Texas’ Quaker City Night Hawks play a raw, hard-hitting brand of old-school Southern rock that draws on their love of country and blues. Following their arrival in the 2010s, Quaker City Night Hawks grabbed ears with albums like 2013’s Honcho and having their songs featured on TV’s Sons of Anarchy. In 2016, they broke even wider with their album El Astronauta.
Hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, Quaker City Night Hawks came together in 2009 after singer/songwriter Sam Anderson and singer/songwriter David Matsler decided to put a rock band together after years of hustling for solo acoustic gigs. Anderson, the son of a minister, had grown up singing in church and had picked up guitar as a teenager.
He was enrolled as an art major at Fort Worth’s Texas Tech when he befriended Matsler in 2003 while playing open-mike nights around Lubbock and Fort Worth. Matsler had been taught how to fingerpick guitar by his mother, and grew up listening to folk artists like James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan. He had also studied mandolin at South Plains College in Levelland before meeting Anderson.
Over the next few years, the duo stayed in touch as Anderson transferred to the University of North Texas in Denton and Matsler moved to Austin. Around 2007, they relocated to Fort Worth, splitting their time between coffeehouse gigs, work with various bands, and writing songs together. They eventually decided to officially put a band together, building upon their love of greasy ’70s rock, and influences like ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, and the Band. Calling themselves Quaker City Night Hawks, a name partially culled from writer Mark Twain’s 1867 travel book The Innocents Abroad, they put together a live group of friends from the Fort Worth area. In 2012, they issued their debut album, Torquila Torquila!, and backed it up by constant touring and live shows.
That same year, the band gained a boost after several of their songs were used on season five of the popular motorcycle TV drama Sons of Anarchy. By the time they released their sophomore album, 2013’s Honcho, Quaker City Night Hawks had gained a loyal cult following with fans popping up around the globe. They eventually signed to Nashville’s Lightning Rod Records home of similarly roots-oriented mavericks like Joe Pug, Jason Isbell, and Ryan Culwell. Their first release for the label, El Astronauta, arrived in 2016 and featured the single “Mockingbird.” It gained significant attention online, including social media support from Jimmy Fallon, Marc Maron, and others. In 2019, they returned with their fourth full-length album, QCNH, which peaked in the Top 40 of the Billboard Top Independent Albums chart. (by Matt Collar)
Or:
Quaker City Night Hawks’ brand of hard rock n’ roll is bred from Texas boogie, Memphis soul and heavy blues. Their music is southern rock right out of ’75, played with the fervor of a sermon crackling out of the radio in a ’68 Lincoln. They’re the whiskey bottle you finished Saturday night and the prayer you said the next morning. Like a country gunshot on a humid night and your first illicit beer, Quaker City Night Hawks are the spirit of rock n’ roll.! (press release)
And here is their first self released album
Rock ‘n’ roll is not what it used to be. But don’t tell that to Fort Worth’s Quaker City Night Hawks, whose debut album, ¡Torquila Torquila!, is clearly from another time—a time when there was nothing better than a drive down a dusty road with a cigarette in your mouth, the top off your Firebird Trans Am and Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio.
QCNH invoke all of these feelings with their brand of blues-infused boogie rock.
Fort Worth scene veterans Sam Anderson and Matt Mabe handle the singing duties as well as rhythm guitar and drums, respectively, while Patrick Adams and David Matsler handle bass and lead guitar. And the band is clearly well-versed when it comes to the blues. “Crack at the Bottle” features the classic 12-bar blues form with an AAB lyrics structure delivered by Anderson’s smoky vocals. “Hounds of Hell,” meanwhile, calls upon the great Delta bluesman Robert Johnson with its death-is-always-on-my-tail theme.
The straight-forward Southern rock of “Bible Black Lincoln” continues that theme and paints a picture of a devil who will “put a pistol to your head about the time you think you got him beat.”
With ¡Torquila Torquila!, Quaker City Night Hawks have created an album that is both relevant and timeless. This is rock ‘n’ roll. (by Mark Schectman)
A hell of a record, listen to “Some Of Adam’s Blues”.
Personnel:
Pat Adams (bass, vocals)
Sam Anderson (guitar, vocals)
Matt Mabe (drums, voals)
David Matsler (lead guitar, vocals)
Tracklist:
01. Like Old Cain 3.38
02. The Last Ride Of Miguel The Scared 4.00
03. Cold Blues 3.40
04. Bible Black Lincoln 3.57
05 Some Of Adam’s Blues 5.28
06. Ain’t No Kid 5.04
07. Hounds Of Hell 3.38
08. Crack At The Bottle 4.19
09. You’ll Never Have Her To Herself 4.13
10. Don’t Tell Em I’m Coming Home 4.50
All songs written by
Pat Adams – Sam Anderson – Matt Mabe – David Matsler
- (coming soon)
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The offical website:
ManyFantasticColors 