by Jane Roser
There are few things more awesome than interviewing a hot up and coming band, then seeing on their Twitter feed moments later that they were having breakfast at a little country pie shop during your interview. I mean, who doesn’t love pie and who doesn’t love a great success story?
Growing up with his brother, Cobo (the band’s drummer), in a church setting where their father was a pastor and their mom led the worship music, vocalist/bassist/guitarist Boots Copeland says they were born playing in the church. “Cobo and I played the drums a little bit and we both played guitar, then we moved from Texas to Little Rock about ten years ago and met Drew [Buffington the band’s guitarist] and Brad [Pierce on keyboards] at church,” explains Copeland. “We’ve been a band forever, just leisurely playing for our family and friends, but we thought our EP, The Great Hall, was good enough to show some industry people. We ended up getting a manager and one thing led to another, so we decided to take a shot with a tour and see if this could take off. It had always been a hobby and now it’s the main thing.”
Taking their name from a photo they’d come across in an old 70s high school yearbook while working at their church’s thrift store, they decided it was a no-brainer to name their band after this rocker looking kid named Knox Hamilton. The group is currently riding the waves of adoration in the wake of the release of their debut EP and hit single “Work It Out”, which has been streamed over 400,000 times on Spotify, while the official YouTube video has garnered over 102,000 views. Engineered by Todd Davis at Blue Chair Recording Studio in Ward, Arkansas, the band is currently working on their next album, which they anticipate to be released before the end of the year.
“We recorded most of it in this little studio outside of Little Rock,” says Copeland, “it’s all self-produced and self-recorded. It’s a mixture of old and new songs; I’ll bring most of the song ideas to the table and then the band will finish it together, but the lyrics are mostly collaborative.”
Copeland has a few favorites on the upcoming album, but says, “you never know what’s going to do well. There’s a song called “Rightfully So” that we all enjoy playing live and should translate well recorded; that one came from me and Cobo jamming together before we brought it to the rest of the band. Then there’s a song that we and our label like a lot called “Set It On Fire”, which is reminiscent of those old Humphrey Bogart films with smoke filling up the room, just one of those classic cliche [film noir] stories.”
Touring for almost two months now, Knox Hamilton will be co-headlining a show with Colony House October 22nd at Milkboy and fans can expect a rollicking fun time. “We’re not gimmicky,” says Copeland, “we feed off the crowd and they feed off us. We’ll play the alt-pop-dance rock songs, so it’s just everyone dancing and having a good time.”
With a hit EP, sold out shows, a new album and more touring on the horizon, it’s safe to say that Knox Hamilton is living, as Bogart’s Sam Spade would put it, “the stuff that dreams are made of.”
