MOLLY HATCHET - Southern Hospitality, Loudly Delivered
by Martin Popoff

Legendary southern rockers Molly Hatchet find themselves overseas regularly these days, but North America has seen a whole mess o' dates through the dog days of summer '06.

"The DVD was shot in Hamburg, Germany," says Bobby Ingram, with respect to the band's latest release, a live DVD, (Bobby is co-guitarist in the band, with founding axeman Dave Hlubek), before soundcheck in Toronto, for what proved to be a historic classic rock occasion in the city. "It was for an international Harley-Davidson Festival; it was about 60,000 people. That's a lot of folks. We headlined it, and it was near the Baltic sea... had a fantastic time. The crowd was unbelievable, the hospitality was great, and Germany's like a home away from home because we record all our records there with SPV, and we've been like brothers with the label there. So it felt like home. And we have seen, across the United States, that there's a common bond and unity, no matter if it's from Seattle all the way to Key West, and also in Canada, we're seeing it all over the world, Europe, northern Europe, down east, Romania, Spain, Italy, Germany, everywhere you go, that there's this brotherhood and kinship. Southern rock is getting bigger and bigger as time goes on. So we're very, very fortunate to have that to go along with the band, and we're very fortunate to have the hard rock and heavy metal community embrace the group like they have. Not only in the United States, but in Europe. They brought us into their family, and welcomed us with open arms, and we can't thank them enough."

Bobby is right about that - Molly Hatchet is considerably beloved by the metal set, particularly given that the band has gotten heavier with each passing album - hands-down, this is the heaviest traditional southern rock act in existence.

"We didn't make a conscious decision," laughs Bobby, "We're just getting old and tougher. And we don't take no for an answer and everybody else can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned (laughs). We pretty much... you know, we write about truth, honesty and friendship, and the thing about it is, we listen to everybody's troubles and triumphs and hardships, the good times they've had in their lives, and we write about this stuff. And whether it comes out strong or whether it comes out hard, we don't try to do it, but I think just naturally, Molly Hatchet is getting tougher. We're not turning into a Holiday Inn lounge act, that's for sure. So the songs are just naturally getting stronger. We're playing harder and harder than we ever had, so that helps."

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