Hootie & the Blowfish back with new work
It’s been 15 years since Hootie & the Blowfish’s last album, “Looking For Lucky.” And now that the wait is ending, it seems just like yesterday.
There’s something timeless about their sound. From their debut “Cracked Rear View,” whose sales have passed 16 million copies, to their highly anticipated reunion album, called “Imperfect Circle” and set for a Nov. 1 release, their music radiates an upbeat feeling that, judging by public response, is just what everyone needs.
“I think a lot of people do use our music as an escape,” mused lead singer Darius Rucker, 53. “We’re not preachers. We’re not gonna come out and tell you what we think is right or that the world is messed up. That’s not us. We might think about it but we’re not gonna sing about it, except maybe in some tongue-in-cheek or funny way, like, ‘Hopefully, we all wake up tomorrow.’ ”
It’s not calculated, he added.
“I can honestly say to you that we’ve never once said that we need to make anything we do sound like anything,” he said. “Even way back when we were just a cover band working at frat parties in South Carolina, we just played the songs.”
The key, then, on “Imperfect Circle” is to do what they’ve always done — only more so. For this reason, Rucker, guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld recruited top producers Jeff Trott and Frank Rogers.
“Mark brought in this song, ‘Turn It Up,’ ” Rucker said. “He wrote it for another project, so I was kind of iffy about it because it was so different for us, with kind of a ska/reggae feel. Then Jeff came in and got these two very subtle ideas about how to play the verse and chorus differently. That really took the vibe to a place where I was like, ‘Man, this is awesome!’ ”
Guest artists and collaborators further broadened their palette, with Sheryl Crow singing backup throughout the album and Lucie Silvas and Rucker sharing the spotlight on “Wild Fire Love,” the product of a writing session with Ed Sheeran.
Hootie & the Blowfish appear ready to pick up where they left off as a pop music phenomenon. Yet they haven’t forgotten where they began. Which is why they’ll be closing the American segment of their Group Therapy Tour in their South Carolina hometown. (The tour includes an Aug. 23 stop at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy.)