New York (Top40 Charts/ Ron Hawkins Official Website) - Ron Hawkins is a Canadian musician who rose to stardom in the 90's as the frontman for The Lowest of the Low. The band's debut album, Shakespeare My Butt, went on to become one of the best selling indie albums in Canadian music history. Moreover, it was named one of the top 10 Canadian albums of all time by Chart magazine. Ron Hawkins is formidable songwriter; "fans and fellow musicians alike maintain a respect for him that borders on reverence.
" He is not Rockin' Ronnie Hawkins, an unfortunate mix up that happens all too often. After the Lowest of the Low broke up, Ron went on to form the group The Rusty Nails. In 1995, Ron Hawkins released his first solo effort entitled The Secret of My Excess. Ron is fresh off a national tour of Canada on which he performed with British rock legend Billy Bragg. On the tour Ron played many songs from his 2009 release, 10 Kinds of Lonely. March, 2010 marks his first tour of Asia.
Ron Hawkins One Night Only in Hong Kong
Saturday, 27 March 2010
@ Rockschool, 2/F., Corner of 21-25 Luard Rd., 93 Jaffe Rd., Wanchai
9pm - 12am
HK$100 (in advance from ROCKSCHOOL or The Underground)
HK$130 (door sales)
All tickets include one mixed drink.
Enquiries: 9486 4648 [email protected]
Below is an interview with Ron Hawkins.
So, what brings you to China?
An e-mail out of the blue from a fan in Guangzhou. He runs a bar there.
I often joke with my wife that you just need to be in a relatively famous band in Canada, wait for your fans to become entrepreneurs and then the e-mails will come fast and furious with offers from exotic locales.
We hear you just finished a cross Canada tour with English rock legend Billy Bragg. Can you talk about that tour a bit? What was it like playing with Billy?
The Bragg tour was great. It was a series of concert halls and churches so the acoustics were incredible. It was just me and an acoustic guitar and Billy and his electric so it was quite a streamlined affair.
I also found that it was good for me to reconnect with old Lowest of the Low fans who may not have known I was still making music and releasing discs. Billy and the Low had a lot of crossover fans. I wasn't on the Billy tour ads so a lot of people showed up to see Billy and surprise, surprise... there I was too.
Billy is about as close to an idol (along with the Clash) as it gets for me and I'm not overstating the point when I say that Billy helped propel me into the music biz. I was already trying to write songs when I discovered him (when I was about 18) but he was a real inspiration in a punk rock way. He wasn't a fabulous singer or a super achieved guitar player but he was able to be incredibly inspiring and powerful nonetheless.
After your tour of Souhern China and Hong Kong, you are heading to Melbourne, Australia. How did that leg of your tour come to be? What's your relationship to Australia?
I was in Australia in 2008 touring my last record Chemical Sounds. On that one I was opening a reunion tour for Weddings Parties Anything who, like Billy Bragg, were huge influences on me when I was growing up.
To make a long story short - the Weddings played a couple gigs in Toronto in 1994 with the Low, we covered one of their songs on the first night, kicked their ass, then they went back to their hotels and learned one of ours for the next night. A couple years later they recorded the song (Rosy and Grey) and released it on a live disc. It was a huge success for them and became one of their "must do" encores. Consequently that helped me, and the Low, get known over there.
How do you feel your songwriting and approach to music has evolved since going solo years ago?
Well I would say that in the early nineties, and with the first two Low records, I considered my songwriting to be mostly autobiographical, almost like a journalist. I wanted to get to the heart of my experiences and tell the "truth" (as I saw it) about my life and times.
Now, I'd say that those underpinnings are still important to me but that I can tell them with more metaphor and through the guise of other characters.
With my recent disc 10 Kinds of Lonely, I recorded the whole thing in my basement and recorded most of the instruments myself so it was a very hermetic experience. I also learned to override my self sabotaging judgements and just push through an idea till the end to see where it would go. I think this freed me up alot and made the whole process less painful.
Your name has always been attached to indie (independent) rock. What does "indie" mean to you? For example, what separates mainstream rock from indie?
Well, I grew up with two major influences which were punk and folk music. Both had been historically confrontational and self reliant DIY kinds of music. So I learned early on to depend on myself and my bandmates as much as possible. And though I've gone down as someone who gets called an "indie freedom fighter" and a "classic contrarion" I really don't take these stands as a matter of course. They're not pre-thought out manifestos or anything. It just turns out that almost 100% of the time I'm better off, and the music is better served, if I take the reigns myself and am responsible for the successes and failures.
You have toured all over the world. What do you expect from audiences in China?
I guess first off I'm expecting to play to alot of ex-pats so that will feel familiar, but I have no real preconceived notion as to what a Chinese audience will think of my songs. I like to think the tunes have a universal message to impart but so far I've only toured English speaking countries that have descended from the British Empire so who knows. All I can do is strap on the acoustic, get out there, and give it my best shot... right?
South China Tour
Thursday, March 25th
Shenzhen, Enigma
(50Rmb)
Friday, March 26th
Hooley's Irish Pub
2 Tian He Bei Lu, Tian He District
Guangzhou, 3886-2675
(50 RMB cover includes a Tiger, opening act starts at 930)
Saturday March 27th
Rock School
2/F The Phoenix, 21-25 Luard Rd, Wan Chai, 2510 7339.
Hong Kong
(HK$100 cover includes one mixed drink, opening act starts at 9:30pm)
