proved a poor fit. Hagerty and Herrema parted ways in the early Aughts \u2014 both as bandmates and romantic partners<\/p>\n

The duo came together for reunion shows in 2015 and to record White Stuff<\/em>, but Hagerty says he was muscled out of the recording process of that album and has yet to hear the finished product. Tours for the albums were canceled, and it seems as though Royal Trux is well and truly dead. \u201cIt was like the easiest thing in the world we could have done,\u201d Hagerty muses. \u201cJust keep personal things out of it. We can\u2019t manage that ourselves, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a life, you know? So, I went back to Denver,\u201d he adds. \u201cI was hanging out there, smoking weed all the time and writing songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that songwriting, however, yielded Knuckleball Express<\/em>, which Hagerty says he\u2019s far more confident about than White Stuff<\/em>. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to really big get known \u2018til I got older. So, this is my one chance to fail,\u201d he says. \u201cI just wanted to make a certain amount of money and not have a second job, man. I\u2019m excited. Because it\u2019s a different thing than Royal Trux. I mean, it\u2019s just literally me being 100% real.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Fat Possum Records gave Neil Hagerty the finances to record his most recent record as Howling Hex, he made a pledge. \u201cEveryone in the Midwest is walking around high and dying on OxyContin,\u201d Hagerty tells Rolling Stone. \u201c[I told the label] that I would just drive around in the Midwest for 200 days next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-23 13:52:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}