By: Rick Landers
Stacy Hogan
Multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer, producer and Nashville-based songwriter, Stacy Hogan, launched a tour earlier this year to promote his latest project, Sin Shake Sin, as well to feel the rush of performing in front of fans, and others new to his music.
As a producer, Hogan’s proven to be intuitively familiar with mixing boards and multi-tracks, he’s also produced hundreds of songs that run the full sonic range, from low groans and sweet melodies to the explosive bursts of hard edgy rock.
Hogan’s creative and technical work have been recognized with accolades, including the 2010 John Lennon Grand Prize, 2012 ASA Award International, Songwriter Universe #1, Songdoor Grand Prize, Dallas Songwriters Association Grand Prize; Song of the Year Award and more.
As a songwriter, he’s gathered over 20 major label cuts, with his music heard on CBS, NBC, E!, GAC, FOX and Spike TV. And he’s performed with Lady Antebellum and Grammy winner, Linda Davis, and Lovers & Liars (Universal).
Stacy’s shared the stage with Emmylou Harris, Shinedown, Hoobastank, Nickleback, Theory of a Deadman, Fuel and many more.
Like all of us, Hogan was hit up by the quarantine we face and while on tour in Cleveland, he was compelled to find his way back to Nashville.
Guitar International caught up with him as he was re-racking his work strategy and reflecting back on, not only the quarantine’s effect on his plans, but on how the theme of Sin Shake Sin, and many of its lyrics were cast in the plight of isolation, and our new world of social upheaval. Most notably, was the track, “The Mess We’ve Made”, that drove home the despair and fault lines of our built-community, pointing out its folly.
He had a record deal locked in, but was able to get released from it and put the album out himself. He set up a pre-order launch within two hours of the breaking of the record contract, as well as acknowledged his gratefulness for the label’s graciousness.
“The album plays like a stack of killer singles – memorable songs, incisive lyrics and an approach that evokes hints of Manson, Reznor, Fogerty and Dylan set against a pounding, rock’n’roll approved grind of gritty guitars and thunderous beats.” 9/10 stars.
Mark McStea – Guitar World magazine
******
Rick Landers: A short while ago, Nashville got hit by some devastating tornados. Were you in the line of fire and did they disrupt your latest project, Sin Shake Sin?
Stacy Hogan: Yes, just before the pandemic, our city was hit hard by a tornado. Most tornados touch down for less than 10 minutes. This one was a full hour of devastation. I saw it out my window just before we lost power. It flattened neighborhoods just a mile or two away. We were very lucky.
As for the project, we were trying to scramble to rehearse for our first tour and the rehearsal rooms were either damaged, without electricity, or impossible to get to from all the debris and road closures. We did manage to put together a show we were proud of. The tour was going amazing. The people, the energy, the response – through the roof.
Then, half way through the tour, the pandemic started spreading like wildfire through America. The mandatory quarantine all brought us back home to Nashville.
Rick: That had to be frustrating, given the amount of work that precedes and goes into a tour to make one happen. So, the Sin Shake Sin tour got off the ground, then hit a brick wall. But, what led up to it and tell us about the air play you were getting that motivated you to tour.
Stacy Hogan: This project was a personal indie studio project of mine that I had no clue if there was an audience for. It started to really grow on Spotify with 150,000 monthly listeners and 33 million streams, between Spotify and YouTube. FM and Sirius/XM Octane started to spin it.
Also, through a lot of TV/Film licensing, which ironically, I found the tunes being used for many “end of the world” / “quarantine” type scenarios, like the song “Can’t Go To Hell” on Amazon Prime’s original show BunkHeads, a show about the last people on earth, their quarantine fate, as well as the upcoming YouTube series, 1440, that’s got a similar “end of the world” theme.
Rick: The cover of your album, The Mess We’ve Made, now seems prescient with the girl in a gas mask.
Stacy Hogan: Yes, now it all seems a bit eerie with the 4-year old wearing the face mask. Now everywhere you go, kids wearing them. What’s very strange is that the inside cover of the artwork has the little girl in a quarantined town with spray painted walls saying, “No food, No jobs” with a newspaper stand that reads “Wall Street Hits All Time High”. Then I see just 2 days go on the news that Wall Street had its best day since 1938 and the bottom ticker on the same shot scrolled the words, “More than 16 million Americans have lost their jobs in 3 weeks”.
The album was recorded over 2018 and 2019. Then set for release the very same week we were all told to brace ourselves for this pandemic.
Rick: This COVID-19 scenario we find ourselves in must have seemed strange as it unfolded. How did your project come about and, in retrospect, have you gone back to revisit the similarities between it and real life today?
Stacy Hogan: The songs are meant to be both a reflection on what’s happening today, and a warning as to what can happen if we don’t make things change for the better. I didn’t expect things to mirror it so closely, so quickly. It’s the very opposite of what I want to happen. I actually just want these songs to become irrelevant in subject matter.
But now this week, people are posting songs from the first album (Lunatics and Slaves) (2014) on YouTube and calling them 2020 anthems. So, there’s still plenty of work to do. It was a trip seeing the reaction of fans on tour coming up to the merch booth and viewing the album art of The Mess We’ve Made for the first time. Every city, they would point out all the similarities of what eventually became our common reality.
Stacy Hogan: Yeah, Vital Found is book two in Kaydence Snow’s series, The Evelyn Maynard’s Trilogy.
I had no idea until a fan on Instagram messaged me and said they found my music, because it was mentioned in a book they were reading. They were surprised when I told them I hadn’t known about it. They sent me a screenshot.
I read “International Best Selling Author” on the book cover and thought.. “Oh, this is a real book.” [Laughs] Not a joke! I had to go out and buy a copy.
The author, Kaydence, and I ended up speaking on Instagram after more fans started tagging us in posts. We’re now officially both fans of each other’s work.
Rick: Tell us about your tour and how you found out it had to prematurely end?
Stacy Hogan: Looking at numbers on a Spotify chart from your studio chair definitely doesn’t compare to getting out and playing the songs live. Getting to meet all kinds of fans in cities I’ve never been. Add that to the joy of making new fans each night. It was wonderful.
We were six cities into the tour and had been to Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Moline and Detroit. I was running a sound check for the next show in Cleveland and heard that Ohio’s Governor, Mike DeWine, issued a quarantine.
Such insane timing. After waiting years to finally tour this project which is all about what may happen if we don’t listen to science or invest in our health care infrastructure, and stop being led to fight each other while others profit from our fear, the tour gets literally shut down by the government and now here we are fighting over science, health care, and money distribution from our quarantined homes.
Rick: On the whole, how do you view Sin Shake Sin, given today’s “stay at home” scenario?
Stacy Hogan: Personally, I miss my band! I miss playing music.
I knew if I were to ever do this project live, Lauren Phillips [bass] and Johannes Greer [drums] would be the first people I’d recruit. I’ve always found that playing music with friends you love and respect makes it that much more rewarding. Now, with this new scenario, we are in planning mode. Gearing up for exciting new things down the road when things get back to whatever becomes the new version of normal.
(Left to Right) Johannes Greer, Stacy Hogan, and Lauren Phillips – Image: Courtesy S. Hogan.
Rick: How have your audiences reacted to the project?
Stacy Hogan: The audiences are amazing. Just going to YouTube and typing in “Sin Shake Sin” you’ll see fifty times more fan created content than official content from me. Their lyric videos get tens of millions of hits and in some cases out perform the official ones. Which I love.
Fans spreading the word and creating new audiences that I otherwise would have never reached. For example, the Nightcore community has really embraced my music. Nightcore, I eventually learned, is a sub-genre where you listen to music sped up and higher pitched, and easily tens of thousands of people have heard sped up Nightcore versions of my music first, before ever hearing the original. It’s a new world out there for listeners. I’m all for it.
Audiences of all ideologies seem to dig the music because it calls out the BS we all can agree on, systematic corruption, greed, misinformation, and the rights of the people are still something we at our core all believe in, even though it can all depend on simply what news channel you watch as to whether you hate your neighbor for their version of the same beliefs.
Rick: I know you’re a multi-instrumentalist, so did you play all the parts on the album?
Stacy Hogan: Yes. This project has always been a one-man-band until we hit the road. I love the experimentation of getting everything out creatively in the studio, until ultimately I’m satisfied. Then going on tour and watching it blossom with a whole new energy being translated to the crowd. It’s a best of both worlds scenario and I can’t wait to pick up where we left off.
Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, Stacy Hogan – Image by M. Hogan
“Will there be anyone left to clean up the mess we’ve made?
All this blood on our hands won’t wash away
My brothers and sisters are locked inside a cage.
Will there be anyone left to clean up the mess we’ve made?”
“Are we a disease masquerading as the cure?”
– song: “The Mess We’ve Made”
“We watched as our city turned into a ghost town
While the saints on the avenue try on their new crowns”
song: “Speechless”
“Look at us now. Tell me what have we become
Somehow, we watched our whole world come undone
I can’t believe it ever had to come this far
but now I see.. just how stronger we are”
song: “Step Down”
“I won’t live my life behind this barricade. I’ve seen a young man die no matter how he prayed”
song: “Avalanche”
It’s too early for surrender too late for a prayer
We can’t go to hell if we’re already there
They say the end is coming and I need to prepare
We can’t go to hell if we’re already there
song: “Can’t Go To Hell”
Lies are shining.. Truth is fading .. if hope is coming, I’m still waiting.
– song: “Lunatics and Slaves”
