Hackensaw Boys gear up for Scandinavian adventure

Hackensaw Boys have an infectious musical spirit that’s pure and delightful. The band infuses their grassy tornado with brazen punk attitude and catchy pop structure, while simultaneously remaining vehemently sincere. This month the band will make its way to Scandinavia, doing some festivals and club dates:

19/08: Gränna, SWE - Grenna Bluegrass Festival
21/08: Stockholm, SWE - Nomad
22/08: Malmö, SWE - Medley
23/08: Löderop, SWE - Strandkompaniet
24/08: Tønder, DK - Tønder Festival
25/08: Tønder, DK - Tønder Festival
26/08: Tønder, DK - Tønder Festival
27/08: Tønder, DK - Tønder Festival

For the past 20 years, Hackensaw Boys have been a hard-touring force of nature in the American roots music world, bringing a punk ferocity to their stringband base and a powerful sensitivity to their ballad roots. Operating more as a collective than a band, Hackensaw Boys were around before the O Brother craze kickstarted Americana, back in the old alt-country days. With all this history, it shook up bandleader and lead singer David Sickmen when long-time band member Ferd Moyse let him know that he was leaving the band in 2018.

Sickmen’s a man who survived throat surgery to save his voice and endured any number of hardships over two decades on the road, but nothing hits harder than a crisis of faith for a man who’s used his own indomitable will to push past every obstacle. “I realized as a 50-year-old man,” Sickmen says, “I’m too far gone to stop. I’ve waited too long to have another career. I did a lot of soul searching, trying to figure out what Hackensaw Boys even is at this point with all the people that have come and gone through it.” Sickmen realized Hackensaw Boys was more of an ethos, a mission statement to raise a little hell, encourage a more peaceful world, and bring the music back to its roots in a working-class American vernacular. 

Sickmen formed up a brand-new band - drawing from no shortage of talent in the group’s pool of musical friends and compatriots. Hackensaw Boys are more than a band, they're a family. This is quite literally the case on the band's new record, simply titled Hackensaw Boys. For the first time, the ever-rotating band lineup features a second generation, Sickmen's son Jonah on the homemade "charismo" bringing the cooperative-style camaraderie of the group full circle.