Austin Winkler: vocals
Joe “Blower”
Garvey: guitar
Mark King: guitar
Mike Rodden: bass
Cody Hanson: drums
Hinder (verb): 1. To be
or get in the way of. 2.
To obstruct or delay the
progress of. 3. To interfere
with action or progress.
Let nothing “hinder”
your appreciation of the
subtleties purveyed by this
Oklahoma City fivesome,
who are collectively dedicated
to bringing back the good
old decadent days when sex,
drugs and rock & roll
weren’t dirty words,
but a way of life.
Produced by Brian Howes
(Closure, DDT) and engineered
by Mike Fraser (Aerosmith,
AC/DC) in Vancouver, BC’s
Armoury Studios, Hinder’s
debut Universal Records
effort, Extreme Behavior,
is filled with flick-your-Bic
moments of arena-rock grandeur,
all crackling dual lead
guitars, ethereal four-part
harmonies and soaring beat-your-chest
rock vocals, taking a page
from timeless groups like
Bad Company, Aerosmith and
the Rolling Stones, among
others.
The album’s first
single, “Get Stoned,”
is already tallying up pre-release
airplay at such bastions
of Rock radio as 102.1 The
Edge in Dallas/Fort Worth
and CFOX Vancouver.
“I loved all that
shit,” explains rollicking
lead singer Austin Winkler,
a gravelly voiced howler
who counts such in-your-face
front men as Steven Tyler,
Vince Neil and Buckcherry’s
Josh Todd as his inspirations.
“Four people singing
and putting on a big rock
show. We want to bring that
back. It would be wicked
if we could.”
“We’re hoping
to be the band to get people
into rock again,”
says drummer Cody Hanson,
who writes the bulk of the
band’s material with
Winkler.
Hinder was formed in Oklahoma
City more than four years
ago, when guitarist Joe
Garvey and Hanson discovered
Austin singing for a cover
band at a college dorm party.
“I heard him and
was blown away,” says
Cody. “He has the
kind of charisma very few
people have and that unique
voice. You can’t really
compare him to anybody.”
Indeed, it is Winkler who
infuses Hinder’s often-bitter
sentiments of regret and
forgetting the past on songs
like the tongue-in-cheek
“Bliss” and
“Better Than Me”
with flesh-and-blood humanity.
“It’s more
about getting things off
our chests,” he says.
“And it’s lyrics
you can understand, not
this dark shit.”
“We didn’t
want to be just another
faceless rock band playing
depressing, ‘I hate
my dad’ music,”
adds Hanson. “We wanted
to go out there and kick
ass like they did in the
‘80s.”
The band often overturns
expectations, especially
on “Get Stoned,”
which, rather than the party
anthem its title implies,
is really a song about not
being able to leave your
pain-in-the-ass girlfriend
because “the sex is
so much better when you’re
mad at me.”
“That line actually
started as a joke, but once
I sang it, we said, ‘Fuck
it… let’s keep
it,’” laughs
Winkler. “It’s
like you’ve got this
girl you can’t stand,
but the sex is so good,
you can’t bring yourself
to break up. So let’s
get wasted and go have some
make-up sex… Everybody’s
been there, right? ”
“Bliss” is
about getting so obliterated
to forget a ruptured relationship
that “I can hardly
see what’s in front
of me/Because the vodka’s
running on empty/I can’t
stay sober/If it’s
over.”
“I love the lyrics
to that song, because when
you’re hammered, you
lock all that stuff out,”
says Winkler. “You
don’t have to deal
with it because you’re
not even thinking about
it.”
Other songs on the album
include the raw uptempo
party rocker, “Room
21” (“Basically
about a guy getting hammered
and banging some random
chick,” according
to Austin), and guaranteed-soon-to-be-classics
“How Long,”
“By the Way,”
“Nothing Good About
Goodbye,” “Homecoming
Queen” and “Shoulda
Woulda Coulda.”
“When we first got
together, we were in a negative
state of mind, recovering
from personal problems,”
says Cody about the band’s
name. “We had our
issues. They were different
issues, but we were all
trying to overcome them.”
Cut to almost five years
later and the band has built
a healthy regional following,
released an independent
album, Far From Close, which
sold out 5,000 copies, was
the object of an honest-to-goodness
bidding war between three
different major labels and
is now set to release its
major label debut, Extreme
Behavior.
“We live the lifestyle,”
explains Cody. “That’s
what rock is supposed to
be about… rebellion
and having fun. We’ve
been blessed with the opportunity
to play music as a career,
so we might as well take
advantage of it and have
a good time.
“Live is where you
go out and get a chance
to make fans from people
who have no idea who you
are. You have to go out
there, kick ass and win
them over.”