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Asked and answered: Bruce Hornsby
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In the two decades since his virtuosic piano playing and mature song craftsmanship first appeared on the charts, Bruce Hornsby's career has taken many turns. Soon, fans will have to travel to New York to see a musical written by Hornsby, titled SCKBSTD. Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers will perform at the Denver Botanic Gardens on August 19 and Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder on August 20.
Your willingness to grow as a musician has only expanded. How did you come to write a musical?
"I was commissioned to do it by some Broadway big shots at a place called Playwrights Horizons. This wasn't my idea at all. Hardly any of the collaborative efforts I've been involved with were my idea. It's usually someone calling me, whether it was (Don) Henley or (Bob) Seger or Bonnie (Raitt) or the Dead or Spike Lee or whoever. I was never pursuing any of this, it was people pursuing me. Same situation here. I got a letter out of the blue from a Broadway actor named Brian Stokes Mitchell, a great singer, the guy they call "Stokes" -- he sings a song of mine, "Hooray For Tom," in his cabaret show. It sounded intriguing to me, so we've run a few ideas up the flagpole, and this SCKBSTD thing is the one that seems to have stuck. We'll see what happens. The streets are littered with great songwriters, way greater than I, who have stiffed on Broadway, so I have no great expectations or great hopes. I'm doing it because I'm enjoying what we're coming up with."
Is SCKBSTD pronounced "Sick Bastard"?
"It's SCKBSTD on a Virginia license plate. That's the poster for it. It's about an unfairly maligned figure, a guy who's driving around a neighborhood freaking everybody out, of course -- because if somebody drove around your neighborhood back and forth everyday for a year, you'd start wondering, wouldn't you? Anyway, that's the basic premise -- and it all goes to hell from there!"
Will some of the songs be included on your next Noisemakers album?
"Some of what we've written is pure musical theater.You'd hear the song and stylistically you'd go, `Oh, that sounds like Broadway musical music.' But a lot of it doesn't -- it's more rock, actually. And so we wanted to cut those kind of songs. We felt they were really good. I also wrote a song with Robert Hunter, the great lyricist from the Grateful Dead, called `Cyclone.' They're all part of our upcoming record. I don't know that a lot of people make albums anymore, but we are!"
Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers: 7 p.m. August 19, Denver Botanic Gardens, sold out; 8 p.m. August 20, Chautauqua Auditorium, $45.
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