Gypsyhawk: Noisecreep Tour Blog #1
The Pasadena, Calif. riff wizards known as Gypsyhawk just kicked off a U.S. tour with like-minded '70s-inspired rockers The Sword and Austin's Eagle Claw. Noisecreep hasn't seen the show yet, but we'll venture to guess that there is probably a lot of air-guitaring going on during the night.
Gypsyhawk is out in support of Revelry & Resilience, their new album for the mighty Metal Blade. The folks at LA Weekly said it best describing the record as "a stunning blend of fantasy and science fiction-inspired lyrics set against a backdrop of booty-shaking Thin Lizzy-inspired heavy rock."
Noisecreep asked the dudes in Gypsyhawk if they would be into writing a weekly tour blog for us during their trek with The Sword and they foolishly said yes. Whoa!
From Gypsyhawk guitarist Andrew Packer:
Hey, I'm Andrew Packer, and I'm chronicling Gypsyhawk's tour this Fall with The Sword. Typically, I've written blogs for the band on all of their previous tours sorta easily. This time, I'm stumped on what to say. Then again, there's only been two days of tour and nothing that exciting has happened. I could tell you how "The Sword are super nice dudes!", or "Eagle Claw are rad as fuck!" or, "man, I kinda fucked up my solo in 'State Lines'", or even, "Dude, all of this free booze is the SHIT!" and all of this would be true. Does that make for a readable story? This will never be any Mark Twain shit. I assume you're reading this because you want the kind of stuff I want when reading a Slash, or Lemmy, or Led Zeppelin biography. Tons of tits, cocaine, fights, and underage girls, all so ludicrous that it must be coming from another plane of existence. Well, I don't have any of that shit for you today.
I can allow you this much: this tour is fucking awesome. I expect every second of it to be worthwhile and something to hold onto for the rest of my life and in all likelihood give me some sort of, I don't know, joie de vivre. If that's even a real thing.
So, here's this. After I failed out of college around 2006 I decided I wanted to start a band. I had been playing guitar for about 12 years, but never did much except high school jamming. At UCSC I got suckered into an absurd scenario that I would graduate, go onto a Ph.D and teach history for the rest of my life. I guess I got caught up in the pretentious academic world and thought being a big know-it-all who specialized in unimportant boring bullshit would be a cool thing to do. Patches on my elbows and what not. What I really wanted to do was write about how America is on an endless road paved by itself toward implosion. My professors didn't get that and thought I should be in poli-sci or something. So I gave them the finger and moved back to LA to play rock and roll.
Watch 'Hedgeking' Video
I wanted to start a band that would be some kind of mix of Death and Black Sabbath. That band became Suns Beneath. A couple of months of being home I got a phone call from my good friend Josh who worked at a record store saying I would like this new band he randomly decided to check out because of their record cover. He said, "blah blah blah blah, buy the record." I took his word and the next thing you know Age of Winters didn't leave my stereo for about a year. I was obsessed. I wanted to do what they were doing. I studied everything I could about them. I bought the same guitars and amps. I wanted to do the same tension and release thing they tactfully seasoned over the whole album. I think they may have even been why I decided to finally grow out my hair. I was fucking stoked.
And now I'm on tour with them. So, that's pretty cool.
Suns Beneath effectively broke up toward the end of 2008, but right around then is when, through my experience and contacts over the previous 2 years, I met Eric Harris, who called me up one day and asked if I wanted to start a rock and roll band with him. Obviously, that band became Gypsyhawk.
That's all I got for you. Like I said, I've only been on tour for 2 days, and I got about 48 more to go, so hold onto your butts. There's bound to be better tales than just my boring life story.
Stay tuned for the next installment!
Gypsyhawk's new album, Revelry & Resilience, is out now via Metal Blade and available here.
Tour dates w/ The Sword, Eagle Claw:
End Tour 11/30 West Hollywood , CA House of Blues w/ Armored Saint (Metal Blade 30th Anniversary Show)
w/ The Sword, American Sharks
12/02 Tulsa, OK Eclipse
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