By Andrew Bansal
One of the best things to have happened to the Los Angeles heavy music scene in recent times, Gypsyhawk are going from strength to strength in their quest for rock n’ roll domination. Following their debut full-length release ‘Patience & Perseverance’ in 2010, this ‘king of the good times’ band started breaking out of the Los Angeles local scene, but things really started rolling for these guys once they put out their second album ‘Revelry & Resilience’ via Metal Blade Records in early 2012 and began touring actively, sharing the stage with the likes of The Sword and many other great bands. Currently, they are on an all-out rock n’ roll tour with Scorpion Child, Kadavar, Wilson and Mothership, and as I experienced for myself at the LA show of this tour on September 24th, the party vibe emanating from this lineup of bands is strong. A couple of days after the show, I had a chat with singer/bassist Eric Harris to talk about this tour, future plans, covers, and all else Gypsyhawk. Chime in to the conversation below and do yourselves a favor, give these guys a listen.
Eric, it’s good to have you again on Metal Assault. First of all, how’s everything been going for you guys on this Scorpion Child tour?
(Laughs) Well, it’s gone pretty good for the most part but it’s the first tour where we’ve been facing problems. At the beginning of the tour, we couldn’t get a tire of our van fixed for three or four days. We took it to three different places, and last night we missed a show in Tempe because our trailer has been busted for two days. We had a lot of stuff done on it. And then we’ve had pretty long drives, but despite all that it’s still a lot of fun!
Sucks to hear that. Is everything in the van fixed for the next show though?
Yeah, everything is totally fixed now. Our new guitarist Ben Robbins’ family helped, and out in Wilcox AZ the engineer knew how to do everything and helped us fix all the problems in the trailer and reinforced everything. So we’re back on the road and we’re super stoked.
All the problems aside, the shows themselves must be going well because I think it’s an excellent lineup and a great fit for your musical style to tour with these bands.
Yeah man, totally! And on top of that, all of us are good friends so it’s great fun just to be hanging out with these dudes. It’s pretty tight!
You were also running an IndieGoGo campaign because you guys ideally wanted to buy a new van before this tour, but you were not able to do that. Did the campaign not live up to your expectation? What’s your assessment of it?
I don’t think we really had any expectations of it. It was more a case of we didn’t know what to do so we tried it out. It’s only yielded good enough amount of money to help us out get down the road and keep doing this. We’ll do something else in the future to make this happen but the campaign was still very, very helpful. We’re really thankful to everyone who took the time to contribute to it.
Do you think you have enough to finish out this tour and also do the next tour that you have with Alestorm in November?
Oh yeah, we’ll be able to do all those shows. That’s the idea.
You’ve been playing some new songs in recent shows as well. You did one at the LA show with Scorpion Child and a few at your headline shows. How far are you from working on a new album right now?
It will be recorded in March of next year, and we’re hoping to get a 10-song full album done by then. Right now, we have about five songs that are completed or near completion, and we’re just kind of working on that. We’ll take the time out to finish the album in March.
So, after this tour and the Alestorm tour, what’s the plan? Are you looking to jump on more tours or taking a break for the album?
We’re definitely going to be on a break after this year, for like the first couple of months with writing and recording the album in March. Then we’ll see what happens from there but we’re just going to pace ourselves.
Despite everything that’s happening off-stage on this tour and all the problems, when you guys get on stage, I can feel that you always have a good time and you make sure that the crowd is having a good time. So, is the show itself a stress-release kind of thing for you where you just let go and have fun?
Yeah, kind of. I mean, a lot of times it can be pretty nerve-racking to get up there but once you’re in the middle of doing it, it’s great.
I liked the cover of Rory Gallagher’s ‘I’m Not Awake Yet’ that you did the other night in LA. How did you actually come up with that particular choice?
Well, I listened to it mainly because one of my friends turned me on to it. I really liked that song and then I went and checked out his albums. That stuff is just incredible. That particular song sounded to me like something we could do, so I played it for everyone in the band and we all seemed to agree on it. So we tried to make it happen and we had a lot of rough nights trying to get it together but I think we finally pulled it off.
I think it fit perfectly into your set. It kind of sounded like your own song.
That’s rad! Because we try to do the covers verbatim and the only thing that translates differently is the fact that it’s us playing the song instead of the original band. But that Rory Gallagher tune is just so soft and acoustic that it just wouldn’t go over well in our set, so we had to come up with a way to make it sound like something we would do. I’m glad that it came out well like that.
Talking of the next album, I’ve heard some of the songs live but where do you think the album is going with the music?
Well, it’s probably going to be more along the lines of the second album. It’s certainly going to have stronger hooks and will catch people in a way that when you listen to it, you’re going to keep thinking about certain parts all day.
Just for people who’re familiar with you in the LA scene and elsewhere, is Ben Robbins your touring guitarist for the current run of dates or is he actually your new guitarist?
Ben Robbins is the guitarist for this tour, and we will make an announcement at the end of this tour once we get home. We just have to go over a few things in terms of everything we want to do moving forward, but he’s our guitarist right now and once the tour ends, we’ll let everyone know about what’s going on.
Related – Gig Review: Scorpion Child Brings Rock N’ Roll Touring Party To Hollywood
Visit Gypsyhawk on the web at:
facebook.com/GypsyhawkUSA
twitter.com/GypsyhawkUSA
instagram.com/GypsyhawkUSA
Remaining tour dates w/ Scorpion Child:
9/29: Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
10/1: St. Louis, MO @ The Firebird
10/2: Cleveland, OH @ Peabody’s
10/3: Toronto, ON @ Hard Luck Bar
10/4: Montreal, QUE @ II Motore
10/5: Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus
Tour dates w/ Alestorm:
11/11 Santa Ana, CA Yost Theater
11/12 Tempe, AZ Rocky Point Cantina
11/13 Las Vegas, NV LVCS
11/14 San Francisco, CA Thee Parkside
11/15 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theatre
11/16 Seattle, WA El Corazon
11/17 Vancouver, BC Funky Winkerbeans
11/18 Calgary, AB Republik
11/19 Regina, SK The Exchange
11/20 Winnipeg, MB Zoo Cabaret
11/22 Chicago, IL Reggie’s
11/23 Westland, MI Token Lounge
11/24 Cleveland, OH Peabody’s
11/25 Columbus, OH Shrunken Head
11/26 Pittsburgh, PA Altar Bar
11/27 London, ON Music Hall
11/28 Toronto, ON Mod Club
11/29 Ottawa, ON Mavericks
11/30 Montreal, QC Club Soda
12/01 Quebec City, QC Le Cercle
12/02 New York, NY The Studio @ Webster Hall
12/03 Teaneck, NJ Mexicali Live
12/04 Baltimore, MD Soundstage
12/05 Atlanta, GA Masquerade