Thursday, June 27, 2019
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
It’s been a while since Hinder played Youngstown.
But there was a time when the rockers were frequent visitors, going back to days of The Cellar, the late rock club in Struthers.
In the mid-2000s, the Oklahoma act was riding high and had a special connection with Youngstown, visiting the city multiple times.
Get ready for the band’s return.
Hinder is the Friday headliner in this weekend’s Ribs-N-Rock Festival at the Southern Park Mall parking lot in Boardman. Scott Stapp of Creed headlines on Saturday, the Clarks on Thursday and Red Wanting Blue on Sunday.
Cody Hanson, the drummer and a songwriter for Hinder since day one, is glad to be coming back around.
“Youngstown is one of the places we hit quite often when we were first starting,” he said in a phone interview from Sioux Falls, S.D., where the band was playing.
“We made a lot of great relationships there. And a lot of memories from the party side of things that I can’t go into,” he added with a laugh.
Hinder was at the peak of its fame in the wake of its monstrous major-label debut album “Extreme Behavior” (2005), which spawned the hits “Get Stoned,” “Better than Me,” and of course, “Lips of an Angel.”
The band started at the top, but soon had to weather the departure of front man Austin Winkler in 2013 – eventually replacing him with Marshal Dutton. Active rock radio made bands such as Hinder, but ever-changing tastes hit the format hard.
Still, Hinder never stopped recording and touring, although there were some slow periods.
The band’s most recent album is 2017’s “Reign.” Another release is currently under construction in the studio, but no timetable has been set.
Hanson said the next album will be ready when it’s ready.
“We thought we were done recording but then decided in the last week to write some new songs and also go back and touch up some we had already finished,” he said. “We’ll see how it turns out.”
Hinder is doing things its own way these days. That includes handling its own funding and not bowing to others’ opinions on what the music should sound like.
“We’re taking our time, which is another benefit of doing things on your own,” said Hanson. “After so many years of doing this, you figure things out. What’s the point of having someone else telling you what to do when they’re not paying for anything?”
In the cyclical world of pop music, Hinder might be poised for a resurgence since hard, LA-style rock seems to be in the early stages of a comeback.
In any event, it’s been a long ride for Hinder and the band is still going – noteworthy in a genre where it’s not easy to retain relevancy.
Hanson reflected on it.
“We were just talking about this after a show, about how we look at it differently now than we did when we were first starting out,” he said. “We are just amazed that after all these years we can still tour and make new fans. That is a huge accomplishment. It’s been an insane ride, with a lot of memories made and lost.”
He also had a message for all those fans who went to the shows at The Cellar and other venues along the way. “We want to thank everybody who supported the band for so many years,” said Hanson. “Without you, we wouldn’t be still doing this.”