The High Hawks will perform at Boulder’s eTown theater on Feb. 17, 2024. (Courtesy of Michael Weintrob/Michael Weintrob Photography)
The High Hawks, an eclectic Colorado jam-rock band, released their second album, “Mother Nature’s Son” on Friday, and will perform at Boulder’s eTown theater Saturday. The group is currently on tour to promote their album, making several stops in Colorado before rolling about the west, landing in Wisconsin in late June.
“The key element of the High Hawks is, we come together and it’s really about the joy of the music,” vocalist-guitarist Adam Greuel said. “High Hawks is a project that’s, above all else, for the love of the game… you get six people up on stage who are highly committed to their craft, [and] also interested in having a lot of fun.”
The band’s members, Greuel, Will Trask, Vince Herman, Chad Staehly, Brian Adams and Tim Carbone, each come from unique musical backgrounds and tie together elements of Southern, country, psychedelic rock, blues, bluegrass, Cajun and more. Their newest album takes listeners on a road trip down Highway 61, the ‘Blues Highway’ immortalized by Bob Dylan, touching on each of these styles by visiting iconic music scenes from Minnesota to New Orleans, passing through St. Louis, Memphis and the Mississippi Delta.
The six-piece ensemble first met years ago via a different musical venture. Herman and Staehly co-founded the group Great American Taxi in 2005, and both Adams and Trask were members, with Carbone having produced two of their albums.
Greuel, originally from the group Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, was influenced by Great American Taxi as a teenager and played a few gigs with them.
“I was the kid who was up in the very front, riding the rail, throwing down, dancing really hard and paying very close attention to what was going on with the musicians on stage,” Greuel said. “It’s a really neat process, growing up and seeing some of these folks and having them be influences.”
The High Hawks officially formed in 2019 and released their debut album of the same name in 2021. They spent their first sessions together introducing material and creating a cohesive melting pot of their different styles.
“[The] two days leading up to our first run in 2019, we basically arranged 14 tunes, 15 tunes,” drummer Trask said. “For the most part, people brought new originals. And I was just floored… the band totally chameleon-ed into the environment really naturally. Just because everyone has such a broad language and comes from such a different background, we’re able to [say,] ‘Oh, what are we putting into the gumbo today?’”
The band’s collective hundreds of thousands of hours spent touring across the U.S. allowed them to pull from as many different music scenes as possible, generating both a completely unique style and an album filled with songs that are all completely distinct.
“You open yourself up to these various musical directions, and in doing that… you end up being able to create your band’s musical ethos, and your musical character as a result of being open to everything that influences you and everything you’ve learned,” Greuel said. “We live our day-to-day lives with a degree of severity. There’s all kinds of things to be concerned with, whether it’s the state of the world, or how we’re gonna make ends meet, or all of life’s typical stressors. But damn, if it isn’t really fun to take a break from all that and just get together and find some joy in music and friends.”
Tickets to the High Hawks’ Boulder show, their Fort Collins show, and all remaining tour dates are available via their website, and “Mother Nature’s Son” is available to buy/stream here.
Contact CU Independent Arts and Entertainment Editor Grace Ptak at Grace.Ptak@colorado.edu
