Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
What has Stefan Hauk been up to lately OR How to get Deep Purple's drummer to play on your track!!
Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians.
Today we chat with Adelaide's own guitar legend, an old man of the blues, at just 27, Stefan Hauk.
Stefan's long time friend John Swan will tell you that he discovered Stefan, although I think Stefan was born with a guitar in his hand and destined for greatness.
Hear how Stefan recorded his single 'Truth' with legendary drummer from Deep Purple, Ian Paice.
Includes Songs:
John Swan - Ol' Rosie
Zkye - Yesterday's Makeup
Elvis - Polk Salad Annie (Live)
Sing It Live (Featuring Darren Mullan & Stefan Hauk) - Merry Christmas Baby
Stefan Hauk (Featuring Ian Paice & Lachy Doley) - Truth
What has Stefan Hauk been up to lately … let’s find out!
Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!
Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au
that radio chick, cheryl lee, here with you. Welcome to the still rocking it podcast, where we'll have music news, reviews and interviews with some of our favorite australian musicians and artists. Today we chat with adelaide's own guitar legend, an old old man of the blues, aged just 27, stefan Hawke. Stefan's longtime friend, john Swan, will tell you that he discovered Stefan, although I think Stefan was born with a guitar in his hand and destined for greatness. Hear how Stefan recorded his single Truth with legendary drummer from Deep Purple, ian Pace. What is Stefan Hawke up to lately? Let's find out. You're with Cheryl Lee, that Radio Cheek. Today we have Adelaide's own Stephen Hawke in the studio with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you for coming, stephen, absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:I've watched Stephen grow up since he was a young, young lad. I'll tell you a little bit about how we met in a minute, but I just want to know Stefan, you look like you were born with a guitar in your hand. When did you know that playing guitar and music was your destiny? Is it in your DNA? Were you born with it?
Speaker 1:Did you discover it? That's an interesting one. I think predominantly it was. I can't really remember not wanting to be a musician ever since I was really small, so I got my first guitar when I was about four or five years old. Wow, um, and basically yeah. Ever since then it's been my obsession and I can't I can't remember not having a guitar in my hands, basically are you from a musical family or either of your parents musical?
Speaker 1:my dad plays. Yeah, my dad plays a bit of guitar and plays bass predominantly and yeah, he still kind of plays around a little cover band thing that he that he does. So yeah, that was definitely an influence, for sure you probably did inherit the family genes from dad yeah it, it definitely wasn't from mum. Love my mum.
Speaker 2:I've met your mum. She is lovely. Is she like me? She can't sing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's not musical. She'll be the first to tell you that too.
Speaker 2:We're kindred spirits. I reckon I love to sing, but other people don't love it when I sing. When I first met you, and our dear friend John Swan tells this story on stage, sometimes about the first time that he met you yeah, so we've heard his side of the story, which is a great you know. It's a really inspirational story. John Swan, as we know, does a lot of charity work and he put a call out one year for some musicians to come and help him. Do you want to tell us how you ended up helping john swan that time?
Speaker 1:sure I mean he tells that story a certain way and it's not exactly accurate don't let the truth, yeah, well it is true, I did go down there, uh, to the hamstead rehab on christmas day, but it wasn't the first time I met him. First time I met him, um, was actually at the Marion Hotel where he I think my mum had sent him a video of me playing on Facebook or something and he said, oh great, he should come to the Marion and get up and play with us.
Speaker 2:I saw that I'd forgotten that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah, it's on YouTube. You can find it. If you put my name in Swanee then it'll come up. It's from the Marion Hotel in like 2010 or 11 or something. Yeah, when you were a mere slip of a lad. Yeah, I was like 15 or something.
Speaker 2:I remember him getting you up on stage there because he had a residency there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, every month, yeah, yeah, it was cool and so that was when I first met John and obviously spending time with him and stuff, I did find out about all the work he was doing and, yeah, I did end up going to the Hampstead with him quite a few times and it was really rewarding. It was a good thing to do.
Speaker 2:It is a great thing to do. I went out with him a few times as well. I would go to the rooms and collect the patients and bring them into that big room, ready for some artist like yourself to give them a little mini concert, and then ready for some artists like yourself to give them a little mini concert and then I'd take them back to their room afterwards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was. It was a really cool thing to do and it was eye-opening too to for me in terms of gratitude and being thankful for, you know, having the capacity to play music and do the thing I love, because a lot of people have had those kind of things taken away from them.
Speaker 2:So it's very humbling, and John is one of those artists that always, always gives back, and you're thankful, as am I, that we were able to be a part of that as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally.
Speaker 2:And help Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Let's have one of those songs. Now that I remember Stefan and Swanee playing about a dozen years ago at the Marion old rosie from swanee's into the night album. Back to speak more with stefan very shortly. Stefan, I've seen you performing solo quite a few times. Have you ever been in a band?
Speaker 1:I've played plenty with bands. All of my original material is band stuff so under my name still, but it's within the context of band and I joined my first cover band when I was 11. Wow, we're called FBI and then we're called Fly 69. And they were all adults. So I was 11 and the drummer was 16, and then everyone else in the band was like mid to late 40s. So that that was. That was a cool experience and I played with them for about seven years, right until I was 17 or 18, and then I moved on and started, you know, obviously doing, you know, solo gigs and stuff around the scene, but also playing with sky and and dusty stevenson and all these people around town in bands and then branching out and doing my own stuff as well.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, am I right in saying that you are a blues man?
Speaker 1:um, it's definitely a big part of what I do, like I love playing the blues and it's definitely a big part of my guitar playing. Um, but I like all sorts of music too. You know I draw a lot from, uh, country and soul and and kind of classic rock music as well. You know I love like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and ACDC and stuff like that. Um, as much as I love BB King and Albert King and Stevie Ray and all the blues guys and you know the country guys like Danny Gatton and Albert Lee and all these kind of you know chicken-picking guys. You know I love all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2:Who would you say has been your biggest influence, or is that too tricky?
Speaker 1:That's hard to say. I mean it's constantly changing. I mean, if you go back to the beginning, like my first influence to get into music when I was like four or five was Elvis. I loved Elvis and then when I was about six or seven it became the Beatles and then after that I discovered ACDC and that's when I started like really hunkering down and playing guitar was it was basically me in my bedroom and the CD player and an ACDC album and that's how I learned how to play was just playing along until I kind of made a similar sound to what was on the CD. Completely self-taught, stephen, yeah, I mean my dad taught me some basic chords when I was really young, but other than that, yeah, it's basically just been ear, just learning by ear, and I was lucky that my natural ear for music was pretty good, so I was able to pick things up on my own. So it's a double-edged sword, like you learn things the wrong way around a lot of the time.
Speaker 1:You learn, uh, more complicated things earlier than you probably should and you end up missing out, yeah, missing out on some basics and some things, but I guess the conclusion I've come to with all this stuff is basically, you know, 90% of what makes musicians and singers and whatever individuals actually their flaws and their kind of the imperfections in their technique actually creates a lot of that individuality. So I wouldn't have done it another way, so I don't regret it at all.
Speaker 2:No, done it another way, so I don't regret it at all. No, if you haven't had a chance to see stefan perform, get onto the googleometer and stefan's facebook and find out where he's playing next, because I hadn't seen you for a little while again. Swanee was here in adelaide not very long ago. Stefan and sky blue helped support him here and I was just blown away. I mean, you were good before, but jeepers, creepers, you just get better and better with age, like a cheese or a good wine and you're only how old?
Speaker 1:like a soft cheese. Maybe, I don't know, I'm 27 now, yeah, you are listening to still rocking it the podcast with cheryl lee a song now from sky, who performed at the Arca Bar with Stefan and Swanee.
Speaker 2:This is one of my favourite songs of hers, although I do love them all Yesterday's Makeup from her album. In this Case she performs around Adelaide with her partner, damo, so catch them as well, when you can. Did you ever once in your life have a plan B Like or was this always it?
Speaker 1:I did a construction course when I was in year 10 or something like a side course, but it was never serious. I always knew what I wanted to do. So, no, there's never really been a plan B and there still isn't. Well, plan B really is I can always be here and play solo gigs if I want to make a living, right? So that's kind of plan B in the sense that, you know, I want to be able to go off and go overseas and play my own music and do all that kind of stuff, and what I've got to fall back on is being able to go and play in a front bar somewhere to three people and make a living doing that. So I can always do that. But yeah, it's, um, never been kind of something I've thought about.
Speaker 2:I've never thought about anything else a lot of musicians say that that really being a musician is really their only passion yeah, I'm pretty boring.
Speaker 1:Otherwise it's like what else do you like? People ask me oh, do you have a hobby or something? Yeah, guitar, do you have you know something you like to do? Nah, I stay if I'm not playing music. I'm at home playing a video game or watching a movie or just doing something that's mind-numbing and you know. But otherwise, yeah, it's just music.
Speaker 2:I see that you are playing down at Memphis Slims quite regularly. Is that a residency or just?
Speaker 1:Not a residency, but I'm there. So Memphis Slims is the bar, so this is a Gilbert place in the city. So Memphis Slims is the downstairs basement bar, which is a blues-themed venue, and their ground floor bar is Shotgun Willies, which is more of a country music-themed venue. So I play at both of those places. Ah, do you? Yeah, so I'll do more blues downstairs and I'll do more country if I'm playing upstairs. Yeah, I don't have a residency, but I'm at both venues a few times a month.
Speaker 2:For those that don't know, that's near the Pancake Kitchen.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, like Pancake Kitchen, haynes Co and that kind of little area.
Speaker 2:It's the coolest little quirky venue.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's my favourite. It's my favourite venue in town.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's cool and you don't get a lot of idiots there Like I think people that want to get really loose and have a wild time. They'll go down there and they'll go oh, this isn't for us, too chilled and they'll get love playing there. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:What night Is it more than one night a week?
Speaker 1:They have live music pretty much Wednesday through Saturday in Memphis and I think Shotgun Willies is Friday through Sunday. So yeah, they've got live music on a lot of the time.
Speaker 2:What night do you generally go?
Speaker 1:Well, it depends. So Dusty Stevenson has a jam on thursdays and I fill in for him quite a bit because he, you know, is a typical muso and floats around and sometimes isn't available for things. So I find myself there some of the time, but predominantly I'll be a friday night. In mem Slims usually they have two slots, so there's a 7 pm and a 10 pm slot. I usually take the later slot because I actually like doing the later slot, for whatever reason. It means I finish at 1 am, which is a bit rough.
Speaker 1:but Rock star hours yeah yeah, and because I don't live close to the city either. No, I'm out at Greenworth, so it's about a 35-minute drive home. So you know end up getting in bed by about 2.30, 3 o'clock and do you get to sleep in yeah, that's good I have to Getting up early.
Speaker 2:For me is like 9 am, so I know it must sound pretty pathetic to other people that do a 9 to five thing. No, it's definitely rock star hours Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. I think we'll play a song from Stefan's earliest influence now Polk Salad Annie. This is the live version from the Essential Elvis Presley album. Are there any other regular gigs we can look out for?
Speaker 1:Nothing that's weekly or it's all fairly random, like I'm doing minimum three gigs a week. Most weeks it's four, some weeks it can be up to seven. Wow, yeah, I had one of those a couple of weeks ago. That was rough. Um, it's pretty random. I'd play at the grove in golden grove sorry downs, I think it is actually. I play there, uh, the first sunday of every month. That's the only slot that I have. That's kind of regular, but otherwise it's all all over the place?
Speaker 2:apart from your facebook page, is there a website people can go to to see the upcoming gigs?
Speaker 1:I generally post my gigs the week of on my personal facebook page. If you want to see what local gigs I'm doing around town, just add me as a friend on facebook. I've got a like page as well, but that's predominantly more about my original music and all that kind of stuff, and I've got a lot more international people on there, like my YouTube channel. It's more of an international than a local audience and they don't need to know that I'm playing at a no, that's true bar around the corner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they can't get here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can't get here and you know, it's just a kind of small solo show so it's not a big deal.
Speaker 1:If you want to know where I'm playing locally in adelaide then add me as a friend and if you'd like to check out stefan's music. You said you had a youtube channel. I do have a youtube channel, for for a few months there I was doing a song. Every sunday morning I'd have a track come out where I'd do a cover and I'd play all the instruments in my studio and stuff. So I I've done about 20 of those, so you'll find all those there and I play with another YouTube band called Sing it Live.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:I've done probably you know a dozen or so of those, at least you guys are, you know, an absolute bunch of talented South Aussies. Yeah, well worth a look. It's flying the flag for the South Aussie scene for sure. Yeah, you know I've got a lot of respect for Darren Mullen who runs that, yeah, and Producer Nerd. Producer Nerd.
Speaker 2:We'll give him a plug, shall we?
Speaker 1:Go check him out. He'll tell you how to mix a song if you go to his YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are listening to.
Speaker 1:Still Rocking it. The podcast with Cheryl Lee.
Speaker 2:How about this for timing? Just released Sing it live, sing it Christmas album. Let's hear Merry Christmas Baby featuring Darren Mullen and Stephen Hawke. So, stephan, during covid, when we were all locked down a little bit, you did something pretty darn fabulous with one of my musical heroes. You want to tell us how that came about?
Speaker 1:so yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:It was during covid, I can only assume due to a lack of touring and not doing much in pace. The drummer from deep purple started a youtube channel and he had a bunch of q a stuff on there and so I submitted the question to his youtube channel because I'd seen on previous videos that he had a little home studio set up. It was quite a nice little home studio set up where he could record his drums at home, and so I saw that and I basically offered a question. I'm like would you consider doing sessions from your home studio for people inquiring, you know, overseas and stuff? And he said, yeah, definitely It'll cost you money, but you know you can definitely do that. So I went great, and then I tried to contact him and it was too hard to actually get direct contact with him besides leaving a YouTube comment and the odds of seeing all that is really hard. So after he answered my question, I basically tracked down someone who worked for Deep Purple and basically said, uh, do you reckon you can get my song to Ian to see whether he'd be interested in doing it? And he said, yeah, sure, no problem.
Speaker 1:So he sent that off and I didn't hear anything for, you know, a month or two, it was cold winter's night and it was a showdown and the crows were getting flogged and I was really sad because I'm a big crows man. Oh, we can't be friends. Yeah, sorry about that. So the crows are getting thumped in a showdown and, uh, my phone goes bling and I look over and it's an email and it's from ian pace and I'm like, sorry, pardon the french, uh. So I pulled up this email and it's in pace saying hey, stephan, I really like the track, I'd love to have a go at it. So, wow, so it was all. And then I realized I had no money, which was a bit of an obstacle. So, fortunately, I was able to do a crowdfunding campaign and get the money to get to do that, and I'll always be very thankful for the people that helped make that happen. So, yeah, that was a really cool experience getting to do that.
Speaker 1:So that was in 2020? That was in 2020, yeah, you can look it up. If you put, uh, stephan hauck, uh, truth into youtube, you'll find it. Um, or stephan hauck and pace into youtube, you'll, you'll find it. So, yeah, that was that was really cool. And we also had, uh, my friend expat south aussie, uh, locky dolly, playing the organ on that as well, and he, he's amazing, yeah, isn't he? And his other brother and Clayton as well. Yeah, they're both great, very cool. They'll be here this weekend, I think. Yeah, with Jimmy.
Speaker 2:Saturday night. Are you going? I am.
Speaker 1:I'm gigging. Oh yeah, you'd be able to hear it from here, wouldn't you just about?
Speaker 2:when I hear the race finish and then I walk down to the concert yeah it's Jimmy's last one for a while too. Yeah, he, he's getting his hip done and his back. Yuck. That is so cool. If you don't ask, you don't get so well done. Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 1:On that. That was a great experience.
Speaker 2:When we were talking earlier about seeing you at the ARC with Sky Blue and Swanee. Amazing, this looping thing. How many ears have you got, stefan, that you can hear the drums and the? You just make these loops and then play with them.
Speaker 1:It's amazing yeah, I mean, it's a bit of trial and error in terms of developing a good way of doing it, and every song is different, requires a different, you know, amount of parts and type of parts that you kind of loop together and if you do a half decent job of it once the loop's down, it's really easy because it's kind of like playing along with the band yeah, you do sound like a big band?
Speaker 1:yeah, because I've got a little kind of hit the guitar for some drum sounds. I've got a little octave pedal thing that I turn on. I can play like a bass line underneath it, so it sounds big, and that basically developed as a necessity of doing a lot of solo gigs and needing to keep my hands working due to you know, I had some problems with my hand a couple of years ago as well, which was pretty scary, and it was just a. Basically I do a lot of gigs where it's very quiet and no one's listening and doesn't matter. So I figured, well, I might as well use this time to practice playing guitar. You can't really play a guitar solo without backing, yes, because it just sounds weird. So, um, it was just basically out of necessity and it became a part of the like. Most solo shows now are predominantly loops because it's more of a high energy thing and I think the crowd really enjoy that if you'd walked in, you'd look around like where's the band?
Speaker 2:oh, there's the band. Like a one-man band I've even had some.
Speaker 1:some people say oh, you're using backing tracks. I'm like I'm not using backing tracks. There's nothing pre-recorded, it all gets put down live.
Speaker 2:So clever. That was the first time I'd actually seen you do that, yeah, and I was amazed oh cool.
Speaker 1:Great sound comes out of. Thank you, as you said, then we get a chance to see you just go mental on the guitar and do your thing. I try, I try my best, but yeah, no, it is good fun, but when it goes wrong it can go really wrong, because if you're recording loops and you make a really bad mistake, you're stuck with that mistake for the next four minutes, five minutes, you're hearing that mistake and every time you hear it go, oh, I'm an idiot.
Speaker 1:So thankfully I've got a loop pedal that now has an undo button, which can be useful if you make a mistake.
Speaker 2:You can book me in, stefan, because I think you and Swanee played at my 50th here at the house, so you can book me in for my 60th coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll be very close together the 50th and 60th, won't they? 50th coming up, yeah, they'll be very close together the 50th and 60th, won't they?
Speaker 2:That's right A couple more years, but book me in Love to have you guys back. That was a great night.
Speaker 1:It was a good night Everybody enjoyed themselves.
Speaker 2:It'll be my pleasure.
Speaker 1:I love to do it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming in and sharing a little bit about the life of Stefan Hawke. Track Stefan down and, absolutely, you know, support local talent. Get out when you can and I'll see you down the front. He's uh well worth listening to. You'll love him as much as we do thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It's been a pleasure to speak with you still rocking that podcast with that radio chick, cheryl lee. Thank you very much to stefan for letting us play truth with ian pace from deep purple. Guest drumming You're with Cheryl Lee, that radio chick. Thank you so much for joining me on the Still Rocking it podcast. Hope to catch you again next time. Get out when you can support Aussie music and I'll see you down the front.