Hank Vegas

A few years ago, Chad Evans drifted down to South Georgia, where he tended his grandfather's ranch and lived in an old motor home that had been stripped of its engine. It was the perfect vehicle-a ready-made metaphor- for the obsessive "self-journey" that informs his song writing.
“I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, with just a grill and a bottle of whiskey among the palmettos and rattlesnakes,” he says. “That’s when I bought my first guitar.”
The Hispanic ranch-hands liked his strumming, as did the late-night crowd on the coast, where he roistered under the alias “Hank Vegas.” “The name started as an alter ego,” Evans says, just one more larky expression of his arch, high-camp sensibility.
With the addition of guitarist Rob Evans (no relation) and bassist Justin Smith, Hank Vegas now signifies one of indie rock’s most compelling new bands, known for literate, wistful-as-woodsmoke lyrics and vocals that are polychromatic to the point of iridescence. The Macon-based group’s debut album, The Things You Are was produced by Athens’s maestro David Barbe, who layered lush effects and nubby textures to sculpt a bas-relief soundscape you could trip over, in nine songs, including “Crazy with Fever” “Summer Frown,” and “Bikini Summer.”
“A lower-class romantic guy who seduces the debutantes on St. Simons” inspired the latter, Chad Evans explains. It’s also a meditation on identity that gives the collection its title: “the things you are” get determined “by the things you love.”
The things this band loves are as changing and colorful as a kaleidoscope.
“I believe in treating every day like Halloween,” Chad says, sctratching the reddish-brown stubble on his jaw like the philosophy major he once was. “Trying on different clothes, different roles everyday. Most people subscribe to whatever the first person who knocks on the door tells them, whether that person is an insurance salesman or an evangelist. I believe in the self journey without preconceived notions.”
His elegiac “scratch vocals”, ment as a guide during recordings (rather than the finished product), were used on the album. Normally, technically refined recordings replace these place-holding tracks, but not all the time. The singer’s country-nior coloratura finds an echo in the pedal-steel contributions of John Neff, a barbe cohort who plays with the Drive-By-Truckers.
“One reason the sound is so tactile is that we built it up with all kinds of subtle things from chromatic bells to a ‘singing bowl’ from Nepal, to the Dart keyboard, which when you hit a note, wavers, buzzes and sounds like it is crapping out because it’s so old and banged around,” says Rob. “We wanted character. And we love when Chad pines.”
Character and pinning. If Hank Vegas could be summed up in two words, those might work. These characters yearn with endearing flair.
Widening the corral
Their musicianship is gritty, with a shot of whiskey,” says Brad Broadrick, an Atlanta promoter who’s booked te band at the Star Bar. “Hank Vegas’ singer is reminiscent of the early days of Michael Stipe, and the guitar playing has a dose of Slim Dunlap from The Replacements.”
At first, Hank Vegas and the White Lightnin’ (Burt Reynolds figures prominently in the bands iconography) operated in the “alt. country” category. Lately though, Hank Vegas – minus the hooch handle – has added more Strun and Drum to its strum and twang.
“We’ve been influenced by the blues and the church and country music,” Chad says. “But we live in the global world. We’re not trying to do a pastiche of several genres because everything happens at once and as soon as a genre is born, it dies…”
Here is one secret of the groups emotional resonance reveals itself: Chad Evans’ quizzical spin. This Dixie Dylan is prone to gnomic, inscrutable pronouncements, prefaced with, “I’m lying, but this is the most truthful thing I’ve said all night…” Somewhere in those half-audible, conversational loop-de-loops are flashes of brilliance, and the band’s impressionistic lyrics serve as the most form-fitting framework for his musings. He is that rare individual who can expound on postmodernism without sounding pretentious because he is so sincere – and so southern. He wouldn’t feel alien in a Flanery O’Connor short story.
“I think his off Kilter, stream-of-consciousness way of thinking is surely a big part of why those songs are the way they are,” Barbe says. “And there’s that Macon thing. All the members come from there.”
The band members (all 30ish), who recorded next-door to R.E.M. long enough to mooch Micheal Stipe’s organic bean dip, synthesize the best qualities of down-home southern rock and jangly new wave, both of which claim deep, gnarled roots in Macon.
“They take sounds that have seeped into them and make something completely their own,” says Kirk West, the Allman Brothers Band’s tour manager. “So the songs sound familiar, but original, full of energy.” –Candice Dyer
- Georgia Music Magazine

Macon is a haunted place, one frequented by the ghosts all of familiar Southern tragedies and a few special victories – music prime among them. As much the birthplace of the kazoo as the birthplace of Southern Rock, the city’s reputation is at a point where it’s both trapped by its past and scuttling for a future. Of the latest crop of musicians pushing themselves out of the Allman Brothers’ shadow, Hank Vegas may be making the most unique music yet.

Once upon a time, the band was Hank Vegas and the White Lightning, and had an undeniably alt-country sound. On their first official release, The Things You Are, their music is a lot harder to define, a transformation that makes their re-debut at the Capitol Theatre so fitting. Both the band and the venue have been refitted with some new wheels, their previous incarnations tweaked to serve more than the original model.

The Things You Are opens with a raucous, rolling number, “Another Way to Lie.” The next, “A Long Way Down”, is a dark and moody trek, like a man dragging himself through a barren land. Though the band maintains a cohesive sound throughout, every track feels different, shifting. “Crazy With Fever” comes out like it’d been penned at a honky-tonk on a dare from a peyote-chewing Moe Bandy, playfully skirting above the pain of the lyrics themselves. When “Summer Frown” first plays, the listener wonders how he got in Hawaii. “To Beam” features a heavy, slightly off-center and complex beat that draws comparisons to My Morning Jacket, the other instruments and vocals balanced between train wreck and beauty. The last track, the only cover, “Just a Minute of Your Time” was penned by the late Brax Bragg, one of Bragg Jam’s namesakes.

Their transformation took place in Athens, at the Chase Park Transduction studios, home of producer Dave Barbe (the Drive-By Truckers, Son Volt and Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls). With Barbe’s help, Hank Vegas found itself digging deeper than before, infusing a greater creative range to dress out Chad Evans’ heartache-carved lyrics and his soft, salty vocals. It was a process that took weeks and some whittling down the demos Chad Evans recorded acoustically. “They were really open-minded and that’s what you have to be to make a good record,” Barbe says, “I can do a better job when the artists aren’t too hard set with preconceptions about their art.” Justin Smith (the Liabilities) welcomed the changes, playing keyboards and percussion in addition to the bass he normally wields. “Everyone sort of really expanded their roles in the studio,” Smith says. Both guitarist Rob Evans (no blood relation to Chad) and steel pedal specialist John Neff (Drive-By Truckers) wove their magic throughout, making the sort of adjustments that are subtle but huge.

Their plans to take this CD around the Southeast – with spot gigs in Chicago and New York – begin at the Cox Capitol Theatre with a line-up supplemented by keyboardist Heather Kemp (Oh Dorian) and multi-instrumentalists Will Robinson and Scott Baston, (Moonshine Still). Bringing in help like this is an effort to replicate on stage what they’ve put on the record. “We’d always been more of a studio band than a touring band anyway,” lead vocalist and songwriter Chad Evans says. “But now, we’re ready to get out there with this material.”

Is Hank Vegas the best Macon band since the Allman Brothers? Well, one way or the other they’re definitely a Macon band. “We love Macon,” Rob Evans says, “We’re really proud of Macon, to be from Macon.” Besides bands don’t – or shouldn’t – strive to replace legends. But… if Hank Vegas keeps this up, if they can outlive the turmoil that tears bands apart, and get enough people to pay attention, there’s a damn good chance their name will make the circuit with the bigger bands, those associated with modern, progressive, intelligent music. And with The Things You Are, they have the goods to make that happen. --Chris Horne

- The Eleventh Hour

Macon’s Hank Vegas serve up some gruff ‘n’ gritty country-rock on their new CD, The Things You Are, but certain cuts approach the effect of R.E.M.’s latter-day widescreen dream-pop. The Athens vets were recording in an adjacent studio at Chase Park Transduction at the same time as Hank Vegas were tracking their disc with producer and guest player David Barbe, and the vibrations and inspirations seem to have seeped through the walls. - Creative Loafing Atlanta

Featured artist on the Georgia Gazzette radio show December 2007. Based in Macon, Hank Vegas is a true, new-age, southern, rock band. Their heartache-carved lyrics mixed with screeching steel-guitar-sounding solo’s make a sound all too familiar, but just as addicting. Listeners describe this band as “REM with a steel guitar.” -- - Georgia Public Radio

Hank Vegas’ “To Beam” featured as number 8 on Paste Magazine’s “Our Favorite New Music” Sampler CD --January 2008 - Paste Magazine

"Macon has long been the breeding ground for a wide selection of earthy, timeless art -- and a bunch of bad blues bands. Whether or not the Hank Vegas catalog will remain a beloved staple of music history remains to be seen; for now, Chad Evans and company are riding a Central Georgia buzz of interest with a rootsy new album and strong ties to the legendary breeding ground of the Allman Brothers and the decidedly more progressive environs of Athens."
- - Creative Loafing

HANK VEGAS
(40 Watt) Macon singer-songwriter-guitarist Chad Evans fronts his band Hank Vegas - formerly known as The White Lightning and counting Rob Evans, Justin Smith and Athenians John Neff among its crew - turning out some spacious alt-country for fans of Gram Parsons, Bruce Springsteen and Centro-Matic. The Things You Are is the debut album, recorded here in Athens at Chase Park Transduction.



- Flag Pole

The year has just begun, but it's already shaping up to be a big one for Macon's Hank Vegas.

The band is featured in this month's Georgia Music Magazine, and it has a song, "To Beam," from its debut album featured as the No. 8 track on Paste Magazine's new "Our Favorite New Music" sampler CD. That's not all: Hank Vegas this week kicked off a tour of the Southeast with Sons of Roswell, which is scheduled to hit the Cox Capitol Theatre tonight.

Both bands hail from former music hotbeds - the Sons being from Muscle Shoals, Ala. - that haven't made a lot of noise as of late.

"I think this could mark an important point in the paths of both Macon, Georgia, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama," photographer Adam Smith, who has worked for such notable acts as Porter Wagoner, R.L. Burnside and the Drive-by Truckers, said in a news release. "I mean, those places have had an amazing impact on the American music landscape, and then there has been a relatively quiet period in both the cities for around 20 years.

"Now, Hank Vegas and the Sons of Roswell are breathing new, important life into those places. They're both really great bands."

Smith is now more the band's photographer. He recently stepped into a management role with Hank Vegas and helped team the group with Sons of Roswell for the tour.

"We're just proud to get a chance to get the new live act out there in front of more and more people, and promote what we think is a record that can stand up to numbers of great works," Smith said in the release.

The album, "There You Are," was produced by Drive-By Truckers producer David Barbe, who also contributed as a musician.
Hank Vegas began as an alter-ego/stage name for lead singer and founder Chad Evans. The group went through some personnel changes in 2006, and the result from the current lineup of Evans, guitarists Rob Evans and John Neff, and Justin Smith on bass, keyboards and percussion is a shift from the band's early alt-country sound toward a sort of Southern-Goth rock.

"REM with a steel guitar," said Georgia Public Broadcasting.

--Rodney Manley - The Macon Telegraph