Editor’s Note: 150 Million YouTube Views. 4 Million Albums Sold Worldwide. 100 million streams. 10 million in singles. It’s safe to say that Oklahoma’s own HINDER have had their share of success. Madness To Creation remembers how quickly they shot up the charts and in ticket sales with their landmark album “Extreme Behavior”. The album had chart-topping singles “Better Than Me”, “Get Stoned”, and their massive international hit “Lips Of An Angel”. Since then, they have seen changes in lead singer from Austin Winkler to Marshall Dutton and they are still packing clubs and auditoriums all around the country. This summer, Covid-19 permitting, Hinder will be hitting the road to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of “Extreme Behavior”. In this interview with Madness To Creation, drummer Cody Hanson of Hinder reflects on “Extreme Behavior”, mental health awareness and what fans can expect from this year’s run. Fans can find Hinder at the following locations:
Madness To Creation: Hi Cody, thanks for taking the time to talk to me for Madness To Creation, how are you today?
Cody: Good, how are you?
Madness To Creation: Covid-19 permitting, it looks like you’re gearing up for the 15 years of “Extreme Behavior” tour! What can fans expect from the tour and what are some of your fondest memories that you have of the album?
Cody: As far as memories go, there are so many, you can’t really just put one out there. I think anything from signing our record deal, that was our first trip to New York City when we signed our record deal, that was a pretty big experience, that’s where everything started, on the first record. We did that and we went out on our first big tour, and before we even realized it, we were headlining our own arena tour, those were insane times to say the least. As far as the tour goes, we’re really excited about playing some of the old songs, it’s been a long time since we played some of those. So we’re going to completely change up our stage production and gear it towards its first album, we’re going to be playing the first album in its entirety, which I don’t know if we’ve ever done that to be honest with you. It’s going to be a pretty unique and fun experience.
Madness To Creation: You guys are bringing out Wayland and Blacktop Mojo for this run, what can fans expect from those bands?
Cody: Wayland has been out on the road with us before, so we’ve became really good friends with them while we were out, and since then we’ve done a lot of work with them in the studio writing songs and doing a little bit of production. They’re one of our favorite bands to tour with, we have a blast with those guys. With Blacktop Mojo, we’ve never met those guys to my knowledge, but I’ve heard a lot of really great things about them, I’m really digging their stuff, I think it’s going to be a really great, cohesive package, we’re definitely looking forward to it.
Madness To Creation: Take Cody Hanson of today and the Cody Hanson from 15 years ago when Extreme Behavior came out, what advice would you give him?
Cody: Man, that’s a tough one! Probably start a few more businesses outside of music *laughs*, other than that, I think we’ve made about as many correct decisions as we could going through the process. We had a lot of fun, most of us didn’t get too crazy or get too carried away, we’re all still alive and healthy, so we’re doing pretty good.
Madness To Creation: What is your viewpoint on Spotify and the music industry from 2005 to now? What changes have you seen?
Cody: To be honest, the industry is hardly recognizable in comparison to what it was when we first got started. The focus for artists is completely different. Before, it was on radio play and it was on album sales, now it’s like a lot of bands don’t even care about the radio much at all, and definitely nobody cares about album sales, everything is geared towards Spotify plays or whatever streaming service it is, it’s really difficult to gauge the success of new music or of a single when you put one out. For us, we shifted gears and made the focus on going out and touring and connecting with our fans and just delivering the live show that they want and having a good time with it.
Madness To Creation: What are a couple memories that stick out to you when you meet your fans?
Cody: We’ve been doing this for so long, I think it would be impossible for me to name just one memory, but that actually happens quite a bit. I’d say a couple of times a week, we’ll get a message about how our music has impacted somebody’s life or their situation. When we are on the road, we definitely get that daily. For us, that’s what keeps us going and honestly that is the reason we still do this after all these years. That’s what makes it enjoyable to know what we do impacts somebody else’s life, it’s a pretty amazing thing.
Madness To Creation: Speaking of online, how has your band adjusted your social media accounts given this Covid-19 pandemic that we are in?
Cody: It’s still fairly new, it seemed like everybody kind of panicked in the beginning and just jumped all over the live stream thing, that wasn’t really our approach. We’d rather sit back and be calculated about it. We planned to do some of those things, we may be doing one for a radio station kind of like an online festival for WJJO out of Wisconsin, so we haven’t done a ton of it yet, but we plan on doing some of it. We just want it to be good whatever we put out there, so we’re kind of letting everyone else do their thing, get it out of their system, we don’t want to be one of millions of bands out there that’s doing it all at the same time.
Madness To Creation: We cover mental health awareness at Madness To Creation. We believe in normalizing mental health conversations. What keeps Cody Hanson going when times get tough and what makes Cody happy?
Cody: Family is very important for me, I’ve got a pretty great support system. My wife, she’s amazing, my parents are awesome, and I love animals, so my dogs and my cat keep me going for sure. Also, creating music, whether it’s for Hinder or for other things. Marshall and I have a project that we’re working on now called Dangerous Hippies, so we’re having a lot of fun creating new styles of music with that project, so I love to create and put things out for people to make them smile.
Madness To Creation: Speaking of Dangerous Hippies, you and Marshall recently released the music video for “1982”, take us into the writing process of the song and what’s are some differences you’ve noticed approaching a song for that project as opposed to Hinder?
Cody: The main difference is for Hinder, we’ve been doing it for so long that fans have come to expect a certain thing and a certain sound, so we’re kind of writing for that project, I don’t want to say “stuck in a box” but we’re always trying to write for expectations. For Dangerous Hippies, it’s new, we’ve always written being behind the scenes for other projects, we write for so many different styles and produce for so many different styles, we just wanted to do a project where there were no rules. If we decide one day where we want to write a folk song, we’ll write it, if we want to do something that’s got like some hip-hop or pop vibes, we’ll write that, or we have some songs for Dangerous Hippies that are more rock leaning too, so we’re kind of all over the place and we want to utilize our different experiences or express our different writing styles in the project, so we’re having a lot of fun with it.
Madness To Creation: Let’s say someone is starting out music and doesn’t know where to start, you’re an accomplished musician, what advice would you give to someone that’s just starting out?
Cody: I would say just compare your music to what’s out there, I would really study what you’re really going for in this, make a list of popular bands and incorporate that into your writing and into your music production, to make sure that you can listen to your song with those side by side, that it hangs in there with them, where it can be comparable.
Madness To Creation: After the tour, Covid-19 permitting, what’s next for Hinder and what’s next for Dangerous Hippies?
Cody: I think right now for Hinder, we’re just putting our focus on the tour, I don’t really foresee any new music as of now. That tour is going to go quite awhile, so that’s going to keep our focus for quite sometime. For Dangerous Hippies, we have a ton of music that we’ve been stockpiling for awhile, so we’re going to continue to put out new music, we’re tossing around the idea of putting out a full-length album or an EP, we haven’t decided yet, so we’re kind of in the planning stages of that right now, hopefully at some point, we can take the show on the road, that’s the ultimate goal, we’ll see what happens.
Madness To Creation: What else would you like to add?
Cody: We’re pretty easy to find. All of our socials are @hinder or @hindermusic, all of our socials for Dangerous Hippies are @dangeroushippiesofficial, so you can find us there. We always want to say thanks to all of our fans who have stuck around with us for so many years, this band has been through a lot and we’ve had a lot of people stick beside us through a lot of stuff, so we’re still super grateful to be still be doing it and we appreciate all of our fans more than they’ll ever know.
And there you have it! Check out Hinder on tour with the dates below:
Jul 01 – Chesterfield, MI – Diesel Concert Lounge
Jul 03 – Muskegon, MI – RockStock
Jul 04 – Algona, IA – ABATE of Iowa – Freedom Rally
Jul 11 – Gettysburg, PA – Gettysburg Bike Week at All Star
Jul 18 – Osceola, IA – Lakeside Casino
Jul 23 – LaCrosse, WI – Garden Stage at Oktoberfest Grounds
Jul 31 – Walker, MN – Northern Lights Casino
Aug 01 – Jefferson City, MO – Cole County Fairgrounds
Aug 08 – Van Wert, OH – Van Wert County Fair
Aug 09 – Marietta, OH – Adelphia Music Hall
Aug 15 – Carlton, MN – Black Bear Casino Resort
Sep 18 – Marion, IL – The Pavillion
Sep 19 – Wisconsin Dells, WI – Crystal Grand Music Theatre
Sep 20 – Belvidere, IL – The Apollo Theater
Sep 21 – Joliet, IL – The Forge
Sep 23 – Golden, CO – The Buffalo Rose
Sep 24 – Grand Junction, CO – Mesa Theater
Sep 25 – Cheyenne, WY – The Lincoln
Sep 26 – Colorado Springs, CO – Sunshine Studios Live
Sep 27 – Inman, KS – 365 Sports Complex
Sep 29 – Amarillo, TX – Hoots Pub
Sep 30 – The Colony, TX – Lava Cantina
Oct 02 – Baton Rouge, LA – The Basin
Oct 03 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
Oct 05 – Tampa, FL – The Orpheum
Oct 06 – Ocala, FL – Raw Hyde Live
Oct 07 – Greer, SC – The Spinning Jenny
Oct 08 – Huntsville, AL – Sidetracks Music Hall
Oct 09 – Chattanooga, TN – Songbirds South
Oct 10 – Johnson City, TN – Capone’s
Oct 12 – Hopewell, VA – Beacon Theater
Oct 13 – Virginia Beach, VA – Elevation 27
Oct 15 – Hampton Beach, VA – Wally’s Pub
Oct 16 – Frenchtown, NJ – Arties Bar and Grill
Oct 17 – Frenchtown, NJ – Arties Bar and Grill
Oct 18 – Atlantic City, NJ – Anchor Rock Club
Oct 21 – Pittsburgh, PA – Crafthouse
Oct 22 – Louisville, KY – Diamond Concert Hall
Oct 23 – Flint MI – The Machine Shop
Oct 24 – Nashville, TN – The Cowan
Oct 30 – Oklahoma City, OK – Tower Theatre
