Hackensaw Boys Announce New Self-Titled Album

Roots music shapeshifters Hackensaw Boys make a triumphant return with their new self-titled album due out in June. Known for their energetic live shows, the band have been operating as a sort of musical collective for over two decades now, carving a songline that traverses all genres of American roots music.

They've toured nearly constantly, playing festivals all over the world, sharing stages with the likes of De La Soul and Cheap Trick, and even working as Charlie Louvin's touring band. They've been featured on NPR and Pitchfork, where Amanda Petrusich aptly described their music as a "grassy tornado with brazen punk attitude". Through it all they've adapted their sound, as well as their lineup, to serve their songs with a workman-like ethic. It was during the recording and release of their last EP A Fireproof House Of Sunshine (Free Dirt Records) that Sickmen realized he was doing his best work.

This motivated him to "stay out of his own way" during the making of their new self-titled album, a free-wheeling romp through roots music that includes hardcore roots instrumentals, country rug-cutters, and folk rock gems. Produced by Park Chisolm (Kevin Costner & Modern West), Hackensaw Boys is chock full of classic, catchy Hackensaw sounds while achieving a new level of unapologetic honesty and vulnerability via Sickmen's well-honed, salt-of-the-earth songwriting.

After a six year hiatus, and a battle with vocal polyps that resulted in surgery, founding member, songwriter, and guitarist David Sickmen assumed leadership of the band. He says "...after struggling internally for years to decide what was Hackensaw Boys material and what was not, I realized my life experiences are actually what makes the songs real for me, and therefore good Hackensaw material."

In 2015 he developed an ethos "to play good shows, and be responsible citizens," which has fueled the group's longevity and helped them to weather the ebb and flow of musical tastes du jour, as "alt-country" transitioned to "Americana". Hackensaw Boys have been around so long that Sickmen's own son Jonah has now joined the ranks on this new effort, taking lead on one of the band's more notorious innovations, the charismo-an instrument that symbolizes the ever evolving nature of the band.

The charismo is a collection of found objects, worn like a washboard, but played percussively like a drum set. The amalgamation of sounds from tin cans and scrap steel, often picked up on the road and attached to the one of a kind instrument, lend a one of a kind sound to the band, and a sound that changes just a bit as the years pass by.

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