When last we visited with Wayne "The Train" Hancock, he had just finished recording his second album, That's What Daddy Wants, in only three days. I remember being quite impressed. A year later, we're yakin' on the phone again, this time discussing Wild, Free and Reckless (his best album yet) which was recorded in -- get this -- sixteen hours. I'll get around to impressed once I recover from stunned.

Hancock has been adored for some time by fans of real country music because he reaches that place within us that none of the current pretty boys in tall hats can reach. He speaks the truth, in his lyrics and in conversation. Wild, Free and Reckless is a 15-song road trip where the destination isn't nearly as important as the highway that takes you there. Western swing, country ballads, hillbilly twang and rockabilly stomp share time on this album, and through it all one common thread holds it all together and lets these diverse sounds make sense as a whole, and that's Wayne Hancock's authenticity and sincerity. He's for real.

We now join our conversation, already in progress, as we discuss the songs from Wild, Free and Reckless in chronological order. Click on each song title to hear part of the song in RealAudio format.

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KANSAS CITY BLUES
Written by Ernest Tubb
Cosmik: You wrote most of this album, and it's all wonderful, top flight, honest country music, but you chose an Ernest Tubb song to be the first track. Why?

Wayne: Because Ernest Tubb should be the gatekeeper to true country, see. People have told me that when you put out an album, you're putting out a map for people to follow, and you must take them on a journey. What better way to start a journey through country music than to start off with Ernest Tubb.

Cosmik: I'd never heard that particular song. Where did it come from?

Wayne: A friend of mine had it on an old 78 [rpm record]. He runs a vintage store down here, which is where we all buy our clothes from. He played this song for me four years ago, and I couldn't get it out of my head. The second time I heard it, I wrote the words down.

Cosmik: Had you been playing it live before you recorded it?

Wayne: I had on some occassions, yeah, but I didn't know it all. I knew one verse to it, so I had to leave out the last two.

LOOKIN' FOR BETTER DAYS
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: This album covers a lot of ground. On the second track, you shift from old country to a laid back blues. I love the lyrical hook, "I'm looking for better days to fall out of love with you." Any story here? Any real life inspiration?

Wayne: Yeah, I was dating a blues guitarist at that time. Her name was Sue Foley. She was a very big inspiration behind a lot of these songs, and also because she is a blues guitarist, if someone's going to leave and give you the blues, why not somebody who plays them. But she came back and I knew she was leaving, I mean, it wasn't like it was a surprise or something to me. It was wishful thinking for me to even think it was going to last so long, but she came off the road and told me that she was leaving me for someone else, and I said "well, why don't you leave me over a period of months," or something like that. (Laughs) I didn't want to let go of it all at once. And I sat down and wrote "Looking For Better Days."

Cosmik: Sort of like trying to get strong enough for the break up?

Wayne: Yeah, yeah, I just wrote it into song format. Songs are energy, you know. They help you out quite a bit. They help me out quite a bit. Most of the songs I've written are, in some form or another, written for comfort, you know. Even "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs," it was written also for comfort.

FLAT LAND BOOGIE
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: Let me ask you about "Flat Land Boogie" next. That's probably my favorite track, personally. There's like a spirit of joy in that song, and it sounds like everybody was having a blast recording it. Is that about right?

Wayne: Yeah, that is. I wrote that song... I was going through north Texas. We were either south of Lubbock or we were north of Lubbock, but we were on 385 and I was writing this song, "Flat Land Boogie." It is a happy hook. It's one of those places where all these great players came from, and nobody can figure out, until they get there, why they came from there. (Laughs) I don't want to insult anybody in Lubbock, but everybody always told me it was the flattest place in the world.

Cosmik: So when you get there, what is it you find?

Wayne: A lot of dust. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: But what is it you find? You said that until you get there, you don't understand why these people all came from there. What is it you feel there?

Wayne: Um... regret that you came there? (Laughs.) It is pretty up there, but everything's pretty in its own way. New York is a pretty town. So is LA. You have to look at diffent aspects of it. Lubbock is pretty. It's got cotton fields and spectacular sunsets and sunrises. It's flat up there, so everything's different up there because it's a different kind of country. There's a lot of hard drinkin', honky-tonks and cotton fields. There's these railroad tracks they always run parallel to the road so you can actually race trains on your way up, you know?

Cosmik: That song's also a prime example of the community approach you use on that album. You give just about everybody a solo, and you call out their names. I kind of picture you up there making spur of the moment choices. Do you do that at all?

Wayne: Oh yeah. That's how it works. If you ever come watch me record an album, which maybe someday you will...

Cosmik: I'd like to.

Wayne: It's pretty fun, man. We get everybody sitting in the room, get all the plugs in, if you wanna wear headphones you can wear headphones, or whatever. Most guys put the headphones on, and they sit in a semi-circle there. We all go live, and I stand behind this... it looks like a bunker wall, you know, a wall and window, and I just call guys names, you know? Just like we did a show. Whenever I get done singing the words and we come to an instrumental [solo], everybody's eyes on that bandstand immediately turn to me. And there I point out directions, who goes first, who goes next, who plays this, who plays that, you know?

Cosmik: So you're sort of feeling the song as you're going. That's an interesting amount of control to have. That's pretty cool.

Wayne: It would be like building a road, right down to paving it, as you were breaking the trees away, you know? (Laughs.)

SMELL THAT BREAD
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: There's a playful sound to "Smell That Bread." Some people seem to think it's not bread you're singing about, though. What's the true story behind that song?

Wayne: We were driving, and this guy had come down from the north needed a place to stay, so I gave him a job driving my van. We were going through Michigan, where his folks live, and his mom gave us a loaf of homemade bread. We're drivin' along, we have a couple more gigs, and I've got that happy feeling because I'll be going home to be with my girlfriend, and this bread is really just smellin' up the inside of the van. Everybody was getting so hungry. It was that buttered crust smell, you know? I had this bass player named Jimmy Sutton riding with us, and he kept sayin' "smell that bread! MMM-Mmmmm!" The song itself is about going home and seeing your woman when she bakes bread. There's a double meaning here. I get to see my woman, who I've been missing really bad for the last several weeks, and... I get to eat bread!! (Laughs.) That part that goes "she's my baby," yeah, I know, it sounds like it could be about something else, but to be honest it really was just about bread.

Cosmik: Thereby becoming the only song in history that is about both women and bread, as far as I know.

Wayne: It is a playful deal, and when I wrote it I swear I didn't write it with "smell that bread" having any connotations other than what it said up front. But I knew people would take that and run with it. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: Because we're all filthy at heart.

Wayne: (Laughs) Well, everybody has a naughty side to them.

BLUE SUEDE SHOES
Written by Carl Perkins
Cosmik: If I was a little surprised to hear trombone on "Smell That Bread," I was completely floored to hear drums on "Blue Suede Shoes." Personally, I think it fits perfectly, but from things you've said in the past, I'd think adding drums would be almost agonizing for you.

Wayne: Well, I wanted to use drums, but with every instrument I use, I always make the players stand on their heads and play and do all kinds of shit. With drums you can only do that one time. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: Lisa Pankratz seems to be the drummer of choice in Austin. She did a great job.

Wayne: Lisa's very, very good.

Cosmik: Was it a tough choice to have drums on the album, though?

Wayne: I heard a cut of Blue Suede Shoes with Carl Perkins playin' on it, but I can't remember if Mr. Perkins used drums on his or not. I know that Pee Wee King used them on his version. But see, my record company inevitably stands over me and says "well, we want this one to swing, so get some drums." They don't understand that music swings without drums. Rock rolls without any assistance whatsoever.

TONIGHT THE RAIN IS COMING DOWN
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: There's an interesting thing about "Tonight The Rain Is Coming Down" that I'd like to ask about. The lyric is about that time just after someone finds love, when they realize it's real and they can settle down to enjoy it. A happy time. A lot of people, including yourself, write about loneliness, but in this song the loneliness is just as strongly felt as the joy, even though it's past-tense. It's never all one way or all another way in your songs.

Wayne: Yeah, that's sort of the idea. Seems like a lot of people don't take a realistic approach to writing songs. They write "when you're away from me the sun don't shine, the moon don't glow," and all this stuff. Well.. maybe to you it doesn't glow, but it does for the rest of us. Then you've got people like me, I guess. My good times are more often now than they used to be, but it used to be I'd have a really good day and then I'd try real hard to remember that day, so when I was having a bad one I could remember it and make everything all right. Take a picture of it or write a song about it.

Cosmik: There's a kind of melancholy to it, though, almost a quiet fatalism.

Wayne: Everybody knows that love is not a forever thing. It's like catching the light from stars above us. You catch one here and you catch one there, and you feel like it's a special thing you get to experience. Then, for a while, you're happy. Then it's gone and you're right back to where you were, hopeless and can't get your head out of your butt. Then one day, when you least expect it, you find happiness in the fact that you're over it. Then BOOM, you fall back in love and it starts all over again. It's a never ending cycle. But in order to be really, really happy, you've got to have been really, really sad or how will you know what it means to be happy?

DRIVE ON
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: The open highway is a frequent image in your music. "Drive On" is about the WIDE open highway. In my imagination, I can see exactly what you're reporting about. "Night time out on this highway - The only lights we see is ours - There's a million wishes - chasing after a thousand shooting stars." I've seen it! The open highway is very romantic for you, isn't it?

Wayne: Yes, it is. It represents change and prosperity. My dad was one of those people who can't stay in one spot for any longer than a year and a half. We'd all pile into the station wagon and we'd be on our way to another gig somewhere. Most of our drives consisted of driving from here [Texas] to Idaho, then back here, then up to Kansas, then back, then up to Idaho again, then back here. We just did this zigzag between those states for at least ten years of my life.

Cosmik: So the highway obsession stayed with you all these years.

Wayne: You know when you're goin' from Jackrabbit, Arizona, out there on [highway] 10, how the interstate will get that bounce goin'? When you're goin' about 75 and the car starts doin' that weird thing, up and down and up and down, well, that's the bounce that the song was written to. That was the tempo. When you listen to "Drive On," you can see yourself rising and falling on that road. All around you can see these mesas rising up hundreds of feet into the sky, and nothin' but pure desert. California's over to the northwest, and Mexico is down there to the south... My head is always full of ideas out there on that end of the road. That's my favorite place to be, though, is on the road. If I had my way, I'd just live on the road. Of course, I pretty much do.

Cosmik: Is part of it the not knowing what's around the next corner?

Wayne: Oh, yeah, that's always part of it. We know we're gonna do our gigs, and we know, for the most part, that we're always gonna have a full house to play to. But there are other things that happen, too. Hey, maybe someone from Hollywood will come out and we'll get a part in a movie. It happens. It's just exciting, like every day was Christmas, and every day you woke up with that feeling.

GOING BACK TO TEXAS
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: No matter how romantic and alluring the open road is, there's something about heading home. "Going Back To Texas" sounds like the flipside of "Drive On," like the other end of the trip.

Wayne: It was about having your foot to the floor, going home at about 85 miles per hour. It could apply to anyone. It could be about going back to Milwaukee, if that's where you're from. You know how it is when you're going home, and you've had that good run and you're on top of the world, you're gonna see your girl and you're happy.

WILD, FREE AND RECKLESS
Written by Wayne Hancock & Herman Goertz
Cosmik: "Don't look for me in no high spirits - unless I got 'em from a glass." You went through a tough fight with alcohol way back when, so I'm assuming this is a confessional song of sorts.

Wayne: My brother in law and me wrote that. Of course, everyone down here is an alcoholic. I'm a real alcoholic, but a non-practicing one. I fell off the wagon about two years ago for just one afternoon. All I did was drink Boone's farm for one afternoon. Herman [Goertz] wrote "Don't look for me in no high spirits - unless I got 'em from a glass."

Cosmik: That's such a great line.

Wayne: It sure is.

Cosmik: How much of Wayne Hancock is in the song "Wild, Free and Reckless?"

Wayne: Quite a bit. The song was in my head, so I started writing it.

Cosmik: Did you write the line "wish I could change the things I done"?

Wayne: Yeah, that sounds like one of my lines. We took turns writing lines. I'd write three, he'd write three. That's one of mine, I think.

Cosmik: Seems like a song about regrets.

Wayne: Herman and me, we're two of the most regretful sons of bitches you'll ever see. (Laughs.)

THAT'S WHY I RIDE
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: "That's Why I Ride" is another love song to the open road. Aside from those things on the surface that make the road fun, what does it represent to you? What expectations do you have deep down when you get behind the wheel?

Wayne: I took an oath when I really became a musician, when I decided that this is what I wanted to do. Whenever I get out on the open road, my oath is to serve my brothers and my sisters. You know, serve the people. When I get out on the road, I just fix my gaze on the horizon and follow the stars. We're doing a much needed thing here. Music is as important as anything. There are a lot of people out here doing it for the express purpose of making money and no other reason, and it shows. I do music because it's my salvation. Through singing and performing for other people, bringing them out of whatever it is that's got them down, it brings me up. So it serves both ways. I feel better about myself every time I sing, and the music I sing helps people forget their situations for a while.

Cosmik: That's why you ride.

Wayne: That's why I ride. That's what the song is about. Some people say "when are you gonna make it and be a big star?" The opening line is "Well I got no change in my jeans - I'm running low on my hopes and dreams - but I got this melody in my heart - and it's been driving me from the very start." So you know the guy's got this thing in his heart making him go.

Cosmik: The real things, not the trappings that everyone else is after.

Wayne: Yeah. Somebody asked me one time "why can't you bring yourself to do the kind of music that's on the radio and make big money?" Well I can't. I'm driven not to do it. I'm driven to only play for ten bucks. Hey, thirty dollars to go see George Jones play for thirty minutes? That's fuckin' silly. That guy got famous because these people out here made him famous. If you forget the people who got you there, that's when you lose it. I'm not a star, I'm a servant, you see. "That's Why I Ride" is about what I am. I'm not here to be a big star. I'm not here to make a million dollars. I'm not here to be on David Letterman and be a big shining success. I'm only here for one thing, to help us all get through life. All it takes is two people: one to play the guitar and sing and the other to listen and return the energy. That's all you need.

IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: Lisa Pankratz is back on drums for "It's Saturday Night." That song kicks ass.

Wayne: Yeah, there are very few drum players I would use, and she's one of them. They've got to be really good to play for me. And Lisa, she'll only play for you if she likes you. She's definitely my drummer of choice around here.

GONE GONE GONE
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: "Gone Gone Gone" might be the best song from a musicianship standpoint. Can you describe what it's like to be in the middle of all that sound when T-Man (19 year old pianist T Jarod Bonta) is on fire and everybody else is right there with him?

Wayne: It's like that on stage, too. That's how it's supposed to be. The band just takes over and they go do their own thing. In the first verse, they just sing normal, "gone gone gone," but then on the second verse they all sort of melt down together. T-man, you know, there's another guy who didn't even rehearse for this stuff. None of these guys that played on this album had any idea how the songs went prior to recording them. They're that good. The musicianship is through the roof. They play so together you'd think they'd rehearsed and rehearsed, but they never even played it before. When you see me on stage, you get the same quality performance you heard on the album. These guys don't need machines to straighten out their tracks because they're really that good. Some guys spend 175,000 bucks making an album over a period of six months and it still doesn't sound worth a damn. Doin' it our way you're not only saving money, you're getting a real high off it.

GONNA BE SOME TROUBLE TONIGHT
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: Can't get much more traditional country than getting loaded and looking for a fight, huh?

Wayne: Yeah, this is the perfect beer-drinkin' song for the frat boy or high schooler in your household. (Laughs.)

Cosmik: Doesn't seem to be any subtext on this one.

Wayne: No, it's pretty well straight forward. I'm waiting for people to give me a lot of grief and say "I can't believe you wrote that terrible, violent song!" But it's a realistic song. The places I grew up playing, you didn't go there to pick up women and you didn't go there to be social. You went there for three reasons: to play pool, get drunk and fight. It's a very depressing state of mind to be in, but back home, that was the thing. Your girl would tell you to shove off because she found somebody else, so what were you gonna do? You'd go down to the bar looking for trouble

Cosmik: To burn it out of your system.

Wayne: That's right. "I ain't lookin' for love - I'm lookin' for a fight - I got the lowdown blues - and there's gonna be some trouble tonight."

Cosmik: The more I hurt the less I'm remembering what's on my mind.

Wayne: Isn't it funny how that is?

MORNIN' NOON & NIGHT
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: One of my favorite solos on the album is the one Dave Biller did on Mornin' Noon & Night. In a strange way it reminds me of the way George Harrison wrote such well structured, jazzy solos in songs that weren't jazz at all. It really puts a signature on the song. Did he show you that solo in advance, or did he pull that out of the hat?

Wayne: Right out of the hat. That all went down as we were playing. I'll tell ya, man, these are just guys that got it. For the world of people that believe only in "seeing is believing," they can say "yeah, that guy's just that damn good." But for those of us that know the music, I'd say... it's just magic, you know what I'm saying? There are days they get up and listen to the record and say "I can't do that on some of my best shows I play at night." Magic. There's definitely something to it.

Cosmik: I've watched really fine musicians spend hours trying to come up with solos like that.

Wayne: These are just guys that got it.

Cosmik: I really love what [steel guitarist] Jeremy Wakefield brings to your music, too. He seems to understand the atmosphere you're going for.

Wayne: Yeah, I like the way he plays a lot. He's one of the two guys I've found who can interpret what I want to hear and how I want the song to go. He adds a whole lot.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CRY
Written by Wayne Hancock
Cosmik: I don't know if you've thought about it or not, but the final song, "You Don't Have To Cry," deserves to become a standard, and if it had been recorded 30 years ago or more, it would BE a standard. Would it surprise you if I said I can almost hear Patsy Cline singing it?

Wayne: Oh, no. Definitely. Thank you. I wanted to date this girl, and she was of course interested in someone else. She was dating this guy that was a quote-unquote "cowboy." She was into him because he rode horses and all that stuff. We have quite a few of those people out here. I didn't have anything on this guy, because I was just some guy she probably figured was talkin' a lot of shit. Like "if you're a real star you'll be on the radio, and if you're not, you obviously don't got it." That's how a lot of people look at it. So I wrote this song because I was really missing her, but I wrote it in the past-tense, as if "what if it was really this way?" I went ahead and wrote the song as if there was a chance of it, even though you can tell by the way the song's structured that there ain't no chance. It's just wishful thinking. I guess a lot of reality is owning to how you look at life. That song leaves a certain amount of hope, too, because it gives this guy something to hope for. He's not doomed to sit in that same hole that he's in and never have anything to look at but his feet that are stuck below knee level. That's how it is. It's about life. That's what the whole album is about.


(C) 1999 - DJ Johnson