ALTON - HOOKiE will be celebrating the completion of their new album “600” with a release party at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 17, at the Bottle and Barrel at 554 East Broadway.
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The trio began recording their first batch of songs for “600” in June of last year and recently completed the mixing and mastering in November at Sawhorse Studios, and will be playing “600” in it's entirety during the Saturday performance at Bottle and Barrel.
HOOKiE is composed of Graham Pagano on guitar and vocals, Mikey Lowenstein on bass and vocals and Ray Ayers on drums.
HOOKiE played their first show at Chez Marilyn in 2013 while Pagano was playing acoustic shows with drummer Scott Robertson. That's when Lowenstein began to sit in on bass.
“It clicked for everyone, including the crowd,” Pagano said. “We knew we might be on to something so we booked a few more gigs as a rock trio, with me on electric guitar, and we started getting more and more calls for bookings.”
Over the course of time, Robertson had to cut back on performances resulting in the group going through a few drummers until Ray Ayers began playing with HOOKiE.
“Ray was in the recently disbanded Midnight Reveille out of St. Louis and spent the spring and summer of 2017 playing cover gigs with us in order for us to tighten up as a band and earn money to apply towards recording original material we had been working on,” Pagano added.
Lowenstein said that Ayers brought a lot of ambition to the band that allowed them to develop their original songs into what they are now.
“When he brought his skills to the table it really drove us and helped evolve our sound,” Lowenstein said. “He was a huge piece of the puzzle. We had some songs written and in about a month of playing the songs with Ray, they really evolved into completely different songs. His ambition was really what we needed to get the ball rolling.”
Ayers said having just spent time in the studio with his previous band provided a certain level of confidence going into the studio and recording 600.
“I had recorded two albums with my previous band so I kind of had my foot in the door with the studio,” Ayers said. “I just went through the studio process about a year before so I was pretty familiar with what we had to do to accomplish that. I really felt that when we started going over the originals with HOOKiE that they were close to being ready so we really polished those up.”
Tickets for the “600” release party are $5 at the door and fans will be able to purchase the CD or a download card for $5 once inside.
Local bands Polyshades and DiBiase will also be joining HOOKiE at the release show.
“When we perform our goal is to make sure the crowd has an absolute blast,” Pagano said. “We play to the room. Each venue has a different crowd and we’re fortunate to be able to play songs from a broad range of styles and what moves that particular room.”
