It's sometimes complex to work out where inspiration comes from, to a music artist, while writing new material for an album. Some of them attribute their inspiration to life events happenings to others, which they might have witnessed, but not necessarily lived on their own skin, whereas others just get inspired by different triggering external factors, impersonal to them, maybe, but still able to generate strong imageries that stick to people's minds, although in a more diverse lyrical or sonic outcome.
Then there are artists like the American Hard/Rock and Surf Guitar Maestro and singer/songwriter Gary Hoey, someone who takes music very much on a personal level, finding his ideal composing ground very often on matters that touch and/or involve him directly.
Hoey's musical journey started back in 1989, when he recorded his first album in Germany with MGI Records, called “Get A Grip.” The American artist then went on to sign with Warner/Reprise for 3 more albums, before moving to the label Surfdog Records. Throughout his glorious career, where the guitarist and singer/songwriter received numerous accolades from fans and fellow artists (Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Lita Ford, amongst many), Hoey created 11 Rock & Surf instrumental albums and 9 vocal records, the latter including a mix of Rock and Blues styles. To many, Gary Hoey's name is particularly known for a very memorable version that he recorded of the Dutch Prog/Rock band Focus' main hits, Hocus Pocus, which went viral back in 1993 and still resonates with Hoey's many thousands of fans worldwide, when performed live. In 1996, Hoey also recorded a record inspired to Christmas tunes played in a more Surf and Rock styles, called Ho Ho Hoey, a record including instrumental versions of 42 classic songs that the American artist takes on tour every winter around the United States, close to the Winter Holiday period.
After signing with Mascot Record Group in recent years, Hoey released two records of Blues/Rock that met the favours of many aficionados of the genre, the last of which was released in 2019 and called Neon Highway Blues. Since then, Hoey took a long pause from releasing new material, a pause dictated by different factors, not least the 2020 pandemic that paralyzed the whole world for a good couple of years.
Finally, Hoey is now back with a brand new album called Avalanche, a record that sees the American Guitar Maestro returning to his more Rock and Surf musical roots, where the artist opens up in his usual honest and disarmingly open style to what he went through in recent years, between personal family losses and self-doubts, pouring his heart out on each of the songs included in Avalanche. Bluebird Reviews had the privilege of talking with Gary Hoey recently about the making of Avalanche, how much family and close friends supported him in the making of the record and what the future has in store for the guitarist and singer/songwriter.
BR - Hi Gary, so good to talk to you again and congratulations for your return to the music scene after a 6-years hiatus. Avalanche is a record that, stylistically, sees your music returning to your roots as a Surf/Hard Rock artist, perhaps apart a very few exceptions, on the record. What are your emotions, right now, for a record that surely must mean the world to you, especially in view of what went on in your personal life?
GH - I think that, if I am not wrong, this is my 23rd album and it's interesting, because going through all the different types of music that I have been playing in my career and after the more Bluesy records that I have been releasing in later years, I realized that I really embraced that genre. But, on the other hand, there was always a part of me that just loves writing songs, no matter whether they are Blues songs or Rock, whatever, I just like writing good songs. All the songs that ended up in my new record started to come out of me and I thought that I have been through so much (Hoey lost both his mother and his sister in a relatively short amount of time from one passing to another, back few years ago) that this was the right time for me to return to my Rock roots. I had the album title Avalanche even before I started to put together the album, although initially I thought of calling it Break Free, because I started writing those songs already at the time we were in lockdown, during the 2020's pandemic and therefore I thought that such a title would suit the feeling in which I was in. As the time went on and my mum passed away, I wrote songs like Dear Mama, Safe Place To Fall and You Know I Would, songs that were strongly related to the idea of losing people, or looking at the past or life in general. Then I wrote more songs like Unstoppable, a song where there is the realization that we can't get through life by ourselves, thinking that we are doing so well and take so much credit for ourselves, about who we are, while it's really the people around us that makes us unstoppable. When all those song titles kept on coming, that was when I took the decision that this album was going to sound as a proper Rock album. A lot of my friends said "How can you not make this as a Blues record, given how much you have been through?" to which I replied "Well, you have to go where your creative energy goes". I have to say that Avalanche, vocally, it was quite challenging for me as a singer, because I got back to the Rock and you have to really put a certain amount of energy, in your voice. I had to really work hard on the vocals, on my new album and as the songs came to me, it really felt like a very natural instinctive thing for the album to be called Avalanche, rather than Break Free.
BR - This record comes after a long pause from your last studio album in 2019. What was, in your opinion, the key factor that made this album possible and to be published just now, besides the enormous support provided by your fans for the Kickstarter campaign to help funding the album?
GH - See, I was going to put the album out anyway, no matter what. Releasing the album as an independent artist, it is a choice I made because I wanted to have control on when to put the album out, when I wanted it and when I felt ready to do so. My dear friends at Mascot Records (Hoey's previous record label) were very sweet with me and understanding of my situation, when I asked them whether I could go ahead and release a record by myself and they said yes. You know, often, when you are linked contractually to a record label, you are forced to stick to deadlines, on releasing albums and back few years ago, I didn't really know when that was gonna happen, so I said to the label, "Well, it'll be done when it's done". When I heard from the label that I was free to work on my own pace on the new album, I then decided to hire the amazing producer Max Norman, somebody that has worked in the past with artists like my good friend Lita Ford, Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth and many more. I needed him to help me to get to where I am now, with music and I am very happy of having worked with him. I then decided to start a Kickstarter campaign with my fans, because, yes, I gotta admit, the monetary aspect of it most certainly helped with the expenses of making a record independently, although I had covered all the costs involved already by myself, but most importantly to me, it was that I wanted to bring in the fans on a personal level, to say "Hey, let's do this together". Because, if they wanna buy the record anyway through platforms like ITunes, Amazon or else, if they do that through me, it truly helps me and supports me, initially, so we can do all those initial pre-order sales, which hopefully than would bring me on the charts and if that happens, even better. If it doesn't, it's not the end of the world, because, somehow, Avalanche feels almost like a sort of grassroot record to me (smiles). I love my fans, I have a die-hard fanbase that has always been there for me and I feel they will be there with me hopefully still for some time and they know that I am going to deliver the best that I can do at any point. The response from the fans for the Kickstarter campaign was overwhelmingly insane, pretty much from the get-go. It just showed me again how lucky I am and how blessed I am to have them. The connection I have with the fans is really special and I don't genuinely know where this special bond we have with one another comes from. I am really grateful by the way they not only support me, but also from how much they invest on me. I work for my fans, this is, honest to God, the way I feel. I don't do what I do in the hope to become a massive Rockstar, I am just grateful to them that they allow me to do what I do, through their love and support.
BR - As you mentioned in the Press Kit preceding the album's release, every song off the album has a particular story behind. May we ask you whether any of the songs off Avalanche were writtem and recorded some time ago, perhaps in a different style or were all the songs written and recorded more recently, like the last year or so?
GH - Yes and that is the thing about music. It kind of evolves in time, from the time you originally write a song, the time you record it and the time you perform it. We, as a live band, have been already performing several songs off the album prior to the album's release and, I gotta say, they translate very well live, because I feel I respected the format in which I intended the song to be played and I have not gone out of my means, going beyond my ability and make some tricks in the studio. I tried to make this album in a very genuine, real and organic possible way and even on some of the tracks, some of my guitar solos were like one or two takes, no more than that. I thought a few times to try and get back to some solos on some songs, in order to try and perfect them but, as much as I tried to get back and make them sound, in my head, better, I couldn't try to perfect that magic that exuded by recording solos and songs the first time around that I did so. That happened with the vocals too, on Avalanche. For instance, the album title-track, just to offer you an example; I sing things that I never sang before and I had to sit and say to myself "What did I sing?" (smiles). I guess I just let things flow, on the album, both as a singer and as a guitar player in the most spontaneous and heartfelt way, throughout the whole making of the record. Also, having my son Ian with me, playing guitar too within the band, was a great help. I gotta say that he has covered a lot of the tracks, on Avalanche, making them sound live in the way they really sound on the record. He also did several solos, on Avalanche, which he performed live too, just like he did on the record and it was great to have him playing such a big part on the new album too.
BR - Music is a family affair for you, because you are and you have always been a strong believer in family values. How much did it mean to you to have your son Ian and your niece Tayla working on the record with you, together with your trusted compadres AJ Pappas on bass and Matt Scurfield on drums?
GH - Yeah, I was hoping that, but I didn't even know that would happen until it happened, to be honest with you. Again, I was trying to do it all by myself, I was in my little cocoon space and, as it often happens, I was playing bass guitar for the demos and when A.J. heard them, he said to me "Ok, I like what you did but let me do some of my own". Then Matt approached me around the same time A.J. did and said "Hey man, let me lay down some drums and don't worry about the money". You know, at that point, I didn't even have a budget and when Matt said those words to me, I suddenly thought "You know, that's family for you". And now, with the Kickstarter campaign, he will finally get paid! (smiles). A.J. said pretty much the same things that Matt told me, about not worrying about the money and again, that is what a family is all about. As you said in your question, then my niece Tayla would come over and be writing songs with my son Ian and then, while hearing the song, she would come up to me and saying "Hey, Uncle, I hear a harmony here, can I sing it?" All those things, about A.J., Matt, my niece, I didn't even think or plan for those things to happen and all of a sudden, I realized in a moment, while I was seating down, the magnitude of what was happening and said to myself "Oh, my God, that is my family here everywhere on this record".
BR - The album title is, clearly, a nod to what has been your personal emotional journey in the last few years, something that transpires especially, in our opinion, through the album's lyrics. We found very moving particularly the closing track of the album that sees you penning an instrumental Surf/Rock track called Summer's Here that feels like walking towards an imaginary Yellow Brick Road, after all the trial and tribulations you have lived on your own skin in later years. Have we misread or perhaps overread the intrinsic spirit of that tune or was that exactly your intention?
GH - That is a track on which my son Ian played with too and helped me to finally bring it to life. I thought that song meant to me pretty much what you just said, in your question and I considered "Well, I have been through this, lived through it and now I'm starting a new chapter and let's see what happens next". For me, as a musician, I have done instrumentals on guitar for a very long time, now, although perhaps less frequently, in later years and I guess that Summer's Here worked as a sort of catalyst, for me, in the sense that I realized that this was the right time for me to go back to that part of who I am as an artist. While that song was the closing one of Avalanche, I feel that in some respects, it's a song that propels me back to a side of my musicianship that I really love.
Photo courtesy of Sergio Salvucci
BR - The album sees you also duetting with one of your fellow best friends within the music industry, the American Hard-Rock artist Lita Ford. How much do you value your friendship with Lita Ford and the amount of support she has always provided to you, especially in the last 6 years, where so much happened into your life?
GH - You know, Lita and I's friendship goes back to over a decade, both as friends and as fellow artists. Creatively, under a musical aspect, we have got an incredible connection. We really understand each other, we keep each other honest and we support each other, it's truly an awesome relationship. She's like family, she's like my soul sister, she's just somebody I truly love, my wife loves her, my family loves her, my children love her. She's just beyond anything that I have ever dreamed of in the music industry and sometimes I have to say to myself, "Wow, this is Lita Ford, the icon artist that I grew up admiring". Thinking what she has done as a musician, as an artist, it is an incredible feeling for me and that part of it and our relationship, just thinking about that gives me goosebumps, because I can't believe that I am working with her. There is a part of me that thinks that our friendship is something that somehow meant to be, because of the strong chemistry that we have and that doesn't take into account any Rockstar status of any sort. What Lita really taught me, it is that you have always to trust your instinct, as a musician, you really have to give to your fans what you feel from your heart and they will feel and believe it and that is what she always showed me.
BR - Was there any song at all, within the making of Avalanche, Gary, that was a bit more challenging to pen, either vocally or musically?
GH - I would probably say Unstoppable. The song proved to be a little challenging, musically, especially on perfecting the overall performance and to ensure my guitar solos were exactly as I wanted them to sound in my head. Might that be the reason why I called that song Unstoppable, maybe? (Smiles).
BR - Did you feel more liberated or energised by making new music, Gary and do you feel that you returning to your musical roots shape-shifted better the narrative of the album?
GH - I think so. I think there was no other way to tell the story I have been through without making this record with this kind of sound. In that respect and getting back to your previous question, like myself, Lita Ford has gone through so much herself too, especially if you read her book called Living Like A Runaway, where she talks about her children, who are both the same age as my children and yet, they were taken away from her. She talks about her divorce and everything she has been through and in those moments, both myself and my family we were right there with her through most of it. A song like the one we recorded together on Avalanche, like You Know I Would, it talks about the fact that everybody can live their lives and say "If I can go back in time and I can change this one thing, you know I would". When I wrote that song with Lita, I tried to tell her story, about her children, you know and when she sang it in studio, she was literally in tears, because she felt every word of it. That's why that song came out so great, I feel. Most certainly to me, it is one of the best songs off my new record. Doing Avalanche in the musical style I chose, it made me feel more comfortable, because my Rock roots are where I grew up and came from. When I took on the Blues, in some way, that was the biggest challenge for me, you know, because the Blues has got so strong roots and to me, it feels like everything has already said and done about it and that was the biggest challenge. When I write songs, about my feelings, about my family, I just turn up the volume of my amps and play Rock, because it's the space where I feel more at ease and where I can express myself at my most comfortable.
BR - Dear Mama is, obviously, a song that means a lot to you, given the special relationship that you have had with your beloved mother Barbara all your life. Was it more challenging for you to write the lyrics of that song or to create an arrangement that would suit better the meaning of what you wanted to say in that song?
GH - I started writing that song when my mom was still alive and I told her "I'm writing a song about you. It's not a sad song, it's more an uplifting celebration of you". When the song started to come into my head, it came out so quick and so easily. It really flew so effortlessly off me, because I felt that it was genuinely something from me to her. I didn't know how to produce it yet, but the guitar riffs just poured out of me, as well as most of the lyrics did. It felt that more than singing about her, I was talking to her. That part of making the song was easy and oh so natural. It did take a little longer to finish writing all the lyrics and to come up with the right production for the song that I initially thought but, once we started doing the vocals and my niece sang on it, as the rest of the band did too, I felt that some magic was happening in that moment. My niece, at that time, she had lost herself her mom (my sister), just as my sister had, back then, lost her mama too. We were both singing to our mums, in that moment and that felt incredibly special. Dear Mama is definitely the core of the album, for me and I am really happy about the way the whole song turned out to sound. To complete the circle, my son Ian came in too and did some guitar solos and that just killed me.. I said to him "Ian, please, play for grandma" and he pulled out a truly fantastic solo, which felt like a complete family tribute to my mother's memory.
BR - When you wrote Maine To Mississippi, another song part of Avalanche, were you at any point thinking, unconsciously perhaps, that despite your big respect for Blues and Blues/Rock, Hard/Rock and Surf is where your true love is, musically speaking?
GH - I think it is. Hard Rock and Surf are always gonna be my foundation. I have always tried to show, going back to my very first album, then Animal Instinct and all the records forward, that I have always tried to be diverse and to be a sort of a chameleon, where you can never predict what I am going to do next. I never liked making records where every song sounded the same, because I just get bored. For me, Maine To Mississippi, it gave me the chance to use my Dobro Resonator guitar, because I do really love its sound and I thought, you know what? Well, I have really been from Maine To Mississippi and what I have learned, it's that we are all the same and look for the same thing in life. We all wanna have peace and love, we all wanna have family, some place where we can feel that comfortability in our own skin and in our own shoes and that is something that I, for a start, definitely learned in my journey from Maine To Mississippi (smiles).
BR - We know that, throughout the years, you have cared a lot for homeless people, doing very often concerts to raise money and awareness for homeless people, especially for those who served in American Army. How much does one of the new songs called Cold relates to that matter, Gary?
BR - When I wrote Cold, I was really thinking a lot about how people do feel alone and do feel left alone and in the cold. I had that concept in my head for, honestly, a long long time, way more than six years. The way the song sounds, the way the lyrics and the vocals and the harmonies sound, came out exactly in the way I originally intended to. Even in the hardest of circumstances and whether it's true or not that a setback can be a potential setup for a comeback, people still do need some help and we have to pay attention to people. I was on the Tour, a few weeks ago in Texas with my son and while he was in the hotel where we were staying, relaxing in a comfortable bed, I walked down to the street and I saw a homeless guy, wrapped in a blanket, with his feet sticking out and that juxtaposition between where my son and I were staying and that guy's conditions, that just broke my heart. So, gave the guy some money, gave him some food.. There was also another instance, recently, where I came up on a plane and this woman didn't know where she was going, she was freaking out on the plane, she was panicking and I managed to calm her down. I asked her where she supposed to be going and offered to give her a ride with my car... you know, things like these, they just make you think that sometimes, you just have to take time out of your life to just say "It's not all about me, I'm gonna help somebody else right now".
BR - Let's talk about touring, a little, Gary. You have just finished, not long ago, a round of live performances together with another talented artist, Ally Venable, who, coincidentally, has a new album out too. Your new solo Tour in support of the release of Avalanche started on the 24th April and will be going throughout the whole of May. What are the plans for the rest of the year, for what concerns touring the United States and have you got any plan so far, to tour other countries too, during 2025?
GH - I have been talking to my booking agents and we have been trying to fill up a lot of places in the States that we wanted to go to initially. But I also mentioned trying to get back on Tour abroad, especially in Europe, because I missed playing my music over there. I think Avalanche would be a great album to take on Tour also out of the States and, especially for Europe, we are looking at next Fall, hopefully, to see whether we can find possibilities to come and play over there. Or, if that shouldn't happen this year this year, we will be trying again for Spring 2026.
BR- As per your own admission, to record Avalanche has been something very therapeutic for you. Given the amount of love that you have given to music through your enormous talent as an artist, how much do you feel that music has given back to you, especially as a healing factor?
GH - Wow... I think music, for me, although it may come across as a cliche, literally saved my life. I come from such humble beginnings, as an artist and as a human being, like my mother did too. I am currently working on a documentary about my life that I have been working on for the last year and a half with a film director and we are going to release it, at some point, I think in the next year. Going back to your question, when I think where I have been in life, to come from some dark places, to come from negativity in life to then find music, for me, it was like an escape, from the moment I got a guitar and started playing music. But then, to find out that I had a gift, you know, where I could be able to create songs and have my voice heard, to hear that music heroes like Ozzy Osbourne wanted to listen to me playing, getting to California and signing a record deal with Warner Bros. and having a proper career with music, that was something else... Music was the gift that God gave me, something that I wasn't aware I had, as a boy but, at that point and most importantly of all, music was the vehicle that allowed me to get out from where I was. A vehicle that also allowed me to connect with people in the world, through my music and to tell them "Hey, my music's gonna help you to feel better" or "My music will help you to get you through this". Music is everything to me. Without it, I don't know if I would have survived.
Photo cover courtesy of Teddy Allison.
Avalanche is out now and it is available to be purchased via www.garyhoey.com.
GARY HOEY TOUR DATES
5/28/25 Saint Augustine FL (Cafe 11)
5/29/25 Sanford FL (The Alley)
5/30/25 Boca Raton FL (The Funky Biscuit)
5/31/25 Ft Myers FL (Buckinghams)
6/18/25 Lou Gramm All Stars - St Petersburg FL (Palladium)
6/21/25 Lou Gramm All Stars - Mount Dora FL (Mount Dora Music Hall)
7/4/25 Franklin MA (Franklin July 4th Celebration)
7/25/25 Lou Gramm All Stars - Shipshewana IN (Blue Gate Theater)
8/1/25 Lou Gramm All Stars - Batavia NY (Blue Gate PAC)
8/16/25 York ME (York County Blues Festival)
2/23/26 Fort Lauderdale FL (Rock Legends Cruise)
3/21/26 Lou Gramm All Stars - Fort Lauderdale FL (Rock & Romance Cruise
