Hammer and Nail – Americana – an Interview with Liam Sweeny

Hammer and Nail.

Americana. When you hear the word, it almost sounds catch-all. I think of Johnny Cash singing “I’ve Been Everywhere.” There’s a million facets to what make this country cherished and unique, but some things we look at, or into like the Grand Canyon, and we say “Yup, that’s America.”

Hammer and Nail is an Americana band. Inspired by icons such as Hank Williams, Jr., this band will take you on a trip through the spiderweb of American highways and fill your suitcase with stickers.

I connect with the band and we talk road signs.

RRX: You’re a four-piece band and you specialize in Americana. When I think of Americana I think about flea markets on Route 66, dive bars and the biggest ball of string. I know that the breadth of what constitutes Americana is wide, but in music, it’s probably narrowed down to a group of artists. Who, to you, are the pillars of Americana?

HAN: What you might call the pillars, I call the foundation. It’s broad and it’s deep. You can go back as far as Jimmy Rogers, of course the great post WWII artists like Webb Pierce, Lefty Frizzell and Bob Wills, classic 50’s and 60’s artists like Hank Williams, Buck Owens, Patsy Cline, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Waylon, Willie, Johnny Cash…somebody stop me!!! Let’s just say Americana music has a strong foundation and today’s artists have a lot to draw inspiration from. Oh yeah, I forgot about country rock, folk, and rock n’ roll. The Byrds and Burritos. Gram and Emmylou. Don’t forget the songwriters: Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt.  How about The Band, Springsteen, and Petty! Being an American isn’t even a prerequisite as Nick Lowe, Costello, or Gordon Lightfoot elegantly capture the music’s essence.  I’ll stop now!

RRX: If fate be on our side, this interview will hit you when you are on the cusp of a world tour or the launch of a line on Funko Pop dolls in your image. More likely you’re going to be working on an album or playing somehere, maybe on tour. So here is now; what are you currently engaged in?

HAN: Hammer and Nail, from the beginning, has been about presenting a picture of all that Americana has become, old and new. For us, it’s about the songs, and ultimately our unique interpretation of those songs.   We’ve been in rehearsal, learning a dozen or so new tunes for our upcoming live season which begins on Feb 11 (and continues on St.Patrick’s Day!) at one of our favorite haunts, The Bye-i Brewery on Remsen Street in Cohoes.   These days we have more than enough tunes, but there are still so many that we like to creatively add our take to and literally play around with.  It’s about keeping the fun quotient going!

RRX: You were nominated for a 2022 Listen Up award, a first, and now continuous event for our station and publication. We were very opinionated over who we thought should get nominated, but we sat on your hands and let fans decide. So you had a number of fans cheering for you with their mouse clicks. What say ye to them?

HAN: We’re very grateful to everyone that comes out to hear us. We’re lucky to connect personally with folks because of what we do. It’s encouraging that folks in the Capital Region are open minded to give our broad spectrum of Americana a chance to hear all the different grooves that make it up.  As far as the nomination, we’re still scratching our heads, but we’ll take it!

RRX: When I run across a band I’m not all that familiar with, it gives me a chance to ask “band questions.” I’m not mired in the geekdom of music. So I will ask you this; paint the picture for me of how the band met. Was it gradual picking up of players? Was there an ad in a paper? Did you all pick the same side in a bar fight one night?

HAN: Like many bands, we came together by playing in other bands with one or another.  I had been playing in a wonderful Americana band called “The Nellies” with Gene Lemme on stand-up bass.  The two of us started messing around as a duo just digging into some tunes.  Adding a percussive element seemed to make the most sense as a next step.  As good fortune would have it, at the time, I was also playing with yet another cool band, the honky tonkin’ “Paula Bradley and The Twangbusters” as well as the roots-based “Coveralls”, each of which had Bob Resnick on drums.   We tried it as a 3-some and not to our surprise, it worked!  Yet we needed to take one more step to round it out and give the band more flexibility with its repertoire.  Thus mandolin/vocalist dude Jay Maloney, who we all knew already, was approached and seemed to be the final piece of the picture!  And we became friends along the way.  No bar fights. We’re lovers, not fighters!

RRX: One of the cool things about Americana, or country or bluegrass, is that you have cool instruments. Mandolins, fiddles, sometimes a stand up bass – in fact that variation is a huge, identifying part of the sound. I can imagine having a fiddle or a violin in a band is no different that having a guitar except for the sound. Am I right or wrong?

HAN: Building on your cool point, it’s not just about the instrument that allows “substituting” one for another.  We see it as “changing tone colors”.  A mandolin in many songs will sound as valid as a guitar, or a djimbe may sound as legitimate as a drum set.  However, bringing out the right tone color and energy for the song  relies on the player’s expertise with that instrument.   We are fortunate that Jay’s skills with his mandolin can help take us into bluegrass land and then easily segue into a traditionally “guitar based” song from REM, Petty, or Jason Isbell.  Similarly, Bob plays with a hybrid drum set, where a floor tom is replaced by a djimbe.  His unique style of playing, switching from “hands” to “sticks”, allow us to visit Tex-Mex worlds where a djimbe adds the conga tone colors.   We additionally change the “tone color” by having friend and Off The Record singer Joanna Palladino shake things up by singing a few tunes live on most gigs.

Also, there is no way in hell, a minimal 4-piece outfit like Hammer and Nail should even be allowed to cover the dynamic bands of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, or the Mavericks!  However, as I mentioned earlier, it’s about the song.  We are able to do acoustic versions of songs from electric bands and strip them down yet still capture the nature of that tune.   Bob’s use of the djimbe and/or drums, along with Gene’s flexibility/skill going from stand-up to electric bass and Jay’s familiarity with Americana genres, combined with my assortment of guitars and peddles, allows us to travel that broad vista of Americana we are putting out there!

RRX: One of the things I love, having grown up in the beginning of MTV, are music videos. They’re entertaining, sure, but they show the artist’s underlying vision for the music, and it can support your own, or take it in a different direction.  Do you have any plans to shoot a video for one of your songs?

HAN: Creating a video of one of our songs is a great idea.  However, the pre-and post-production is a time commitment that the band has to be ready for.  Not a bad idea though to explore for next fall.  Maybe even catch ourselves live sometime down the road this season.   In the interim, Gene produced a brief video for us early in our “development” https://youtu.be/QEpRljqTfK4 that we use as a promo tool that can give you a sense of what we are up to, although I’d still recommend the newer, live version of us!

RRX: The floor is yours.

HAN: Thanks again for taking the time to interview me.  It gave me a chance to think about some of what Hammer and Nail is seeking to do, which at the end of the day, is about playing good songs for good audiences and all of us having a good time doing it!