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Decades of living a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle can take its toll on the psyche, but Hooks and the Huckleberries have got the cure for that: a 3D phantasmagoria of high desert rock. They’ve invited their friends AJ Woods with Alligator Juniper and Micah Thunder & The Lightning to join them on a cosmic journey tonight, Jan. 31, at the Launchpad (618 Central Ave. SW). To help make their return to the Launchpad stage a trip to remember, projection art gurus Quannumthrows will put on a 3D-centric light show during the performance complete with free glasses at the merch booth.
“We’ve always had this psychedelic space cowboy motif,” Hooks says. “We’re gonna try to turn the Launchpad into outer space, essentially.”
Hooks says his buddy AJ Woods’ 2024 release Hawk — recorded with the folks from A Hawk and a Hacksaw — was one of his favorite albums of last year. He was inspired by the album release show at Guild Cinema, which included projection art elements during the performance. He says he called Woods the very next day to jump on tonight’s show, which will double as a release party for Hooks and the Huckleberries’ new album For the Love of Whatever. They will have plenty of CDs and limited edition “dog piss yellow” cassettes on sale tonight at the concert.
“Several members of the band — myself included — are in favor of psychedelic therapy, so we definitely went pretty spacey with a lot of the effects, but it’s still rooted in rock and roll,” Hooks says. “We used to call ourselves high desert country, then it was high desert Americana and now we just say we play music for people who wear cowboy hats and listen to The Cure.”
The Huckleberries were formed in 2020 by frontman Adam Hooks and guitarist Josh Lee, and they’ve been active nonstop since then. Hooks says, weirdly enough, the band’s music is rooted in punk rock and Texas country.
“When we first started, there was a little bit more emphasis on the country element — and that element is still there in the sound — but we’ve definitely allowed ourselves to grow and get a little weirder and not limit ourselves to one specific genre,” Hooks says. “I love hearing what’s coming out of this band. Our latest album is one of the greatest things that any of us have ever done creatively.”
While the music tends to be pretty mellow, the subject matter and lyrics on Hooks and the Huckleberries’ records can be dark at times, and it’s always “brutally, gutwrenchingly honest.” Hooks says that decades of self-destructive behavior, nihilistic thinking and hard partying on the road with hardcore punk bands eventually began to catch up with him. After spending some time in therapy and quitting drinking, he feels like he’s gotten his shit together over the last couple of years, and he feels he has a responsibility to share his experiences through his music.
“If you’re not willing to talk about your struggles and your worst of times, and you only focus on the Instagram best of times, that’s not real life, and that doesn’t really help anybody,” he says. “I feel like – not only to keep myself from slipping but also just to possibly, in any way, help anybody else out there that has gone through the same struggles – I tend to be pretty honest in my songwriting.”
Ironically, listening to the Grateful Dead helped him find “common ground” with the dudes in his current band, and he says it helped him fall in love with country music again. The show at Launchpad will be quite an experience in every sense of the word. Hooks says they plan to record the show for a live album and will have other surprises in store this evening.
The new album For the Love of Whatever is available to jam on Spotify along with much more from Hooks and the Huckleberries.
Listen to “For the Love of Whatever” (the title track to the new album) here.
Hooks and the Huckleberries Live in 3D
With AJ Woods and Alligator Juniper, Micah Thunder & The Lightning and Quantumthrows
Jan. 31, 8 p.m.
Launchpad
618 Central Ave. SW
$15