Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

For The Hooten Hallers’ first studio album in five years, the title Back In Business became more apt than ever thanks to the intervening pandemic.

The guitar, sax and drums trio from St Louis, Missouri, had actually finished recording the album in early 2020. With their distinctive melding of blues, jazz and punk the three-piece have been steadily building a following on both sides of the Atlantic.

In a Zoom chat with the whole group, guitarist John Randall tells The Guide: ‘We were tossing around a couple of different titles for the album and it just ended up landing on Back in Business because of the meaning it took on after the pandemic – but the song was written and recorded before we knew anything about Covid. It just sort of happened to fit into the theme, but it wasn't intentional!’

Shortly after their self-titled 2017 album, the band released the Live in Missouri album, which captures their electrifying stage show.

The Hooten Hallers play at The Wedgewood Rooms on November 8, 2022. Picture by Charles Bruce

Drummer Andy Rehm explains: ‘We recorded that because we weren't ready to get in the studio with this batch of songs just yet. A year later we were in the studio recording this album, and that live record ended up being our last record for quite some time!’

NOW READ: Bellowhead’s Sam Sweeney on the reunion tour, his solo album, and Paul Sartin’s death

The band started in 2007 as just John and Andy, but they solidified their sound in 2014 when Kellie Everett joined on saxophone.

‘We were drums and guitar for several years on our own - John and I,’ says Andy, ‘and then very briefly we flirted with the inclusion of a horn when our friend Paul joined the band and played some tuba during the show, but mostly harmonica. We loved that and when Kellie became interested in sitting in on a studio session or two and then eventually going on the road, that changed everything for the better.

The Hooten Hallers live in 2020. Picture by George Blosser

‘We reached this different sound – I know the saxophone has been part of rock'n'roll and a great many other things for a long time – but I feel like we do it just a little different.’

The sax is front and centre in the band’s sound. And as Kellie says: ‘I like to think we take on a classic power trio formation. Usually in a power trio you'll have a lead bass, so that's kind of where I get my role from, but then there's also room to take solos and do harmonies and things like that as well.’

All three of the band also sing leads.

‘I never really intended on doing too much singing,’ says Kellie, ‘I would just chime in when I wasn't playing, but one of the songs I wrote for this new album, I sent the demo over for John to song, and he went: “No you're singing it!”’

And all three also contribute to the songwriting.

‘Sometimes someone has a pretty full-formed song,’ says John, ‘like with Kellie's Even The Blues Get The Blues. She had recorded it with her playing an acoustic guitar in a stripped down version, but the song itself was totally done. Sometimes one has a chorus or a line, or even just a melody and then we'll flesh it out together.

If you're able to put the whole song together, power to you, but we're all usually pretty open to constructive criticism on that kind of stuff too, so even if it is fully put together, a line might change or a bit of a melody might change.

‘Especially on this album, we collaborated on our songwriting more than we had in the past – a lot of it was truly written with all of us together in the same room.’

The Guide had to confess to the Hallers that, shamefully, they didn’t know much about their home state’s musical heritage. Something the band is rightfully quick to set straight.

‘Well Chuck Berry was from St Louis, and he kind of started rock'n'roll,’ starts John.

‘Ike and Tina Turner were from here,’ adds Andy, ‘and we've got an extremely rich jazz and blues history. And folk too – we're close enough to Appalachians and the Ozarks that that string-band sound was extremely popular here, and there's a lot of history here. (Blues legend) Robert Johnson himself played a house show here on Jefferson Avenue. The history is deep.’

John says: ‘The Mississippi River had a lot to do with music, with St Louis being based right on the river, it brought a lot of different jazz and blues here.’

And Kellie finishes the lesson: ‘St Louis was comparably sized to Chicago in the 1800s going into the 1900s. There was a lot of industry, it was a totally happening city. Scott Joplin, the inventor of ragtime lived in St Louis. A ton of the earliest blues artists like Roosevelt Sykes were coming up – you just have a lot of different sounds mixing there at the same time, a lot of immigration from Germans – they brought the brass band thing. So St Louis ended up having its own separate take on jazz at the same time it was coming up in New Orleans.’

As we’re chatting, the Guide confesses to the Hallers that, shamefully, they didn’t know much about Missouri’s musical heritage. Something the band is rightfully quick to set straight.

‘Well Chuck Berry was from St Louis, and he kind of started rock'n'roll,’ starts John.

John says: ‘The Mississippi River had a lot to do with music, with St Louis being based right on the river, it brought a lot of different jazz and blues here.’

And Kellie finishes the brief lesson: ‘St Louis was comparably sized to Chicago in the 1800s going into the 1900s. There was a lot of industry, it was a totally happening city. Scott Joplin, the inventor of ragtime lived in St Louis. A ton of the earliest blues artists like Roosevelt Sykes were coming up – you just have a lot of different sounds mixing there at the same time, a lot of immigration from Germans – they brought the brass band thing. So St Louis ended up having its own separate take on jazz at the same time it was coming up in New Orleans.’

Given the lengthy gap between albums, the trio are keen to get going on the next one somewhat sooner – they have in fact already started writing it.

‘We've been conceptualising and songwriting – we've got an idea for the next album,’ says John.

‘One hint: It's a rock opera,’ adds Kellie excitedly.

‘We're all really excited to try something new and interesting,’ says Andy, ‘and I think that's hopefully what we get to do with every record for the rest of our existence.’

‘Hell yeah!’ John adds emphatically.

They play The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea on November 8. Go to wedgewood-rooms.co.uk.

The Hooten Hallers are Back in Business and bringing their sax, drums and rock'n'roll to Portsmouth's Wedgewood Rooms | Interview