Joel Hoekstra is the kind of musician that makes every band he is in better. That position as a top sideman hasn’t stopped Hoekstra from stepping out with his own project Joel Hoekstra’s 13. That band is about to release its fourth record, From The Fade, on February 27 and Joel Hoekstra recently took some time to chat about it.
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On who joins him in Joel Hoekstra’s 13 – The lineup has remained consistent over the course of the four records of Dying to Live, Running Games, Crash of Life, and now From the Fade in having Vinny Appice on drums, Tony Franklin on bass, Derek Sherinian on keyboards, and very surprisingly Jeff Scott Soto on backing vocals. Jeff’s a friend of mine and does them more or less as a favor to me. Which totally grateful because he definitely ups the quality of the record significantly by doing them. The only thing that has seen a change is essentially the lead vocals going from Russell Allen to Girish Pradhan on the recent two on Crash of Life and From the Fade. Girish is a phenom from India who found some, instant notoriety this year being on America’s Got Talent with his band, Girish and the Chronicles. He’s quite a singer amazing talent. So glad to have him.
On if he’s gotten more comfortable writing for Girish’s voice – It was different in that when I wrote Crash of Life, I wrote it not knowing if it was gonna be Russell or Girish singing. So, a lot of Girish’s higher register, his screams and things like that were kind of left out. Now this record I decided let’s go with it. Let’s write some more of that into the album. So, between that being on there and then I’d say my writing of the riffs kinda lined up with me filling in with Accept. There’s a little bit more of a heavy metal edge to this record. It’s still definitely melodic hard rock. It’s not really heavy metal defined as such, but there’s definitely a little bit more of a heavy metal sound to the record overall due to those two things, I think.
On From the Fade being a little heavier – Yeah, it’s two different instruments writing for Russell’s voice, which, a huge fan of Russell’s voice still. Any change in that department was just strictly based on schedule and how long it takes him to get a record done, et cetera and Girish being available and hungry to do them. They’re both great, great singers and I’m blessed to have any of these people working with me all the way across the board really. I’m definitely very happy with the lineup and I’ve tried to have consistency be there. So, the project has a sound.
If you wanna call it a band, we can. I think that basically it’s a band that I fashion the songs. All the writing, I write, for those that don’t know, the guitar riffs and the lyrics and the melodies and everything. Then obviously oversee the artwork and the mix. So, a lot goes into these for me. I would say that it’s not a band in that nobody else is doing that. It’s not really fair to those guys to call it a band because all those guys would probably like to have the input on the writing. That being said, my production style is very loose. Once I turn these over to them, I pretty much just let them have free reign and play what they wanna play. If you’ve got the right players with you, then you don’t have to really have much back and forth.
On if he approaches writing differently for Joel Hoekstra’s 13 than his other projects – Definitely. I think in the back of your mind is always gonna be personnel, who’s on it. Vinny obviously being a real straight ahead 4/4 classic rock player, this isn’t gonna be like,”Let’s do a bunch of prog stuff and odd meter. Let’s go for the progressive thing.” That right there is a big part of what helps kind of keep the, the core sound together. That being said, if you really look at the mellowest or lightest or poppiest tracks on these records all the way to the heaviest, there’s quite a scope there over the course of the four albums. I think that it’s important for me to maintain consistency with the lineup. That, and keeping the general sonics of each record kind of consistent.
I try not to do a lot of, “Let me try this amp, let me try this different guitar”. It’s like, let’s keep this like you were recording in the studio and there only was the, the amp that you were using. Try and keep it so that the album has a sound that’ll tie the material together. Now, that being said, this album is a little bit more, I would say…If I went there through them one by one probably a more accurate way to do this. Dying to Live was all over the place because I had a lot of pre-existing material. It was my first one and I like all over the place myself. I’m cool with that. That’s not a bad thing. I’m not trying to knock the record. I like records like that where you listen, there’s a whole lot of different styles. Running Games was a little bit more focused. The songs had a little bit more consistency to them. Crash of Life I think kind of drifted again a little bit. It had a little bit of like, you’d hear an AC/DC influence poke through, or a Zeppelin influence poked through stuff that wasn’t necessarily happening on the other records. A little bit of a bluesier thing on a couple of the songs, I guess, if you will. Then this one kind of returns to that more consistent sound like Running Games had, but it’s a different sound than Running Games. I think it’s more heavy-edged. That being said, like to round it off at the end, it was like, “Okay, but to make this sound like it belongs in this catalog”, there’s gotta be some more melodic tracks like “Lifeline” or “Will You Remember Me”. Songs that aren’t quite so heavy edged, “Quite the Ride”, that are a little bit more melodic. People use the term commercial. I don’t even know what that means anymore. None of us are going for commercial success with this. I mean, I’m not even 1% making these albums for that. I basically make them as a creative endeavor, creative outlet, and something to reflect upon my body of work when all is said and done that. You made your own music and were an artist along the line, not just, “Oh, he was a side band who had some cool gigs”.
Those two roads have kind of moved parallel to each other throughout my life, my musical career, if you will. I sort of started getting the ball rolling more by making my own music. That was like the initial thing, making solo albums. So that was just Joel Hoekstra back then, and that’s stuff that’s not even on a label just self-released. That was instrumental. Kind of sounded like you’d expect the guitar player solol albums to sound a lot about the guitars. When it came time for these, that was more or less when the other road, I was becoming more well known. So, you get a Night Ranger and Rock of Ages and Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Whitesnake. That kind of happened in that order for me. A lot of the fans are going back and going to the old material, and this was something that was suggested a lot to me by fans going like, “Man, we went back and listed your solo albums. What the hell is that stuff? It has nothing to do with what you’re doing now.”
So, I thought, okay, time to time to do this. Because it was always in the plans for sure, like when I was making the more fusion instrumental albums or the finger style acoustic albums. I was like, “Someday gonna make some rock records too”. The timing was right, so I started making the Joel Hoekstra’s 13. I gave it a different moniker, a different name, slight tweak. I look at it like that’s the project name, like I said, band. I try to keep the players consistent so there is a bit of a band thing to it.
On being able to show more of himself by writing lyrics in Joel Hoekstra’s 13 – Exactly. It’s really my only outlet for it. Most of the writing that I’ll do with the other projects will be varying degrees of input, but a lot of times just guitar riffs like, “Help me out with guitar ideas”. So, the vocal melodies are a big thing for me. Then lyrically speaking, it’s, I’ll usually get on a roll once I find a theme. If I find a theme for an album, then that kind of find my momentum. That being said, some of it can veer into fantasy, into things. A lot of times things get triggered by something that phonetically will sound good. If you’re building chorus out, which I’ll definitely do a lyrics, if you don’t have a theme, it’s really hard to start elaborating on the theme and the verse for me. I usually start with the writing lyrically, at least, with a chorus. Even riff wise, a lot of times I’ll start with that and go like, this will be the chorus now. Let me think out from there. So yeah, I mean, I’ll find a theme that whether it’s something phonetically or rhythmically that fits with it, and then if I’ll kind of combine that, how would that fit into the theme that I’m developing for the album?
That helps me kind of have a sound to each one, make each one a little bit of a timestamp. So, there’s definitely personalized experiences. I do enjoy people hearing their own meaning and stuff too. It’s not always literal. Then there’s some stuff that’s like straight up fantasy. “Misunderstood” is my favorite one to laugh about on this record. We’ve got a song about me murdering someone, so I mean, obviously, I’d be in jail or I’d be a really, really twisted individual if I was doing that, so, that’s obviously fantasy and I look at it like it’s fun actually. When you get to write a song like that, it’s a fun little venting outlet to do that if you’re super pissed off and then write a song like that. It’s kind of like therapy in a way.
On playing with Cher for her Hall of Fame induction – That one was special on a couple different levels. I was basically asked to fill in for her guitar player in 2017, and then that ended up being like a three-year period where I was doing it, but I was having to sub out a lot to do Whitesnake and to do Trans-Siberian Orchestra. That’s always such a difficult thing to do when you’re hired on something because you’re really grateful to be there. But then you have to prioritize and then people always feel slighted like, “Oh, we’re not important to you”. That’s never the case. You’re always glad to have all of it.
But there was more or less, I guess, a parting of ways there, at the start of 2020 where I wasn’t gonna be the guitar player anymore. So, I hadn’t heard from anybody there and just kind of felt like, oh man, like you’re sent off and you’re dead to us kind of feeling. So, getting the call itself to go do that meant a lot to me because that was something I wanted to do was go back in and just reconnect with them and let them know that I was really grateful for the time period there. So, getting to go in and do Rock Hall was the first opportunity to see her again and had a really nice conversation with her. Just very amicable in that regard, letting her know how grateful I was for the time there. That almost was more important than the whole Rock Hall thing, but seeing as that was a historic performance for her being inducted.
I’ll tell you something else that’s really fun when you play those. You look out and its got an audience out there that’s way more famous than you. It’s like you’re looking out there and it’s like, oh, there’s Julia Roberts and there’s Sammy Hagar. Oh, there’s Keith Urban right there. It’s just like, holy crap. There’s a lot of really, really famous people and almost like entirely actually as you’re looking out, it’s like you’re just literally looking at a room of all really, really famous people watching you play. That was cool, man. Sammy Hagar and I have met a couple of times, but we don’t, we’re not friendly or friends. We don’t have a friendship. We’re friendly obviously when we speak in person, but he was pointing at me going like,” Hey man”, when I was up there, even he was dead center front row. That’s how he sticks out to me. because I couldn’t help but point back and I’m like, “Yeah, man. There’s Sammy Hager and he already recognizes me. Damn, that’s awesome.” That was really fun for me so that it was a cool gig in a lot of ways for me, but I would say the most important was being welcomed back into the Cher camp for a minute to be asked back in. That meant the most to me.
On if there will be a second Iconic record – I’m done recording it. That’s a whole lot of what I’ve been doing and am kind of continuing to do right now while touring is kind of slow with Whitesnake being gone. I tracked Revolution Saints. We just need to get together to, to shoot the videos, et cetera, and find a release, proper release schedule with the label. That’s with Deen Castronovo from Journey, for those that don’t know. Then Iconic that you mentioned, and it’s Tommy Aldridge on drums, and Michael Sweet and I are sharing the guitar duties on this one a little bit more equally, more of like a 50/50 kind of thing. Nathan James, a singer from the UK, he’s unbelievable. A great singer sings on it and Marco Mendoza obviously killer, killer bass player so that people can expect that later this year. We’ve got the video dates lined up for that. It’s so hard with everybody’s schedules to find days where everybody can get together and even just shoot the video, forget that when people are like, “Are you guys gonna tour for three months?” It’s so hard to get everybody together, even for a few days to shoot the videos. But people can look forward to those later this year. So yeah. To answer your question, there’ll be another Iconic record.
On his duo shows with Brandon Gibbs – We’re gonna definitely do some shows this year. We’ve got a handful of them on the books, and we’ll definitely be on the Monsters of Rock Cruise together and the Mountain Festival later in the year with a smattering of other gigs. Right now, he’s got a situation right now with Rockett Mafia, Rikki Rockett’s band, where his schedule is uncertain. So, if, let’s say we book a date and then Rockett Mafia books a date, I’m not gonna try and hold him to ours and say, “Hey man, you better be there.”
Brandon is a great guy to work with, just a great guy. What you see on stage is how we are. We travel with no crew, no band, and we just genuinely are friends and have a good time. Great dude. So, they’re just fun, unique shows. Now as far as whether we record something, we’ve had a couple times where we got like pseudo serious about like, “Let’s get a single out and write something together for crap’s sakes, we’ve been doing this for a long time”. What’s funny about that is that started when we met on the cruise, Monsters of Rock cruise and he said, “I do solo acoustic shows and sometimes I bring another guitar player. Would you ever be up for doing that?” And I said,” Absolutely, man, let’s do it. Fill the gaps. I’ll send you my schedule when Whitesnake’s not out or whatever, let’s, let’s do it”. So, we started out just doing like a couple of them a year, and it was strictly for fun. I would go play a small place with him and it was a blast. I had a great time. He’s a great guy and that’s a huge part of it.
You go hang out with him and I have a lot of fun hanging out with him. Then then suddenly it’s like, as things were falling off for me where I like, “Hey, there’s a bigger window here”. We started booking more and like suddenly we toured the UK a couple times. We toured Europe. I mean, it’s like stuff that he and I had never saw coming. No way. I mean, we were just like, “Let’s go do this and be fun”. So, we ended up going out and doing some bigger things. Now with him being with Rockett Mafia, it sort of puts it a little bit more on the back burner, we can do some, but as I said, I have to give him the liberty that he gave me with Whitesnake and things like that. He wasn’t gonna say, “Stay home from Whitesnake, man. Aren’t you loyal to me to go play this show and this smaller place or whatever”. But we have a great time. I really have a great time doing those. I mean, I don’t wanna speak for Brandon. I think he does too, but I, I have a great, great time playing those shows.
Let’s say you’re, you’re playing for the 10,000 people at a TSO show. There’s gonna be a certain number of those people that leave there actually knowing who the heck you were. Not just going “The guitar player with the blonde hair, the tall guy”. Then there’s the people that are gonna know your name, and there’s the people that are gonna look into what you’re doing. Then there’s the people that are gonna say, “Let’s go see him, do this other stuff”. So, by the time you get that far in, you’re really talking about the people that care and are actively following and pursuing what you’re doing. Those shows give an opportunity for those people to come out and have an opportunity to like say hello and actually talk like human beings as opposed to like a signing line where they’re kind of whisked through you sign something, “thank you for coming”, kind of thing. A little bit more of a casual hang.
On any other touring plans – The other thing that’s similar to the Brandon Gibbs scenario that I’ve kind of kept around through the heavier successful touring eras was the Broadway’s Rock of Ages Band. I did the show itself on Broadway for six years with these guys, and then now we do is we’ll book shows and go out and play the full-length versions of those. They’re great fun. It’s like old school man, I’ve got the Marshall half stack behind me or stack and no in-ears listed listening through wedges and just kind of playing. All those songs, which I like, every one of those songs is a hit song from that show. So going through and playing those with the, the people that I spent a long time with in that band. So that’s a great outlet for me live that I have fun doing too. Very similar in that regard to playing with Brandon.
Outside of that, I mean, I’ve got a smattering of corporates and rando things. Kinda like, all-star pickup dates and stuff like that happening right now. Then Trans-Siberian Orchestra later in the year. So, it’s pretty, it’s more open than it’s been, but it’s funny how life seems to just present stuff. I got back from TSO and the stuff that I had earlier in the year that was scheduled for me to do ended up kind of getting bumped back and moved back. I’ve been so slammed with recording and doing sessions and so that seems to be what’s picking up. I just kind of ride the wave where it goes and then hopefully there’ll be another window where the touring thing is really busy. I mean, it’s tricky joining a band full time when you have Trans-Siberian Orchestra, because you need to say to them, “Look, come November and December, I belong to them”. That’s something now, especially with being with TSO for 16 years, that’s like, not even in question. I have a lot of loyalty to them. So, it’s tricky to find the right situation. It worked out great with Accept two years ago because they just needed somebody to fill in and that’s perfect because they’re not worried about your long-term schedule and whether or not you can commit to a hundred percent of the shows and what will we do if you can’t make it?
I had a great time with those guys touring South America and doing the European festivals. That’s kind of the situation that I’d really be looking at more. I think what I would be into doing if somebody needed a guitar player to fill in for a period of time in the year, that’s probably a better fit with my current I guess pro life. I’ve got a lot of things happening. In terms of recording and doing sessions, writing for people, producing, I teach virtually. I’m like constantly going. So, there’s no shortage of things to do. When people ask that question, I’m like, well, not much because that people are kind of eager to see you live. It’s like, well, I could tell you this right now, but I understand everybody would love to have you out on tour, like the bulk of the year, but for me, the dream is always to make a living playing guitar more than it was to be a rock. So as long as I can keep doing that, I’m cool with it all.
I do miss during the year, there are periods where it’s like, “Oh, I’d really like to be out doing bigger shows right now”, or something like that. But it’s also like not that big a deal to me in a lot of ways. I don’t know exactly how to phrase it, but it’s like as long as I’m doing something that I feel like I’m bettering myself and, and playing guitar, I’m cool.
