The Footnotes

"I am officially now addicted to this cd.....I've listened to it too many times to count and I try to walk away when it is over, but I can't and press start again!! Thank you again for giving Pat & Rosie's Night Sounds The Footnotes unreleased cd.....I'm pretty sure everyone is going to love it!!" - Pat & Rosie's Night Sounds, 90.1 KPFT FM

Veteran singer-guitarist songwriter Rick Eakens, from Las Cruces, New Mexico, has led The Footnotes, on and off, for most of his life, crafting the sound in his head into rootsy, high-energy rock 'n' roll that embodies the unpretentious attitude catchy songcraft and high-energy abandon of the vintage classics that initially inspired him to make music. Based out of Austin and Houston, The Footnotes' feisty, uplifting live gigs are performed by Rick Eakens (vocals, electric guitar), Mary Hooper (vocals, percussion), Kerry Taylor (bass guitar, vocals), Kevin Blaine Tate (drums), and Jim Hemphill (guitar, vocals). The Beatles and Buddy Holly act as touchstones, and garage-rock combos like the Seeds and the Standells as role models for The Footnotes.

The Footnotes’ latest album was recorded and mixed at Wire Road Recording Studios in Houston and released on Rodeo Cold Records. Wire Road Studios is one of the most modern, up-to-date facilities in the nation. The Footnotes have worked with Andrew Bradley since the 1980s at SugarHill Studios in Houston and Wire Road Recording Studio. The album was engineered by Andrew and produced by both Andrew and The Footnotes. Guest artists on the album include Eric Hisaw (electric, 12 string, baritone guitar; Eric Hisaw band ), Brian Thomas (pedal steel guitar; Willie Nelson, Ray Price), Paul English (piano, Hammond B3 organ; Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Dizzy Gillespie), the late Kenny Cordray (electric guitar; guitarist/songwriter, Billy Gibbons, John Mayall, John Lee Hooker), Lars Sloan (bagpipes), Yvonne Washington (vocals 2,4; Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones) and Lisa Morales (vocals 6). The Footnote's previous releases include Comin' Home (2013) and Cold Heart (2015).

The Footnotes' feisty, uplifting live gigs have won the band a longstanding status as an under-the-radar regional legend. "My earliest memories are of music," says Rick Eakens. "The first time I was exposed to rock 'n' roll as a kid, I was profoundly knocked out, and it's been the sound I've heard in my head ever since.” With the Beatles and Buddy Holly as his touchstones, and garage-rock combos like the Seeds and the Standells as role models, Eakens led the original Footnotes through gigs at local teen clubs and dances, and even played an impromptu gig backing a guitar-wielding stranger who turned out to be Chuck Berry.

As the rock landscape changed in the '70s, Eakens served a five-year stint in a hard-touring Denver-based cover band, before returning home to New Mexico. There, he opened a pair of record stores, and fleshed out his musical vision by immersing himself in first-generation, pre-Beatles rock 'n' roll. By the early '80s, the band was going strong as a stripped-down three-piece, playing a personalized brand of raw, raucous rock 'n' roll and winning an enthusiastic fan base by touring throughout the Southwest.

"We were doing rockabilly, but instead of putting the beat of the one and the three, we changed the beat to the two and the four," Eakens explains. "It was applying the attitude of '60s garage rock to rockabilly, and it rocked.” The Footnotes eventually settled in Houston, temporarily relocating to Nashville for a year-and-a-half stretch in the mid-'80s. In Nashville, the band became part of a rising Music City rock 'n' roll boom, spearheaded by fabled roots rockers Jason and the Scorchers, that seemed poised for a national breakthrough that never arrived. They also performed some co-bill shows with Southern Culture on the Skids. A proposed major-label deal fell through at the last minute, and the Footnotes returned to the Houston scene, where they remained beloved local heroes. In Texas, the Footnotes became part of a much-mythologized movement of iconoclastic young bands that included True Believers, the Wild Seeds, and Doctors' Mob, with whom the Footnotes frequently toured and shared bills. After reassessment and recharging, Eakens reactivated the Footnotes in 2011, maintaining the punchy, melodic style that initially endeared the band to its fans.

"From the beginning, the idea behind the Footnotes has always been to keep it simple and honest, and we're sticking with that," Eakens states. "It's garage music; it's attitude and emotion, with good songs, playing, and good harmonies. We're not virtuosos, but that's not the point. It's about energy and melody and looseness and fun.

"I've reached a point in my life," Eakens concludes, "where I've realized that this is just what I do. I'm not doing it because it will make me rich or famous. I'm doing it because I love it. I'm not hell-bent on making it now the way I used to be, which makes it much easier to enjoy. It's pretty much the same sound and kind of songs that I've been carrying around for the last 25 years, and I'm just going to keep riding it until the wheels come off.”