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Weary Boys look to impact music at the Swing Station |
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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Thursday, 24 May 2007 |
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 Don’t let the name fool you — the Weary Boys are not some dreadfully boring act known for putting audiences to sleep.
Far from it, in fact. Instead, this Austin, Texas-based five-piece rocking bluegrass outfit is known for regularly tearing it up on stage.
“The amount of energy we put out on stage” is really high, guitarist and vocalist Darren Hoff said from his Austin home. “We are really tight from having played together so much. We have a telepathy that allows us to tap in and just really rock — and people like to see that.”
Hoff is not so much boasting as telling the truth. Within a year of the band forming and moving to Austin, the Weary Boys were regularly selling out Austin clubs.
Their musical careers were moving fast enough that they even quit their day jobs.
Interestingly, the Weary Boys were hardly a band before moving to Austin. The three founding members grew up performing together in Humboldt County, northern California, but hadn’t played together in years. Hoff shot off a few e-mails and gathered in his old friends — fiddler Brian Salvi and guitarist Mario Matteoli (who has since left the band to be replaced with banjoist Matt Downing) — and they decided to try Austin only because they’d “heard it was a good place to play music.”
“The competition was scary at first,” Hoff recalled. “We’d go out and see bands and go, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to practice.’ But the competitiveness isn’t between the bands personally. Every band helps you. I wouldn’t call it tight knit, it’s really a loose community, but everyone is looking to help everyone out.”
The Weary Boys unknowingly helped themselves out when they began busking on the drag near the University of Texas, on the very spot where Lucinda Williams got her start.
Eventual bass player Darren Sluyter worked at a nearby sandwich shop.
He dropped a buck in Hoff’s guitar case and invited everyone over for a jam session. Soon the band was filling clubs and touring across the South.
They hope to have a similar impact on northern Colorado.
“I don’t know why we haven’t been coming to Colorado as much,” Hoff said. “It seems like we should have. Maybe after this tour, people will want us to come back more often.”
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TO GO TO THE SHOW
Weary Boys
8 p.m.
Sunday May 27
Swing Station
3311 W. Larimer County Road 54G, Laporte
224.3326, $5
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HARD TIME
The Weary Boys proved such a hit in Louisiana that they were invited to play the Louisiana State Angola Prison.
“It’s a weird place to be. Everyone there is a murderer, robber or rapist, but they only let the highest tier of good behavior folks see us,” Weary Boy guitarist Darren Hoff said. “Everyone I met there was personable. It was half a day off from the fields and a little reward for good behavior. We had the time of our lives there.”
Glenn BurnSilver
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