By SDCN Editor
San Diego, CA–San Diego’s Hullabaloo has been making music for kids and families for 20 years, performing their brand of foot-stomping, wing-flapping, free-range, organic kid folk at large festivals across the United States and tiny backyard parties in their hometown, San Diego.
To celebrate Hullabaloo’s 20th anniversary, the band announced the release of their 15th album, “Live from Sun Studio.”
Going back to Hullabaloo’s first album, listeners have compared the band’s sound to Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Carl Perkins. Those artists, and a handful of others who had a big influence on Hullabaloo’s music, all got their start at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. So, when it came time to celebrate their over two decades of performing together, the band went straight to the source and recorded a live album at Sun Studio.
“I stood on the very spot in the studio where Elvis stood to record his earliest hits,” says Hullabaloo’s Steve Denyes. “I got a chill up my spine recording our train song, ‘Choo, Choo, Choo,’ in the same room where Johnny Cash recorded ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’ The whole thing was surreal.”
“We spent our days in Memphis soaking up the city’s history, trying to get an understanding of what made Memphis a flashpoint for blues, country, and early rock ’n’ roll,’ said Shawn Rohlf of Hullabaloo. “Landmarks like Sun Studio, the Stax Museum, the Rock ’n’ Soul Museum, and the clubs along Beale Street gave us the musical context. The Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel brought us all to tears.”
“Our evenings in Sun Studio were modeled closely on how Sam Phillips recorded his artists in the early ‘50s,” adds Hullabaloo’s Brenden Kremer. “The three of us sang and played live, together in one room, the way we do it on stage, the way our musical forefathers did it in that very room.”
The band covers all the favorite kid topics on “Live from Sun Studio,” from trains and dinosaurs to surfing and panda bears. The band is subtle when it comes to “messages” in their songs, believing that kids (and adults) learn best when they find the lessons themselves. The closest Hullabaloo comes to stepping on a soap box is in “I Wear Pink,” a song about allowing kids the freedom to be themselves, based on Steve Denyes’ real-life experience as a boy who mostly learned about life by playing with his older sisters and other girls in his neighborhood.
Album highlights include the rip-roaring train song, “Choo, Choo, Choo,” a good, old-fashioned, rock ‘n’ roll dance number, “Hey Everybody,” and “Ants in My Pants,” which Denyes dubs “a public service announcement: Don’t take a nap with a chocolate bar in your pocket!” He was inspired to write another highlight, the spirited “Run Bunny Run,” by the hundreds of bunnies that roamed the island in the Pacific Northwest where his mom once lived.
Throughout February, Hullabaloo has performed 20 shows in 20 days in the San Diego area to celebrate the band’s anniversary of making music for kids and families and held a benefit concert for Feeding San Diego, a local organization that provides food for families in need.
Denyes and Kremer met in kindergarten and have been friends ever since. They started on trombone together in a 5th-grade band, where they vigorously exhibited their burgeoning talents on “Old MacDonald” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Little did they know that, decades later, these songs would still be among their biggest hits. Rohlf is a comparatively “new” friend. Denyes and Kremer have known him for about 25 years.
The maiden voyage of Hullabaloo took place when Denyes and Kremer teamed up to play a few songs at Kremer’s twin daughters’ first birthday party. Fast-forward 20 years to find that Hullabaloo has performed more than 4,000 shows at venues ranging from local libraries, museums, and birthday parties to fancy concert stages like Austin City Limits, Philadelphia’s World Café Live, the Hard Rock Café, and Legoland CA. Along the way, they’ve released 14 award-winning albums (at last count, with more than 30,000 sold), and developed a loyal following, both nationwide and in San Diego, where they play as many as 350 shows a year.
Among the numerous awards garnered by Hullabaloo are those from Parents’ Choice, NAPPA, and Children’s Music Web.
“Live from Sun Studio” is available as a free, digital-only release at major online outlets.
