Chuck Ragan on King Tut's mishaps and fishing the River Tay

The Herald Scotland

27-04-2025

The singer-songwriter released his fifth solo album, Love and Lore in October last year.
It's been a decade in the making, with Covid, family, fly fishing and his band, Hot Water Music, putting it on the back burner.
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Formed in Florida in 1994, Hot Water Music split in 1999 after releasing three LPs to scene success but not a whole lot beyond.
Over time though the group's influence became apparent, their punk-Americana sound an evident inspiration for the likes of The Menzingers, The Gaslight Anthem and Against Me!.
Having reformed for a second time in 2008, last year saw them play a series of 30th anniversary shows.
Ragan says: "It's humbling man, 30 years is a long time to be doing anything.
"If you want to live this type of life - and not just in music but any kind of independent art or expression - you have to make a ridiculous amount of sacrifices along the way.
"There was a lot of reflecting on that, everything that we've done, everything that we had sacrificed to to still be standing here.
"But the most important reflection to me was looking back at all the friends and the supporters, everybody who worked in the industry that had anything to do with supporting Hot Water Music along the the way.
"But most importantly, our immediate family, our blood family, who I don't think ever have or ever will get enough credit.
"Any of us who you seen on stage or on the marquee, they have just as much to do with all this as we do.
"I mean, as clichéd as it sounds, it takes a village. It takes a it takes a family and a community to reach a milestone like that and to have that type of longevity."
The singer-songwriter will bring his solo show to King Tut's in Glasgow on Monday, April 28 and it's a venue he's very familiar with.
Ragan says: "I love King Tut's.
"I remember Hot Water Music were playing somewhere else, but our friends the Murder City Devils were playing at King Tut's and we went down to check it out.
"Derek, the bass player, jumped up and came down and broke his ankle really badly, like he destroyed his ankle.
"We had to carry him to the car to ship him to the hospital - so that was a good memory of King Tut's!
"Unfortunately the downside of touring and always working within the parameters of budgets and whatnot, more often than not we're only in town for one night.
"Today's a perfect example, we're going to Grand Rapids, Michigan, we'll get into town at 4-5pm, we'll sound check, maybe have a chance to get something to eat, then we'll play the show, head to the hotel and wake up tomorrow and do it again in another town.
"That's kind of the downside of touring when you visit amazing places like Glasgow and unfortunately you don't have a tonne of time to experience it.
"Every once in a while though you get a little bit of down time, I have a good memory of fishing the River Tay years and years ago, that was a pretty incredible experience - it's some of the coldest water I can remember."
Ragan is also the mind behind the Revival Tour, a touring folk-punk extravaganza which has brought the likes of Frank Turner, Dave Hause and Brian Fallon along for the ride around the world for more than two decades.
He explains: "I never wanted people to look at it as my tour. I wanted people to to see a poster from across the road and whether they knew who was playing the show or not they just knew 'that's something worth seeing'.
"The concept was to create a more or less a revolving showcase where the music never stopped.
"My buddies and I typically play music with our heart on our sleeve. We love it and we'd be doing it whether it's a massive room full of people or if there was just a handful of people there - or even no-one.
"Those are the those are the kind of songwriters I want to see, those are the musicians and that's the music that I would I would want to see.
"It's the same for our solo shows, if it's real it's real and if it's in any way false you can smell it.
"People understand where we're coming from, we're normal folks, normal guys.
"If we're not making money playing music we're at home working jobs that we have to work to make ends meet and feed our families.
"I think people can relate to that."