A Few Minutes With Hinder’s Cody Hanson

Arriving May 12 on The End Records Hinder’s 5th studio effort, When The Smoke Clears, is the band’s first album featuring new vocalist Marshal Dutton.  Financed via PledgeMusic, the LP is available for pre-order via iTunes and Amazon.

Although original singer Austin Winkler officially left the band in 2013, Dutton didn’t immediately step into the frontman’s shoes.  Former Saving Abel singer Jared Weeks filled that slot for the band’s live gigs that year.  In 2014 that position was temporarily filled by Nolan Neal.

But Dutton was no stranger to the band.  Having served as co-producer/co-writer on 2009’s All American Nightmare, Dutton not only stayed on as co-producer for every album that followed, but he also, at times, sang backup vocals while continuing to write songs with Cody Hanson.

Changes have hardly dampened Hanson’s enthusiasm.  The drummer loves to rock, loves to record and loves to tour.  In short, he loves the life of a musician and wouldn’t change a thing even if he could.

Do you remember the first time you heard a Hinder song played on the radio?

The first time I heard “Get Stoned” on the radio, I think we were in Shreveport.  I was giving one of the other guys a haircut, trying to give him a Mohawk, and we got so excited, I think I forgot to cut the other half of his hair for a couple of hours. That was a very exciting moment for all of us.

But don’t bands get a heads up when their first record is about to get airplay?

You always know that it’s out there and getting played.  With us, everything happened really fast.  We jumped out on the road and we’re going from city to city.  When you’re first starting out, you’re setting up your own stuff … so you’re working constantly throughout the day.  You’re not always in a place where you can listen to the radio much.

The release date for When The Smoke Clears is still a month away.  With the album in the can, is there an anxiety waiting for it to drop?

There definitely is.  We’ve been working on this record for well over a year.  You finish it and you have to wait a few more months until the release date when you just want people to hear it.  You just want to know how people are going to feel about all the work you have done.  We’re definitely anxious and excited for people to hear it. 

Are you already road testing the songs?

We’re doing the single, “Hit The Ground” and we’re playing one other song on the album called, “Wasted Life.” We’re testing those two.  But we also recently released another new track from off of the album so people have had the chance to hear three of them.

Is it frustrating you have several tour dates before the release and you’ll be playing for fans who haven’t heard the album?

Not really.  We just love being out on the road.  I think it’s really important.  Especially now that Marshal is on board, it’s really important for us to be out and playing for people and introducing him as the new singer of our band.  We love touring, we love hanging out with fans. We’re just excited to be able to do it.

Has Marshal coming onboard been an easy transition?

Having him around just makes a lot [of things] so much easier.  He’s already been around for so long, as a writer and co-producer.  When he sings the vocals, instead of it being a track for us to produce to, or whatever, those are the vocals going on the album.  Kind of takes a couple of steps out of the process.  It makes it a lot quicker, a lot easier, a lot more fun.

Before he stepped into the role of vocalist, he supply a lot of scratch vocals as a co-producer?

He would supply vocals on every song, pretty much. We would always start on the tracks before we started doing the main vocals.  So we have a lot of demo vocals with him singing on it, which is pretty cool.  He also sang on the past records, a lot of backing and harmony vocals when some of the other guys weren’t available.  You can listen to some of the older records and hear his vocals popping in and out.

What is the creation process like for Hinder?

How we usually do it, especially on this album, Marshal and I would get together and write the bulk of the material, whether it would be just the two of us or sometimes we’d write with other writers to mix things up.  But, for the most part, the two of us will write the song, kind of start molding it. Then at the very end, once we got the guys in to do all of their parts, we always listen to their ideas and see what they have to say.  If they have something cool to bring, to make the song better, then we go with it.

Does the band rehearse or jam together before stepping into the studio?

Not really.  It’s kind of different nowadays.  With digital recording, with Pro Tools, you can try so many new things [that] you don’t have it super-rehearsed.  So many things change so often.  I can think of a couple of songs on this album where we recorded the entire song and then randomly decided, “You know what?  I don’t think this part’s exciting enough.”  So we would tear it all back apart and redo it.  So it doesn’t … do us much good to rehearse beforehand.

Does that give you and the band a little more spontaneity when you are in the studio?

Absolutely.  Some of the coolest ideas will come about when there’s a little bit of pressure put on you right there in the moment.

With five albums under your belt, is there a collection of unused riffs, guitar solos and drum rolls that might be used in the future?

Yeah.  We’ve got countless songs that we’ve written that we didn’t put on albums that we think are great songs – songs that are fully demoed. You never know.  Marshal and I write a ton of music outside of Hinder, and we have for several years.  You never know when we might dig through the hard drives and find something … that will make the next Hinder track.

Have you and your bandmates been able to maintain that conquer-the-world attitude that most bands start with?

Absolutely.  Especially now.  Everything is brand new for us again.  We have new life breathed into the band.  We’re super-thankful and grateful that we’re still out doing it.  We love doing this. It’s a great job that a lot of people only wish they could have.  We’re back to hitting it hard and doing all the things a young, new band would do.  We’re waking up in the morning and going to radio stations and doing acoustic performances and meet and greets, all that stuff young bands do.  We’re loving it.

So you enjoy meeting your fans.

It’s probably my favorite part of the whole deal.

Do you prefer to have the meet & greets before or after the show?

It doesn’t really matter.  It’s always more fun to hang out with fans after the show when they’ve gotten the chance to see you play, they’re still fired up and you’re sitting around drinking a couple of beers.  All the work has been done for the day so you’re kind of relaxing … hanging out with them and making a personal connection.  That’s what it’s really all about.

Was it always the drums for you?

Growing up, I would say yeah.  Every time I would go to a concert, I was always watching the drummer.  Even now.  I picked up guitar shortly after I started playing drums.  I really enjoy playing guitar, probably more. … It’s not as much work, I don’t have to set up as much gear.  So I enjoy playing guitar (laughs).  Still, even to this day when I watch shows, I’m watching the drummer.  For whatever reason I get locked on and that’s it.  A fascinating instrument.

If someone who had never heard of Hinder before – a repairman, for example – came to your house, would he be able to tell he was in a musician’s house as soon as he walked in?

It happens all the time.  A lot of people come into the house to work on a cable box or whatever.  They’ll walk down into the basement of my house where I have a bar with a stage. The studio is also down there.  So you walk in and I’ve got, like, 30 guitars lined up, the drums are on stage, and all this big studio equipment.  One guy walked in and he just kind of stopped when he got to the studio doors and said, “Lemme guess.  You don’t just play music for fun, do you?”  And I said, “No sir, I don’t.” 

95 percent of the time they’ll walk in and see the plaques, and know the band, and they’re always really cool about it.  They’ll always be sure to tell me how big of a fan they are by the time they leave.  It’s pretty cool, pretty fun.

Does it ever get old having people come up to you and thanking you for your music?

Never.  That’s the whole reason we do this.  One of my favorite things in the whole world is having someone come up and tell us that our music has helped them in some way, whether it’s inspired them or even just made their day, even for a moment.  For me, that’s the ultimate.

What moves Hinder from city to city?

We’re in a bus.  We’re still one of the lucky ones that get to ride in style and comfort.

What was your first tour like?

We were actually pretty lucky.  We bought an RV and my dad did a bunch of renovations to the inside of it. He built five bunks in the back and we had two big couches in the front that would fold out and meet in the middle.  So the crew guys would sleep on those couches and we got to sleep in the back in the bunks.  Not a terrible setup.  We still have that RV.

Who was driving during those days?

We were kind of spoiled.  Plus, we were such big drinkers.  We would party all the time so nobody would trust us to drive.  Our crew guys would take the duties.

It sounds as if your parents supported your musical aspirations?

None of us could have done this thing without the support of our parents.  My dad, especially, he did so much for us over these past 15 years.  Still, to this day, he builds all of our stage setups. Everything that you see on the stage, he’s built.  He built a guitar vault to hold all of our guitars.  You name it, he’s built it for us.

Does he give you his opinions on your new music?

He’s very, very honest about everything.  But these days I’ll play him stuff and he’ll kind of forget that he’s heard it.  The older he gets the more he forgets about it.  He’s very supportive.  Most of the time I think he’s just proud.  He likes it.

On paper, what is the business plan behind Hinder?  Is there a corporation or some kind of document or package of legal papers that spells out everything for the band regarding ownership and other matters?

Yeah.  We were very smart about this thing in the beginning.  We formed all of our companies properly.  We always have agreements in place.  It’s better to have that done and everybody’s thinking with a level head, everybody wants to be fair.  We have everything outlined and then we know where everyone stands.  As far as financially, we’re a team.  We’re all doing the same things together.  We’re all an equal part of this thing.

So Marshal is a full-fledged member?

Yes.  When we had fill-in singers and things come about … that was like you get your salary or whatever it is.  But it was always agreed upon beforehand.  But with Marshal, he’s been a part of the team for so long that he’s part of the family.  It was an easy thing.  We all agreed and we all knew what it was going to be when he came in.  Just made it easier that way.

Does the band have any pre-show rituals?

We do.  It’s not quite as intense as they once were. (laughs) Before, we would crank up the tunes and go through about three bottles of Jäger and then, probably half a handle or more of vodka.  Nowadays we’ve limited it to an hour before the show.  We kind of do the same thing.  We clear the bus so it’s just us.  We do our warm-ups and we can start drinking an hour before the show.  We drink as much as we can in that hour to get loose enough to feel comfortable, to have confidence, then we play the show.

Because drumming is one of the more physically demanding roles in a band, do you work out when not recording or touring?

I work out pretty much every day.  And if it’s not every day it’s at least three days a week.  I try to eat right and stay on top of that as much as I can. [For] five days a week I’m really hardcore about it and then on weekends I kind of let loose and do whatever I want and have a good time.

During those last few minutes before you step on stage, is it still a thrill?

I’m still nervous every single night.  We call it the nervous pees.  The last 10 minutes before you go up on stage you take a piss probably 15 times for no reason at all.  I definitely am still excited to be up there, for sure.

Are there any particular markets you’re looking forward to revisiting?

We’re almost finished with this little run here before we get to go home for a couple of weeks.  We’re playing one of our favorite venues, Pierre’s in Fort Wayne, Ind.  It’s been a long time since we’ve been back there and it’s always a great time.  We recently played a show in Flint, Mich., at the Machine Shop.  That was a sold out crowd.  That place is always amazing.  We’ve hit some really cool venues on this run.

The Machine Shop … is probably one of the more famous rock venues left in the United States. It’s a little club. … Everybody in the United States knows about it and you always see Machine Shop shirts.  And they sell it all there onsite.  It’s a super cool place.  I highly recommend a show there.

If you could somehow talk to the Cody Hanson of 2025, what would you ask him?

Um … How many more years can I drink before my liver fails? (laughs).  … That would probably be the only question I would ask myself.

Upcoming Hinder gigs:

April 8 – Joplin, Mo., Rock 3405
April 10 – Johnson City, Tenn., Capone’s
April 11 – Wilmington, N.C., Ziggy’s By The Sea
April 12 – Winston-Salem, N.C., Ziggy’s
April 14 – Knoxville, Tenn., The International
April 16 – Chattanooga, Tenn., Rhythm & Brews
April 17 – Birmingham, Ala., Zydeco
April 18 – Biloxi, Miss., Mississippi Coast Coliseum (Biloxi Crawfish Music Festival)
April 21 – Abilene, Texas, Taylor County Coliseum (Rock 108 Birthday Bash)
May 7 – Tulsa, Okla., The Vanguard
May 9 – Hinton, Okla., Sugar Creek Casino
June 6 – Mescalero, N.M., Inn Of The Mountain Gods
June 28 – Mack, Colo., Jam Ranch (Loudwire Music Festival)
July 18 – Cadott, Wis., Chippewa Valley Festival Grounds (Rock Fest)
July 25 – Papillion, Neb., Werner Park
Aug. 2 – Sturgis, S.D., Easyriders Saloon (outdoors)
Aug. 14 – Hermiston, Ore., Umatilla County Fair (Umatilla County Fair)

For more information, please visit Hinder’s website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, Instagram page, and YouTube channel as well as the band’s home on Spotify.