ARTIST: Rich Hardesty
INTERVIEWER: Evan Harris (evan@bandvibe.com)
INTERVIEWEE: Rich Hardesty
DATE OF INTERVIEW: 12.08.06

BV: How did you get involved with Jagermeister?

Rich: It was a college favorite, but I never knew that I was gonna go after them. I just kept it in the freezer for parties, but I had no idea. A friend of mine was a Jager-ette, and she was part of the Jager-ette sponsorship program. She said it was a no-brainer, ‘you need to be endorsed by Jager.’ So, I put together a video of me and all my friends drinking Jager at the concerts, and I had all the fans talk to the camera. Then I sent the video to New Rochelle in New York, that’s where their headquarters are and San Diego also. It was a VHS tape and the guy called me back and said that ‘you’re done,’ you know ‘we like you,’ and that was the original.

BV: So how did you get from working with Jager to playing on their tour?

Rich: Well, it’s interesting because Jagermeister usually has the heavy bands, so I’m one of the exceptions with my acoustic, feel good, reggae vibe and that’s why this tour is so conducive for me. Because Pepper and Slightly Stoopid have the same vibe and fans so it’s perfect for me because their fans are my fans. This is the first tour they did non-metal. The first Jager tour was in 2002, so this is the fifth one and this is the first time they did something different with this type of music.

BV: So more mellow?

Rich: Yea, well it’s mellow, but it’s also rockin’. Some people call Jamaica my second home because I’ve been to Negril thirty some times and that Reggae feel is a part of me so I’m really happy to be with these guys.

BV: Who did you listen to growing up?

Rich: Growing up, I was into heavier stuff like Black Sabbath, Dokken, Def Leopard, Ratt, Judas Priest, Ted Nugent, but when I got my acoustic guitar I started learning all this James Taylor, John Denver, Jim Croche who is a big story teller and my number one influence and Gordon Lightfoot. Then I started transitioning into Frank Sinatra, The Violent Femmes, The Cure and now it’s the music that these guys [on the tour] are playing that I would choose to throw into a CD player. Plus lot’s of Bob Marley, anything from Jamaica, anything roots from the island. Jack Johnson, who a lot of people say I’m like but I push the envelope more lyrically.

BV: How did you start going to Jamaica?

Rich: The first time there was twenty five guys from my home town who said ‘let’s go to Jamaica,’ and I thought of Jamaica in my mind as this big fluffy green island and when we landed it was that. And I went back three months later because I fell in love with the people, their accents, I love their Patois, their broken English, the way they talk and their music. Every thing that island has to offer, the fruit, the vegetables, the people. Their motto is ‘Irie’ which means good luck and peace, it’s a peaceful place, but the country suffers. People go out of their way to make people like us have a great time on their island and it’s kinda weird because they’re living in that poverty. But as a rule most of them are really nice to you when you’re there.

BV: So, you fell in love with the place and just kept going back?

Rich: I had a friend there who was the body guard for the hotel I was staying at on the beach and I ended up staying at his village. He actually ended up getting killed on a motorcycle two years ago, and I knew him since ‘94.

BV: What kind of stuff are you listening to now?

Rich: Truthfully, lately I’ve been keeping the radio off and I just drive in silence. It’s kinda weird because I spend so much time on the road. Mostly I’ve been trying to write and do a lot of my own song writing. I’ve been focusing on my own music and I havn’t been listening to a lot. But since I went on tour with these guys, we started in the Midwest by the way. I did eight shows in the Midwest before I flew out here. These guys are my new music.

BV: What’s it like touring with Pepper and Slightly Stoopid?

Rich: Man, they’re just down to earth, happy, they’re always smiling and having a good time. You can see it onstage that they love what they’re doing. I haven’t met one cocky, ego dude yet out of all the members of both bands. I feel the vibe with them and I feel like they like what I’m doing and it seems conducive. Because I write stoner music and surfer music and when I walk onstage I’m like ‘this is my crowd.’

BV: Have you been drinking a lot of Jager on this tour?

Rich: Mmm…. Not like I did in 2002. In 2002 I was MC for the Jager tour with Coal Chamber and Drowning Pool and I drank a bottle every night. Thirty six days almost, I honestly did. And after that tour, I was like ‘Oh my God’ and we were putting soda in it and just faking it at times. But I do three or four shots onstage for the crowd, bring the bottle up there. I call it musician’s nectar and I wrote a new jingle, I’ve written a couple already, Jagermeister jingles. But I wrote a new one and I’m gonna play it onstage tonight.

BV: Wow, you’re all different things in one, huh? Jager, music…

Rich: National Lampoon. I work for the network. I’m in a movie coming out called Totally Baked. I got a cameo in the movie and I did the closing credits song called “All My Friends are Stoners.” I’m also on XM radio now they have their own National Lampoon channel. I just went to Sunset the other day and did six live songs. Now there’s talk about the Rich Hardesty hour. I’ll get Jager involved in that, and I’ll do shots on the radio and bong hits.

BV: Very nice. You said that you’ve been to Jamaica quite a few times, but where are you from originally?

Rich: I’m from the Midwest. La Porte, Indiana, it’s by the steel mills. My dad worked in the mills for thirty six years and I went to school in Bloomington, Indiana at IU. I moved to California two years ago to Hermosa Beach. Then I moved to West Hollywood and then I moved to Anaheim and I’m currently in Anaheim. I have the Indiana place for my friends, they basically stay at my house which enables me to do the west coast thing. I have a studio at my house in Indiana and I have a Husky, they watch my dog while I’m gone which is nice.

BV: I have an inside tip that when you were a rep for Jager you held the record for selling the most bottles in one night. How many bottles was that?

Rich: I did a hundred the last time when I broke my own record which was like eighty at one time. It was a little 500 event at Indiana University, it’s a bike race they have every year and there was 2000 people at the show. At the end of the night we went through a hundred bottles of Jager.

BV: What’s the average? How does that compare to other sales?

Rich: You know what? If you sell four or three bottles of Jager at a club you’re doing good, they like that. And that’s a lot of Jager. But with 2000 people just partying their asses off and a hundred bottles… But Jager doesn’t promote underage drinking or over consumption. Drink responsibly. I’m about the music more than the drinking but I like drinking Jager. Jager helps make my job easier too.

BV: I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to pull up in the Jager tour bus with huge pictures of Jeger on the side.

Rich: Yea, their gear is high quality too, like their hats. Those aren’t cheap hats, they’re really good hats. And their shirts, those things last forever. They don’t mess around when it comes to quality. Those things aren’t trinkets, I mean even their key chains are made out of steel. The people work really hard too. Rick Zieler, Adam Grayer, and Lizard Man are some of the hardest working people. Rick started the Jager tour. He thought of it and he wants to keep it going.

BV: Anything you want to say to your growing fan base?

Rich: I’d say watch out for a lot of the new songs I’m going to be putting out. Go to youtube.com because what I do is I play them live to show the fans what’s going to be coming out on the new records in the future. If you go to youtube.com there’s already a couple songs that are brand new and they’re gonna be on new records. I love Youtube and my hobby on the side is video taping anything and everything I see. I basically bike boarded down the Malibu Canyon two days ago. A bike board is a skateboard with a bicycle wheel and big handle bars. It’s really extreme, you slalom on it. Just go to bikeboard.com, that’s the owner he invented it and he’s a good friend of mine. I’ve been doing a lot bikeboarding and I’ve been videotaping myself going down the mountain. We take a video camera and then duck tape it to the front of a car and then the car follows me down the mountain. That’s the newest video I’m gonna post, but mostly I’m posting musical stuff on youtube.com.

BV: What’s the best way to find out about more about Rich Hardesty?

Rich: The best way to find me is you could either google me or go to www.richhardesty.com and through that I have a link to my myspace account. Search me on myspace because it’s unpredictable right now, you never know who’s gonna hack ya’ but I always try to keep one working. You can always find me through my website richhardesty.com and my music is sold through cdbaby.com. Also, keep your ears open on National Lampoon radio, the XM satellite station where I am on the regular rotation.

BV: Anything else you want to add?

Rich: Let’s drink some more Jager.

For more official information on Rich Hardesty, please log onto:
http://www.richhardesty.com/
http://www.myspace.com/richhardestymusic
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=richfeelgood/

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