Hank Williams Jr. has been on Hank III’s mind this evening. When I arrived he was on the internet, reading his website’s message board, where people were talking about his father’s new song, “The F Word”, in which Hank Jr. nicely advises his son that things will be easier for him if he learns to cut that word out of his vocabulary.
“It’s just so hypocritical,” Hank III says. “He’s been the biggest partier out there.” He shakes his head, puts his palms flat against his bare knees. “If I wanted to make a mix tape of all the times I’ve heard him cussing and going on…” He stands and jabs one finger into the air as he lets fly a litany of cursing in the voice of Hank Jr.
This is the only negative thing he will say about his father tonight, though. When he mentions that his mother always worked minimum-wage jobs and that he also took jobs as a teenager (garage door installer, record store clerk, studio gopher, etc.), one might assume his father was not a good provider — but Hank III says this was not the case. “He always paid his child support, but it wasn’t a phenomenal amount or anything,” he says. “When I was 16, he bought me a truck, I ragged it out and he bought me a car a couple years later at graduation. That’s the farthest it ever went, though.”
He bristles at the fact that people assume he was raised wealthy. “People are always saying, ‘Where’s all your daddy’s money?’,” he says. “And I always look at them and say, ‘Well, it’s his.'”
Hank III says he was raised average. “I’d go to my dad’s and it was like fantasyland, but I’d go back home and it was the real world. He did help me out, but we never had any money to blow. It was always just getting by, man. Just getting by.” He remembers hanging out with other famous people’s children, like (Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer) Artimus Pyle’s son. “I saw that his life was pretty different from mine,” Hank III says. Still, he seems glad he wasn’t raised with beaucoups of money. “Now that I look back, I see that it was good Hank Jr. didn’t help me too much. I’m grateful for that, now.”
He seems most proud of having made it on his own. “People see that I have albums out, and to them it looks like Daddy helped out his son. I got into this because I had to save my ass at the time. And we’ve done it on our own. I mean, I never go out there and say ‘I’m Hank Jr.’s son!'” He screams out these last four words.
The ass-saving he speaks of is now well-documented, as it showed up in practically every interview Williams gave with his first album. His past came back to haunt him when a $24,000 child support suit was filed against him after a one-night stand (his description) that produced a son. This led him to sign on as the centerpiece of a Hank Sr. tribute show in Branson, Missouri, allowing him to pay off his debt.
Eventually a record contract came knocking. The nonchalant way he explained all of this to the press led some people to believe he was in country music only for the money, but he says this isn’t true. “I’ve always loved country music,” he says. “I mean, it is in the genes.”
Despite those genes, Hank III doesn’t believe he will ever be a top-selling artist, like his grandfather and father. He likes his life the way it is, although he would like to one day be able to provide for his mother. “I’ll be happy whenever I might be able to help her out a little. I do what I can.”
And while he wants to make it clear that he loves playing country music, he still does not turn his back on his first true love, “punk or rock or metal or whatever the hell you want to call it” music. He recently signed on as the bassist for Superjoint Ritual, and opened for American Head Charge. He’s received a lot of attention for putting on live shows that incorporate both country and metal. “We do our first set for the country audience, and then I make a little announcement. I tell them that it’s going to be a lot harder sound, and if they want to leave, that’s cool,” he says. “But lately, I’ve been seeing just as many black T-shirts as black cowboy hats.”
A huge variety of people come to his shows. Hank III says he sees everything from “mohawks to jock haircuts to little old gray heads” out in the crowd. He acknowledges that most of his audience is still country-oriented. While fights have broken out in bars because of the heavier music, he also sees a surprising understanding in many people.
His most popular live song is the foul-mouthed ditty “I’m Going To Put The Dick Back In Dixie”, which Curb rejected for the new album, citing their reluctance to put an advisory label on any of their products. A sampling of the tamer lyrics: “‘Cause the kind of country I hear nowadays/Is a bunch of shit to me.”
Hank III loves talking about this song, as it seems to be a fusion between his country and rock sensibilities. He hunches over, bends his neck, and curls his hand as if holding a cane. In a feeble, shaky voice, he mimics a grandmother who recently told him, “That song has a lot of bad words in it, but I still love it.”
“A lot of the same feelings are involved in both punk and country,” he says, straightening himself out. “In both genres, there’s depression, sorrow, hatred, anti-establishment. The energy is different, but the attitude is sort of the same.”
