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Lonesome Goat finds its local crowd
Jam-rock band goes country
Posted: Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Amarillo Globe News
By Chip Chandler
To listen to his songs, you'd think Dave Regal had been up to his boots in Texas music for years.
Take "Sunburst Beauty," the title track on Regal's band Lonesome Goat's debut album:
"Hell yeah, I'm gonna be a star.
Hell yeah, we'll play in every bar
Across this great big Lone Star State that we call home.
Forget Nashville, Tennessee. Texas is where I'm from."
With the whine of the steel guitar sweetening the music behind him, Regal sounds like a hard-core honky-tonker. And maybe he is, but he sure hasn't been at it long.
Less than a year ago, Regal was fronting The Humans, a longtime Amarillo rock band. But after about a decade of scratching out some modest success in town, the band realized that rock music wasn't drawing a crowd anymore.
"We were a Grateful Dead jam-rock band, and being a Grateful Dead jam-rock band in Amarillo is tough. ... Hell, we're in Amarillo? What's commercial and sellable here? It's not hippie rock," Regal said.
So Regal, lead guitarist Derek Wakefield, bass player Justin Hedgecoth, drummer John Lerma and hand drummer Drew Holder went back to the drawing board.
Around that time, they hooked up with Rick Faucett, who brought his steel guitar skills to what was becoming a burgeoning Texas country band.
"(He) puts the country touch into it," Regal said. "If we lost Rick, we might as well go back to rock 'n' roll."
The band has had "an almost seamless switchover" to its new style, which really isn't all that new to most of the members, both Regal and Wakefield said.
"My grandfather grew up with Bob Wills - played with him before he became a big name," Wakefield said.
The music "has a cool factor to it. If someone asks me who my musical heroes are, they have to be Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash. Those guys are as cool as it gets," Regal said.
Most of all, "it's fun music. It's about the party, about having a good time," he said.
That's also true of the fans, he said: "The country crowd is a fun crowd, man. They're just out to have a good time. They're not as analytical as a rock crowd, who are saying, 'Can I clap for these guys? Is that going to be cool?' "
Now, the band is settled into its new scene. Well-received gigs at the Golden Light Cantina and an easy recording process give them hope for success around the state, and they're working on getting airplay on Amarillo radio stations.
"It's almost like we were riding a bike uphill," Regal said, "when we could have been riding downhill the whole time."