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Hooters 'Time' again

"We do what we do," says the Philly rock-folk band. Now they're doing it on their first album in 14 years.

Now and then: Left, the Hooters at their Conshohocken studio: (from left) Rob Hyman, Eric Bazilian, David Uosikkinen, John Lilley, Fran Smith Jr. Right, the "hair band" of the '80s: (from left, rear) Andy King, Uosikkinen, Lilley; Bazilian (front left), Hyman. "What are we, nuts? . . . We have to do this again, " Hyman realized.
Now and then: Left, the Hooters at their Conshohocken studio: (from left) Rob Hyman, Eric Bazilian, David Uosikkinen, John Lilley, Fran Smith Jr. Right, the "hair band" of the '80s: (from left, rear) Andy King, Uosikkinen, Lilley; Bazilian (front left), Hyman. "What are we, nuts? . . . We have to do this again, " Hyman realized.Read moreED HILLE / Inquirer Staff Photographer

You might want to commit a stanza or two from "Johnny B," a doleful song from the Hooters' 1987 album

One Way Home

, to memory. Just in case you're ever in the Rhineland, broke, and in need of a drink.

"You can walk into any bar in Germany," says Rob Hyman, cofounder of the band, "and sing 'Johnny B' and they're going to go . . . " He throws a fist in the air and in a soused Teutonic accent bellows, "the Hooters!"

"Free beer," promises his creative cohort, Eric Bazilian.

"It'll work," Hyman says. "Try it."

The problem is you could try the same experiment in a Philadelphia watering hole and chances are nobody would offer to buy you a round. The band that was musical royalty in this city in its '80s heyday has fallen off the radar screen, even in its hometown.

That may change with the release today of Time Stand Still, the first Hooters album in 14 years.

The title is fitting. Stack the CD's effervescent mix of rock and folk and its heirloom instrumentation up against the band's early hits like "And We Danced" and "Day by Day," and it sounds as if not a minute has passed.

"We live in our own world. We do what we do," says Bazilian, sitting in the control room of the recording studio Hyman built in a nondescript warehouse and residential area in Conshohocken. "It would be silly for us to try to put on the shoes of the modern."

According to Hyman, the group has never curried commercial favor. "Even in the '80s, we were on our own trip. For a brief time, it intersected with MTV and pop radio and all that," he says. "By the second album, we were already beyond that, picking up the instruments we still use: vintage keyboards and weird percussion and all these crazy stringed things that only Eric can play."

Of course the music business has changed radically since then, for musicians and for consumers. For one thing, recording an album is no longer a studio-bound process.

"This album was recorded in different countries," Bazilian notes. "It was recorded on laptops; it was recorded in [Hyman's] place, in my place, in hotel rooms, in a barn in Sweden. With the gear nowadays, if you catch that great vocal performance at 4 in the morning sitting up at a Holiday Inn, you can use it. You can split the musical atom."

The marketplace has seen some seismic shifts as well. "The record business is no longer," Hyman says. "We lived through the golden age of that. We made videos; we toured; we threw big expensive promotional parties.

"Now you have to get the music out there differently. It's a struggle. If kids perceive music to be free, then that's something you gotta deal with. It comes back to the live show and touring because you can't really download that experience."

One of the surprises on Time Stand Still is a distinctive cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer."

"We were at my place going through it with just piano and mandolin," says Bazilian, "and Rob said, 'Let me put a little strings on this' and then 'Let me put a bass on this' and then 'Let me put some drums on this' and it started to take on a life of its own. We Hooterized it."

Hyman and Bazilian have been working a similar transformation on pop music since they met as undergraduates in a synthesizer course at the University of Pennsylvania. Their first collaboration was the group Baby Grand, which recorded two albums for Arista before fizzling.

"We had assumed that once we signed [with a label] we were there, that was it," Hyman says. "And then a couple of months later I'm back working a grocery store with two records under my belt thinking, 'Hmmm, it's not supposed to be like this.' "

That was the first bump in what has become a tooth-rattling ride. The pair, along with drummer David Uosikkinen, rebanded as the Hooters and began gigging around Levittown, in Bucks County. (Bass player Fran Smith Jr. and guitarist John Lilley joined the lineup later.)

Their instrumental demo, "Man in the Street," went into heavy rotation on WMMR. Their immense regional popularity led to the Hooters' being the opening act at the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid in 1985, a performance seen by 1.5 billion viewers in 160 countries.

Hyman calls it "10 minutes that changed our lives." In short order, their debut album, Nervous Nights, went platinum and Rolling Stone proclaimed them best new band of the year.

But success departed on the same express track on which it arrived. Suddenly the Hooters were the Flavor of Last Month. "I got four words for you," says Bazilian, describing the band's abrupt reversal of fortune: "Hootie and the Blowfish."

The Hooters' follow-up album, One Way Home, underperformed, at least in this country. But it turned out to be a sensation in other parts of the world.

"We discovered a big audience in Europe and Japan and Australia," Hyman says. "When it slowed in the States, all of a sudden it was huge in Sweden and now it's really held on in Germany and western Europe. We still get played on the radio constantly there."

Germans apparently have an abiding fascination with the exotic array of instruments employed by the band.

"The Germans have a word for what we do," says Bazilian, a father of three who lives in Wayne. "They say, 'We like your handmade music.' "

Adds Hyman, "Let's face it: you pull out an accordion, you've got your foot in a European tour."

That doesn't explain how the obscure "Johnny B" is still what Hyman calls "a national rock anthem in Germany" 20 years after its release.

"It seems the Germans like the slow, minor-key songs," Bazilian theorizes. "And that's written in the saddest of all possible keys."

Another advantage of overseas popularity: "In Germany and Scandinavia, they don't have that other association with the word hooters," Bazilian says.

Ah, yes, the notorious name. It was derived innocently enough from Hyman's pet name for the melodica, which he plays on songs like "And We Danced."

Then comedian Steve Martin gave it new meaning in 1979 during a memorable opening monologue for Saturday Night Live, when he proclaimed, "I believe it's derogatory to refer to a woman's breasts as 'boobs,' 'jugs,' 'winnebagos' or 'golden bozos' . . . and that you should only refer to them as 'hooters.' "

Four years later, the chesty restaurant chain opened.

Does it still cause the band embarrassment? "Primarily online," Hyman says, laughing.

In 1995, the Hooters took an extended break. "We had been hitting it nonstop for close to 15 years, writing, touring, playing, and along the way it was, 'Well, are we going to have families? Are we going to have outside lives or do we want to live in a van and drive around for the rest of our lives?' " says Hyman, who lives in Bryn Mawr with his wife and two teen sons.

They were induced to reunite for WMMR disc jockey Pierre Robert's 20th-anniversary concert at the Spectrum, in 2001. Despite the long layoff, the old band chemistry was immediately evident.

"We talked the next day, and said, 'What are we, nuts? We have to play. We have to do this again,' " Hyman recalls. "We haven't looked back. We started playing and that led to this record."

Robert, for one, isn't surprised at the Hooters' renewed zeal. "I never considered them a pop band or a flash-in-the-pan '80s hair band," he says. "What they are at their core is incredibly dedicated and gifted musicians who are really tuned in to their craft."

Now they have a live album, recorded at their two Electric Factory shows in November, and an acoustic project in the pipeline. And they're trying to mount a national tour, their first in 15 years.

America, prepare to be Hooterized.

Opening Notes

A hidden track on Time Stand Still called "White Jeans" is a rave-up celebrating playing in your first band as an adolescent, being driven by parents to gigs where you'd play "Gloria" all night.

We asked each of the Hooters about their earliest band.

Rob Hyman, 57, singer and keyboardist

Birthplace: Meriden, Conn.

First band: The Trolls

Big number: A cover of "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris.

Eric Bazilian, 54, singer and guitarist

Birthplace: Philadelphia

First band: Evil Seed

Big number: "Back to the Mountains" a Bazilian original composition

David Uosikkinen, 51, drummer.

Birthplace: Cheltenham

First band: The Kooks

Big number: Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"

Fran Smith Jr., 55, bassist.

Birthplace: Maple Shade, Burlington County

First band: Johnny's Dance Band

Big number: Original composition, "Alfredo"

John Lilley, 53, guitarist.

Birthplace: West Chester

First band: The Nobles

Big number: The traditional "House of the Rising Sun"

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To hear songs from the new Hooters CD

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