Interview by Mark Lacey
No strangers to many of the world’s biggest stages, Joel Hoesktra and Brandon Gibbs have performed amongst rock royalty, with tenures in Whitesnake, Accept, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Devil City Angels, and Poison between them, as well as copious solo and collaborative musical projects. When the two musicians first met, the stars aligned and a deep friendship formed, and the pair have used every opportunity since to take their acoustic duo on the road, building connections with fans in as up-close-and personal a setting as many will have ever encountered them. Joel and Brandon returned to the UK & Ireland for a run of 12 shows last month, following a hugely successful run last year, and MGM caught up with the guys backstage in London, just before their penultimate UK show, in support of Winger.
“When it’s two people, it’s a lot easier to just navigate. It’s literally the two of us. That eliminates a lot of drama, man. It really does. When I’m with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, with crew it’s got to be somewhere close to 80-90 people. When you’re travelling with that number of people versus two, that’s an enormous difference”.
MGM: You’re back in the UK after touring here for the first time since last year. What’s brought you back so quickly?
Brandon: We’re just trying to grow this thing as much as possible. It’s organically surprised us. Joel likes to work, I like to work, and we want to establish another home away from home. Come over here and grind it out.
MGM: You’re over here for 12 shows. The last time you were over in London, you were playing in the intimate Black Heart, but you’re now in London supporting Winger at the Islington Assembly Hall. You’re both accustomed to playing larger venues, but this is marked step up for your acoustic duo.
Brandon: It’s always nice when you pull in and have a wonderful theatre like that. This is a total treat.
Joel: We got some shows early on where we opened for some bigger acts. We’ve opened for Vince Neil, for one of our early shows. It’s not totally unprecedented, but it’s unusual. Typically, we’re headlining and playing a 90 minutes set. For the Winger support, we play a definitely truncated set of 45 minutes. That stresses us out more than anything, because we don’t want to go a minute over 45 minutes and piss off Winger, and we know the whole drill with that. That’s part of the courtesy of the music industry. A lot of people that are just fans maybe don’t know that, but it’s like such a no-no to go even a minute over when you’re the opener. We want to be very cognizant of that and be courteous.
MGM: When you toured last year, you played some great songs from your own catalogues, and some of the well-known bands you’ve both played with. But you also intertwined the songs with lots of different stories. How have you worked that for this tour? Are you doing similar songs, similar stories, or have you brought some fresh material to the tour?
Joel: The set’s been changed up a little bit. I’d say the raps have evolved a bit. Maybe out of a typical headliner show last year, I’d say maybe about 25% of that has evolved.
MGM: It must be tricky to keep it fresh for the audiences, and interesting for yourselves when you’re playing the same songs, and recounting the same stories throughout a long tour. How do you manage that?
Joel: If you enjoy what you do, and as long as it’s organic and it’s who you are, and it’s something that you enjoy doing, then I think it just comes out alright without feeling like you’re phoning it in. That’s the story in any big band as well. You know you’re going to play ‘Here I Go Again’ when you’re in Whitesnake, but it doesn’t mean when you’re playing ‘Here I Go Again’, you’re not into it. So, I suppose it’s just enjoying what you do, and I think we both really enjoy what we do.
Brandon: With some song titles, it’s best to have a little explanation before. I have ‘Rich for Life’. With that song, if I don’t explain it, you might not understand where I’m coming from. Sometimes you tell the story and the reason for the title of the song and hope that it relates.
MGM: I remember that song from your last tour, and you telling the story, and talking about your dad. It was really powerful hearing how much he meant to you and his support of what you were doing.
Brandon: Oh, thank you. I appreciate people letting me talk about that, actually.
Joel: On the flip side, I’ve really enjoyed setting up ‘Love ain’t no stranger’ with my David Coverdale imitation on this current tour. I’ve basically introduced that in David Coverdale’s voice on this tour. It’s usually got a few laughs.
MGM: You did a great Lemmy impression last year too.
Joel: That actually is something that cracked David up. That’s stolen from the Whitesnake backstage vocal warm-ups. We would all gather around and sing backing vocals. Every once in a while, I would sing it as Lemmy, and every time David would lose it laughing. Maybe every week or two, I’d throw it in.
MGM: One powerful feature of your shows is the interaction you get from being up close and personal. For many people, these tours are probably the nearest they’ve ever got a chance to watch you both play. But, how do you still create that connection with fans in larger venues?
Joel: For this Winger support, we’ve limited the talking more than normal, and limited the guitar solos and things like that. That tends to be the bathroom break or where people begin to chatter. It’s a little more boom, boom, boom in terms of playing songs. We play it a little bit more on the safer side in terms of what people are going to recognise; there’s more covers than we would probably like. But we recognise that we do this for the fans. If you’re a fan out there and you’re given the choice of hearing one of my original songs or a Whitesnake song, you’re probably voting for the Whitesnake song. Let’s just go ahead and give people what they like and just have a fun night. That’s all it’s about in the end anyway. The music business is about understanding how to make other people happy, not just making yourself happy.
MGM: You both decided to work together after talking on the Monsters of Rock Cruise. You could equate this to being like a holiday romance or a holiday bromance. Having now worked together for a couple of years, has it gone the way you expected?
Brandon: I think we push each other, I mean, it’s hard out here. I think we have that in common. If I’m having a down day, Joel might do an impression or something to make me laugh, and that makes it a little easier. I try and listen or create some comedy and stuff like that. But, we’re bros, aren’t we?
Joel: Yeah, absolutely. Brandon’s a really easy hang, and he’s a great guy, and that’s a big part of it. When you break something down to two people like this, it really does simplify the equation. The relationships are not as complex as when you get, “so-and-so said this about so-and-so”, and “so-and-so is hanging out with so-and-so and saying ….”. When it’s two people, it’s a lot easier to just navigate through a lot of that. Out here we do have some help as far as having tour management, a driver, and somebody handling merchandise for us. But in general, we do this with no crew in the States. It’s literally the two of us. That eliminates a lot of drama, man. It really does. When I’m with the Trans Siberian Orchestra, with crew it’s got to be somewhere close to 80-90 people. When you’re travelling with that number of people versus two, that’s an enormous difference.
For this, I think we’re both just really energised that it’s been so well received. The way that these work, they don’t generate a lot of money. So, in the States we’ve tried to hub out of near Brandon’s home base or mine, and tour a lot of those areas. We haven’t been able to get to a lot of the places that we’d like to in the States, and we do have some of that set up this year. We have a nice run in Colorado that we’re really excited about, and we have a run in Florida later in the year that we’re excited about. It adds a level of excitement because we are doing it for the first time for people that really haven’t seen it. That does keep it fresh, and it’s always a gas to come overseas because we had no delusions of grandeur with this thing.
MGM: There was talk of you guys putting together some album at some point. Is that still on the horizon?
Joel: We’ve got a song started together that we’ve been unable to complete so far. But we should have some original music from the two of us at some point. Each of us have a lot going on. I just finished South America with Accept right before this. I was home for only six days before I came over here. And in that time, I had four sessions and taught 27 lessons, and tried to practise our set. And so, each of us have a lot going on. But yeah, it would be nice. I think maybe with Brandon and myself, it would be smarter to do it with singles, rather than try to do full albums.
Brandon: Every time we get to be around each other, it’s instant work. And the moment your feet hit the ground you’re running until lights out. So, when we see each other, we don’t really have a shitload of time. I remember the last run in the USA, I think we toyed with our song idea backstage for 5-10 minutes before we actually went on stage. Maybe we need to book a weekend where we’re actually working on songs and not gigging.
MGM: You just mentioned some of the other projects you’re both working on MGM recently spoke to Vinnie Appice, who played on your latest solo album, Joel?
Joel: Yeah, Vinnie’s played on all three of the Joel Hoekstra ‘13’ CDs. He’s the go-to drummer for that project. That’s essentially what I consider my rock side project because it doesn’t sound like guitar albums. It sounds like a band. I do all the writing. I write all the vocals and all the vocal melodies. It’s my chance to be the boss for a second, but I don’t have a whole lot of desire to do the big instrumental shredder album. I released three instrumental albums years ago already and got that out of my system. I was doing gigs in that circuit, and I wasn’t having a lot of fun. It was a little more fun for me when I got out with bands and realised my real love is playing rock music, and with bands with really nice guitar work, but not just necessarily having my mission statement on guitar be like, “look how good I am”. There’s something about that that just is a turn off to me because it’s not my mindset. I just want to be in a place of playing music that I enjoy, making fans happy, and feeling happiness amongst a band. Some of that instrumental scene when you see the guys out doing the clinics, and all they’re doing is pyrotechnics on guitar. That’s not to say anything derogatory about anybody who enjoys doing it, but to me, that just doesn’t feel like why I got into playing guitar. These Joel Hoekstra ‘13’ albums are just straight ahead, classic rock; that’s the vibe that got me into playing guitar.
MGM What about yourself, Brandon? Do you think there’ll be a chance we’ll see you over here with Poison or with the Devil City Angels?
Brandon: I don’t know. Poison doesn’t really jump overseas very often. I think that they would have a massive draw if they did. I think people would like to see them. Actually, before I came over here, I did a show in Los Angeles with Rikki Rockett. He’s got a couple of things brewing for us. I don’t know exactly what the schedule is going to be for that. But I just literally finished working with him. I tour solo as well, and I have a solo live band, and that’s what I did to start the year out. When I get home, I need to go back in the studio. I need to kick out some new stuff. I’ve been working a lot, and now I need to go spend a week in Tennessee where I record, and just get some new material for you all. But, Rockett’s a pretty good sport. Just keep tagging them, and say come over here.
MGM: I think Poison’s last UK tour is as far back as 1993 and the ‘Native Tongue’ tour with Richie Kotzen, so it’s been at least 30 years.
Joel: Oh my god! “I did not know that”, as Johnny Carson would have said. I don’t know if you guys know the Johnny Carson humour over here!
For more information:
www.facebook.com/JoelHoekstraandBrandonGibbs/
https://brandongibbsmusic.com/
Hoekstra Gibbs will be performing live across the USA from August-October
Augst 7th: Wide Open Saloon, Sedalia, CO
August 8th: Angry Clover, Aurora, CO
August 9th: Tailgate Tavern, Parker, CO
August 10th: Ute Theater, Rifle, CO
August 19th: Riviera Theater, North Tonowanda, NY (Supporting Gene Simmons)
September 27th: The Landis Theater, Vinland, NJ
September 28th Broad Brook Opera House, Croad Brook, CT
September 29th: The Iridium, NYC
October 6th: Central Park Performing Arts Center. Largo, FL
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