A Salute To Hoot

After 2 glorious years on the road together, Hootie is flying the nest to live life... well... NOT on the road :)

Hootie first joined the band in February of 2007. He, James, and I were at Berklee at the same time, but we did not know each other while we were at school... not until he answered our Craig's List add and auditioned for us in Nashville!

Hootie was quite the impressive candidate for the band. He was eager, excited, a SLAMMIN player, great singer, and has an incredible ear, so he learns very quickly.

And the poor guy... his first few gigs with us were QUITE the introduction to the band. I was really sick that weekend, but I made it through the first show. The second night... I completely lost my voice and could NOT sing. So the guys were left to their own devices... Charlie and Hootie were both singers, so between the 2 of them, they could cover 4 hours. But it was his second night with us!!! Yeah. I'm sure he was thinking "What the heck have I gotten myself into??"


The Story of "Hoot"

While in our first rehearsal with him, Charlie asked, "So, do you have any nicknames? What do people call you?" To which Joe responded, "Well, my last name is "Huettner" so people have called me 'Hooters'"

James immediately said "Why did you just tell me that? That's your name now, dude."

Over time it morphed into 'Hootie'... probably because I really felt uncomfortable calling him "Hooters"... you know.... every time all I thought of was orange shorts and busty women.

Hootie's come a LONG way since he first joined the band. He was engaged when he joined... he didn't put gel in his hair... he was a lot quieter...

Spinnaker was his FIRST trip on the road with us... which I shall call the BEFORE picture. (Click on it to enlarge)


There's also video evidence of this first trip! It was Spring Break and it includes Hootie's roll away bed that came with women's panties in it :)
At about 3:10 into the video.... you can see the discovery of the panties. It's quite priceless. Watching this video soooo just took me down memory lane!!



This is one of my favorite pics of him from Elizabeth City, NC when we played the Coast Guard Base last summer. This would be the AFTER pic :) After the band become his life...


Things I Will Miss About Hootie:

His "Raptor"
He would become a raptor and sneak up behind me... you know... like a raptor... claws and all... and scare me in a gas station... or wherever.
This would be Hoot raptoring ducks in the Gardens in Boston:


His endless wealth of knowledge for comic books... what will I do when the next comic book movie comes out!?!?!

His inability to be normal in a group photo:


Discussing LOST. Well... who am I kidding... that will NEVER stop. We already text about Lost...

Emo Hoot:



Singing With Hoot:


His organization. This kid would have his suitcase unpacked with everything where it needed to go before I usually had opened mine!

And well... just HIM!!! He is one of the sweetest and most likeable guys. His laugh is infectious, and his sense of humor is definitely one-of-a-kind!

I sure am gonna miss this guy!!!

We love you Hootie. Good luck in EVERYTHING you do.



Peace. Love. Fiddle. Hootie.
~natalie

My GPS Wants Me To Go Home

This morning we checked out of our hotel room only to check right back into the same room. :)

It was pretty ridiculous. It's a long story... we thought we were gonna go to another hotel, but we couldn't get in touch with anyone. So we just stayed here! And they put us in the same room since we JUST checked out of it.
This hotel is great - it is a Hampton Inn and the first night they had Beef Barely Stew, tonight they have nachos, and EVERY night they've had cookies. This place wins.


Pic of the day:


I LOVE this picture!!! This was taken by Danielle Barden at Penn Tech. Look at the height Miguel gets! That's impressive.

And this morning... I woke up to an email from Jeeves, my GPS. He said:
"A fan just sent me this picture they took at a retail store near Music Row in Nashville."

I think Jeeves is just trying to make up for all those wrong turns earlier in the year. But lately, he's been pretty good about not getting us lost :) I do love that he put eye drops in there - to help battle my crazy watery eyes :)


I took Hootie to the car rental place, and we got lost on the way since the location wasn't actually called "Enterprise". He got to go home tonight to see his Dad and sister and sweet little niece. Miguel and I went to a really sketchy laundromat - where NO ONE showed up except for us... And then James, Miguel and I went back to that Mexican Restaurant where everyone was dancing and cheering last night after hours. It was every bit as fun as we imagined!!! They had an incredible food and this awesome Mariachi band serenaded us at the table - Miguel requested a song for us. :) It was so fun!!!

Tomorrow, we go back to work :) See you at Albright College!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

No More Scrapple For Me

What a great day today!!!

We had 2 awesome shows. The first was at the College of Staten Island and the second was at Delaware Valley College. I started writing my full blog on both these events, but y'all it is already 3:30am, and I can't barely keep my eyes open. We have been going NON-stop and there's no stopping soon! We get up and head to Waynesburg PA tomorrow morning.

MAN! Time flies when you have 2 great shows! So I am going to give a couple quick highlights and I'll write a lot more tomorrow. I promise :)

At the first show - I signed my first skateboard. I was pretty excited about that... not gonna lie.



And at the second show... THIS was our stage! I LOVED it :) They did ALL this just for us.


SOOOO many people came out to the show tonight. Even a friend from Columbia, TN came out!!! YAY! :) Representin' the hometown. That's right!

And after the show.... as always.... we were starving. We found a little diner that was open right down the road from our hotel. I couldn't resist the eggplant parm sandwhich... and it was everything I hoped it would be.

Scrapple? Not so much. (I just shivered a little thinking about it) Hootie has talked about "scrapple" since I've known him... and he got all giddy when he saw it on the menu. I've never heard of it other than from him and on menus in PA. He looked it up and the description was "a savory mush of pork scraps" and it is really crispy on the outside. Yeah. Not my thing. AT ALL. It tasted like liver to me.... which I can't stand. So Mamma, you'd probably like it. :) Oh well. At least I tried. I haven't had to spit something out in a napkin in a long time. Wait. No. I just remembered that I had to do that at the Chinese Buffet in Nacogdoches... hmmm.

But Hootie loved it! And Miguel tried my eggplant sandwich. He's NEVER had eggplant before!!! I find that hard to believe. That boy loves food - so I was shocked he had never had it before.

I'll be back to write more from the back of the Suburban tomorrow. :) See you then.

Peace, Love, Fiddle

APCA... 2 Years Ago

Whoa.

I got a google alert for a new video posted and I figured it was from a recent performance at a show. :) Buuuuuuuut NOPE!!! It is from almost 2 years ago. This was from our first National APCA (Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities) Conference. My.... how far we've ALL come :) I forgot about this hairdo! I LOVE doing my hair like that but just haven't in a while. :) This was one of Hootie's first gigs with us.... his hair is so shaggy, I'm still playing my wood fiddle, Miguel has REALLY short hair, Charlie was still with us, James still wore his Red Sox hat onstage, and we just start "Devil" outright without any kind of intro!!

This is one of those conferences where we only have 15 minutes and I LOVE our song selection :)

We JUST did this conference again about a month ago (you're only allowed to do the national conferences every OTHER year). We had one of the best conferences we have EVER had at this last one. And it's pretty eye opening to see how we approached this show 2 years ago compared to a month ago. I have to say that I am so happy that my "best" song is no longer a ballad. :) I love "If I Run to You Now' but it sure helps to have more of an uptempo song when you only have 15 minutes for the whole set!

Enjoy this blast from the past! I sure did!


Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

Feature on Today'sCountryMusicVideos.com

Pretty Exciting stuff!

www.TodaysCountryMusicVideos.com

Thank you so much!!! That was another really fun alert to wake up to :)

Today was definitely a day of rest and thankfulness. It was a beautiful (and a bit chilly) Easter Sunday in New York City. I woke up this morning to a Brunch complete with a chocolate bunny by my plate.

Tomorrow... we leave NYC, drop off Jenn and Ella in Philly, pick up Hootie in Boston, and head to Maine. :)

Peace, Love, Fiddle
~natalie

Whoa. I'm on a Milk Carton :)

As I sit here working on a song and realizing I only have 2 more days until we go out for our final leg of the tour (our longest venture yet - 6 weeks without coming home) I can't BELIEVE how long it has been since I have played at home. It is so weird when I think about how just 2 years ago I only played shows in Nashville and Columbia... and I didn't even own a Suburban....

Now I have gone through 3 Suburbans and living on the road is a way of life.

All of this was rubbed in this morning when I awoke to an email that had me laughing out loud.



OK! OK!!! :) I GET IT!!! I PROMISE we will play a show here at home very soon. And I promise to make it worth the wait. There are SO many good things in the works right now and I have a lot to process before the next big Nashville show. :)~

I do however, think that was the cleverest and sweetest way for a fan to get his point across :)

Just give us this 6 weeks out on the road... (which is 27 shows... I just counted... there's a few 2-a-days in there) And I promise to have lots of fun surprises when we're back. We'll do it up all country-rockin style and have a big party when we get to come home! There will be LOTS of reasons to celebrate.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Saving Cows and Reindeer Cookies

Ahhhh. What a wonderful day of resting :)

My voice is feeling better today - not back to normal yet, but that always happens when it is THIS tired. I hung out with Cinnamon all day - we went on a walk and as always, she got ALLLL the attention :) And tonight I hung out with my parents. They both cooked dinner.... mmmm... mmmm.... And we celebrated my birthday! I hadn't seen them since my birthday earlier this month, so we finally got to hang out.... eat a little Baskin Robbins Choc Chip ice cream cake.... only the BEST cake EVER. It was so nice. It is always good to catch up with them and just hang out. :)

I had bought Cinnamon a "Dog Cookie" at the Ben & Jerry's in Vermont. I think it was supposed to be a reindeer, so it looked just like her :) And SHE was Sooooo excited. She ate part of it. And then she started looking for a place to bury it. The ONLY other treat she does that with are those Iams toothbrushes - those are her favorite. But she must have REALLY like this one because she buried it, too!!! But she only waited about 5 minutes before she dug it back out of the clothes basket and ate the rest of it :) I love my dog.


WOW. And as I was uploading that picture... She definitely just scared herself. She does this all the time and it is adorable. But she'll eh emm.... let one rip (usually silently) and then she will quickly turn around and look at her butt sooooo confused, like "What the heck just happened back there??" And she'll stare at her rear for the longest time. SO funny.

In other resting/relaxing news....

I was playing my favorite iphone game "Cowabunga" today. I hadn't played it in a while, but Hootie beat my high score recently, so I needed to make a comeback. I held the high score in the band for a long time. But Hoot is really good at saving those cows, too. :)

I had by far the best game I EVER had. I saved 223 cows. My previous record was 181. But I got SOOOO excited that I didn't save my score. I immediately clicked out of it to text James to tell him.... and then I realized what I had done. I went back in and looked at the high scores, and there were TWO that had 222.... they probably had way higher points, so I still probably wouldn't have made it on the board. But STILL. Dangit! Oh well. At least I beat my own record - even if I can't share it with the world :)

Natalie Stovall: Saving cows... 200 at a time...

Paul texted me and said it is 16 in Boston tonight with a windchill in the single digits :( Booo for that. I am going to make sure I take advantage of this beautiful Tennessee Spring weather as much as possible while I am home! Here's to a week of Sunshine and hit songs y'all!!!!


Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Kylee's never had Chinese... WHAT?!

What a difference a day makes! I felt so great today when I woke up. Poor Miguel and Hootie are still battling their colds, but they seem to be fending them off pretty well.

First today, we saw hundreds of turkeys.... just in the fields... hanging out... you know.

THEN. Once we got into Nebraska.... "the good life" (that's what their state sign says!) we saw thousands upon thousands of birds... which we think were geese and/or mallards. Flying.... in the fields... in the ponds.... It was crazy!

We made it to Kearney in time to see LOST!!! We LOVE that show. :) Our traveling on Wednesdays lately has revolved way too much around what time Lost comes on.

This band is quite connected to Kearney. :) Miguel's wife, Jenn went to college here and Hootie's girlfriend, Bridget went to school at UNK, too. When we got booked to play here... they knew exactly where we were gonna be!! And tonight for dinner, Jenn suggested we go to the Chinese buffet in town... ummmm... which we ABSOLUTELY did when we got here. Jenn's sister, Kylee goes to school at UNK right now. She met us at our hotel and then went to eat with us. SHE HAS NEVER EATEN CHINESE BEFORE!!! I couldn't believe that!! That buffet was a good introduction :)

And now, I am in my comfy pants, my belly is full, and my internet is barely working... so I am gonna go to bed EARLY. I plan on being asleep before 2am!!! This is my goal. WOOO HOOO!!!!

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

Rockhurst University and Our Performance on WIBW TV 13

I am totally watching Crocodile Dundee while I am writing this blog :) My two FAVORITE movies to watch with my Daddy are "Crocodile Dundee" and "Tombstone".

Today started out pretty rough. I didn't feel good all day yesterday, my stomach hurt all day... but I was able to push through. We had SO much going on, I didn't have time to be sick! Miguel and Hootie were both getting sick but theirs is more of a cold -stuffy and achy... Ugh. It's always hard to be on the road when you're sick... but it's hard for anyone to go to work when they're sick!

So today, I woke up and I was wrecked. Who knows why - it wasn't something I could pin point... I just felt awful. I felt so bad all day, could barely eat.. and I just laid down every chance I got before I had to start getting ready.

Well, somehow, as we were loading in, I started to feel better, and then by the time the show started I felt great! I felt better than I had ALL day. And I actually had a little bit of an appetite before the show started - maybe it was the Planet Sub! They had one on campus which was our dinner. We LOVE LOVE LOVE Planet Sub. James' cousins own 3 and are about to open a 4th in Iowa. They are SOOO good - and we know our subs! We eat at a LOT of sub shops.

But yup. By show time, I was fine. Hootie had to sit out some of the backgrounds... he is SO stuffy, poor thing. But Miguel seemed a lot better today. I think performing makes me better. Even when I can't ignore how sick I feel, I always feel better on stage. Performing is the best medicine :)

We played Rockhurst University tonight. This show has been on the calendar for over a year, so I was really excited to finally get to play it! It was the coolest little auditorium. And the audience was so interactive :) They were like a "Wheel of Fortune" audience! They reacted to everything I said with very dramatic "oooo's" and "Awww's." It was so great. I LOVE how different every audience is.

It's Midterms weeks at Rockhurst. Right before the show started there were a bunch of students in the audience with their books out. :) I don't think I have ever seen that before, but they still came out even though they had so much to do. And Kelsey texted us after the show and said that they had the largest attendance at a non-comedy show than they have ever had before! How cool!

Speaking of...
Phil and Kelsey!
They were there to help us out the WHOLE night. They loaded in gear and made sure we were taken care of the whole time. They had our a HUGE cooler of drinks for us. Plus, they gave us Rockhurst Coffee mugs that are made entirely out of corn!?!?! Never heard of that before - but we now have the most eco-friendly cups anywhere :)


This girl was so sweet. I saw her crying during "Angel" which is never easy. We talked after the show and she told me about her Grandma. I can't believe how much that song affects people.



Ok. So this guy was at our very first NACA, was in St. Louis at Nationals last year where we got booked for this show, saw us in Tulsa last fall, AND was here tonight! YAY!!! Gotta say... love this kid... he tried to get 4 different girls to 2-step with him on "And Then Some" but no dice. Guess he's just an intimidating dancer ;)- I WOULD HAVE DANCED WITH YOU!!!


She's the Historian - took pics the whole night... which... uhhh.... makes sense :)


I love hanging out with everyone after the show at the merch table :)



And tonight when I got back to the room, I saw a link that Brian posted on facebook. Here's the whole band playing "Standing My Ground" live on WIBW New 13 in Topeka, Ks. YAY!
Click here to watch!

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

Poor Chicken

Animals I saw today on the side of the road:
Skunk
Squirrel
Bird
Armadillo
Possum
and... a first.... a Chicken. Yup a chicken. Hmmm... why DO you think he was crossing the road?

Also... Animals in the "still living" department: a pack of dogs - mamma and pups
And the most majestic horse running in a field through the snow... looked like a movie scene.

Animals in the gas station?


Yup.

Hootie quote of the day:
We went to a Mexican restaurant across the street from our hotel. Hootie sat down at the table and said, "That bathroom?? Well.... I felt like my nose just tried to eat an orange."

We have so much fun. But when Hootie gets out of line....


We left Conway, Arkansas this morning and our plan was to drive to Topeka, Ks. Within 2 hours the temperature had dropped 20 degrees and it started snowing. Not a crazy snow... but a steady one. We passed 3 wrecks... and had just decided to start calling hotels to get out of it... and then we saw the traffic up ahead was STOPPED. We could see a semi and a car on fire. It was awful... we sat there for over an hour... just watching ER vehicle after ER vehicle making it's way to the accident. They interviewed a lot of people on the news later and they were all talking about how they were going so slow, but still hitting patches of ice and sliding off the road. We are so lucky to have a couple of days to get to our next show... we are taking full advantage and playing it safe. Y'all. Be careful out there. The roads didn't even look slick, but they were. Said a lot of prayers today....

We need to get all the way to Topeka tomorrow, though. We have an early morning on Monday - we have a radio interview on 94.5 WIBW, a tv show performance, and a show at Washburn University. It's gonna be a VERY good day :) I am already excited.

Peace, Love, Fiddle, and Staying Safe,
~natalie

E-TOWN!!!!

Today, Hootie MORE than made up for no one coming to see him at Mt. Ida in Newton. :)
We all FINALLY got to meet his sister, Hannah, his niece Sydney and his good friend, Ben. They all drove up to hang out with Joe before the show. Glenside (where we played last night) was only an hour away from our location today. Whew. What an easy drive!!! We ended up sleeping in AND getting to our hotel 3 hours early. Perfect time for hanging out with friends and fam. :)

Sydney is SUCH a beautiful baby and she is SOOOO good. Plus I have wanted to meet Hannah for ages now. I have heard SOO much about her from Joe. :)
Look at Uncle Hoot!


And I have to include this one... She looks like she is practicing her karate moves.... Mr. Miyagi would be proud :)



We played Elizabethtown College tonight in Elizabethtown, PA. We weren't sure of where to go on campus when we arrived. Sometimes it's pretty obvious, but this is a very large, beautiful campus and we had NO clue where to go.
Wanna know how we figured it out? James and I found a poster of myself that had all the information for the show on it... including the location of where we were supposed to be. How funny is that? LOVE IT.

We were playing in a really cool room with a very intricate and impressive lighting rig. They had free pretzels and a root beer keg at the show! It was so fun!!! The show went REALLY well. I <3 the new song we've started opening the show with "The Power of You and Me". It is one of those songs that just makes me happy to sing!

They asked for an encore so we did some Journey! Bangor - you started something!!! I love it when everyone is singing along with me right up in the front of the stage. It is SUCH a great feeling!!

These girls were in the front the whole night. Look at those beautiful basketball players that make me look SO freakin short!!! I even have my boots on... The two girls on each side of me actually started crying during "Angel", which made it hard for me to look at them. It gave me chills... I get choked up enough on my own on that song. It means so much to me when something I've written touches other people - ESPECIALLY Granny's Song.


Jim and Todd!!! Another great team of sound engineers. All the sound guys on this leg of our trip have made our lives so much easier on stage.


This sweet girl is a huge country music fan!!! She just fell in love with country in the last couple of years, and she is coming to Nashville this summer for the first time. I told her to come during the week of CMA Fest. Right y'all? Back me up here!


Annette! She took care of us all night and was definitely running the show. Thank you for everything!


Marilyn! Yet ANOTHER person who came for Hootie tonight! Marilyn first saw Hootie at an Irish Pub he plays in his hometown. She came out to our show in Savage Maryland in September, but I barely got to talk to her that night. So I was really glad to see her and actually get to catch up with her tonight!


And I ended the night with something I've been craving (but have resisted for a while). A Snickers Ice Cream bar. All is right with the world :)

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

Tour Diary #1

James recently found this little camera he had bought a while back, so we took some video of one of the last road trips :)
We played Spinnaker Beach club in Panama City for 2 nights and then had to drive through the night to get to Elizabeth City NC to play for the Coast Guard. It was awesome. And after this one, we have decided to do a LOT more video blogging. :)

Hope you enjoy Tour Diary #1!!!!!

The cookie man was late

So we played at St. Joeseph's University last night in Philly. They
had this awesome idea to advertise the show inside fortune cookies,
which I think is so adorable & creative. Problem: the cookie man
didn't get them done until right before the show. So everyone ate
cookies all night advertising the event we were already attending :)
It was a really cool show. Alexandra McHale opened the show and she
was hilarious. If you don't know her by name, I bet you'd recognize
her. She does Vh1 shows & Comedy Central. She closed out her set with
a story about John Mayer asking her when "the baby was due" when she
was not pregnant. Yeah. Ouch. But somehow she made that really funny!!
Not sure how....
Mayda A. Del Valle, a beautiful spoken word artist, who's been on tour
with HBO in Russell Simmons' Def Poetry went next. I am amazed with
poets. For someone without a beat or music to take JUST words and
string them together in a way that sounds so musical... What an art
form. That girl had me in the palm of her hands with her poetry - well
that is until a spider came down from the ceiling and nearly scared
Hootie out of his chair. :)- he survived though.
And then we went on and had so much fun! The audience was up and
dancing and of course the spider came back and nearly scared these 2
girls out of the room. But we ended the night with pizzas, Philly
cheesesteaks, and lots of fortune cookies. :)

Band Practice in the living room!

Working on all kinds of new surprises.