therage010401

Rock & Roll Carousel Ride

Will Hoge just likes to rock. Not the way Korn and Papa Roach do it, but the way Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty do it - honest, emotional and raw, the way music used to be made. It's plain old rock & roll, without any of the "alternative" trappings so common in today's popular rock music.

Carousel, Hoge's new disc, is one of the best pure rock & roll discs to come around in a while. Self released and out this week, Carousel has all the makings of a truly great record - well-written songs, excellent musicianship, fine production, former Georgia Satellite frontman Dan Baird on guitar, and Hoge's vocals.

Hoge put the band together in the spring of '99. He scored a major coup by snagging Baird, who actually sought Hoge out to volunteer his always-sought-after services. Baird has since moved on, replaced on lead guitar by the more than capable Brian Layson. Tres Sasser on bass and Kirk Yoquelet on drums round out the tight rock outfit.

Hoge has been touring almost nonstop in recent months, hitting major clubs in major cities, including Schuba's in Chicago, and the Wetlands in New York (dates at New Orleans' House of Blues and Atlanta's Variety Playhouse are in the near future). He tells The Rage that he's noticed a difference in the crowds this time out - people who know the songs and are responding to them. "It's great looking out and seeing people getting turned on by what me and the band do," he says. "It's probably the best thing about what I do."

Hoge's bio drops a lot of names, referencing Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in quick succession. Within the songs themselves, however, you get shades of a really pumped-up Elvis Costello and, oddly enough, Squeeze. While quick to say he doesn't consider himself worthy to be mentioned alongside such artists, Hoge does see a rock lineage of sorts. "Dylan was the 'new Guthrie,'" he points out. "Springsteen was the 'next Dylan,' and Petty was the 'next McGuinn.' Hopefully one day someone will say that this new guy is the 'next Will Hoge.' Hopefully they will say it and mean it in a good way!"