Catching up with Hobie Hubbard of Sawyer Brown

Sawyer Brown is coming to Cedar Park! Let's catch up with Hobie Hubbard of Sawyer Brown. This band has been together for over 40 years. Anyone remember watching the band on "Star Search"? They won the grand prize!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I can I wait to see Sawyer Brown at the
Hotspots Sunday night in Cedar Park. And right now on
the line with us, we have got Greg Hoby Hubbard.
First of all, listen, I've known you for a long time.
I've enjoyed your music for over forty years, but I've
never asked you about your nickname Hoby. Tell me about it.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, it's sort of by now I should have come
up with a better story than the real one, which we'll.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Make up one. That's okay, make up one exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, I'll make it sound good.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's sort of morphed out of my last name. It
sort of had a couple of incarnations and then just
became Hoby, and for the longest time only the like
the guys in the band called me that. But right
after Star Search, the first time Mark referred to me
as Hoby on a television show we were doing. It
was like suddenly any other name disappeared from my life

(00:49):
and it just became Hoby. So, okay, that's where it
came from.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Now you brought up something else. I was going to
ask about Star Search. You guys won Star Search? Was
it eighty three?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Eighty three? The very first year that show was.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
On, Ed McMahon was the MC. I remember watching that
in my college dorm room at the University of Texas
in Austin. And at that time, you guys, grand prize
one hundred thousand dollars a lot of money back then, right.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
A lot of money, and we spent every penny of it.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I was going to ask you and you had to
the system. You had to split it what five ways?
How many members the band ways?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
But the main thing we did was, at that time
we were traveling in a school bus that we had
renovated ourselves, and it rode like a school bus. We
had renovated ourselves, so we bought an old tour bus.
That was the first thing we did was bought an
actual tour bus because we at that point were spending
like two hundred and seventy five days a year on
the road, so we wanted something that didn't quite ride

(01:47):
like a school bus.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
But what you know, what a great show to launch
your career right there, because everybody was crazy about Star
Search well and.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
It was so unexpected for us.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
We I had seen the pilot for that show and
when our booking agent at the time said, well, they're
going to come to town and film auditions. But the
good news is you can get the videotape from the
audition and we're going to use that to pitch to
get work. So that's as far as we thought about it.
In no way, shape or form do we think they
were looking for us or going to pick us. So
when they were given the spiel about it's forever if

(02:18):
you hear anything, we've really got everything booked, we were like, whatever,
when do we get this videotape? And this was We
filmed our audition on a Friday. The following Monday, like
four days later they called and said, we want you
out here on Thursday. So it continued to surprise us.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Who dole you guys face, I don't remember now Again,
our audience went on. This was before American Idol. This
was like the American Idol in the eighties with the
show was against man. We went up against tons of
every kind of band except another country band. No anybody else.
Make a big out of that show that you were
up against. I know the lea An Riyam's got a
first exposure on that show.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
But interestingly, the band that we went up against in
the finals had already had a big pop record, like
when I was in high school, they had had a
pop record.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Well, the Eagles did pretty good after that show, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
So we I mean, we just kind of continue to
be surprised week to week. And then once we went
back on the road after being on the show, it
was like that's when you begin to realize the power
of television, which suddenly people know who you are, and
it's like, wait, what happened? Because why is it? Why
is there such a change now? But it was it

(03:30):
was a wonderful experience. The folks we did that were
on the show with us, we're still you know, friends
with a bunch of those folks, and it was a
lot of people roughly the same age, all going through
whatever you try to go to to get through to
get a career going.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
And you know, the host of it, Ed McMahon, who
I miss man. He was a perfect sight kick to
Johnny Carson, but he was absolutely and he.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Was such a good guy to us.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
His wife at the time was from Texas and a
big country music fan, so they were incredibly kind to us.
So yeah, every all my memories attached to that show
or good.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Ones, Okay, Now, I hope you guys have been together
for over forty years. I assume that everybody still gets along, right,
we do?

Speaker 3 (04:10):
We do it really.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
I think that's maybe the best accomplishment of all of
this is that we do still have a We have
a lot of fun out there. I don't know how
other bands are, but we.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Laugh a lot. Good us.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
So I think we take work seriously, but not ourselves seriously,
and that probably helps a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, what's the best advice that you could give a
young band that wants to hang around for forty years?
Any advice?

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I think, be true to whoever you are, make the
music that is right for you to make. Because I'm
a great believer that audiences know if you're trying to
sell them something that's not real, right, and so just
do what you do and you will find your audience.
Does that mean it's the biggest thing in the world.
Whoever knows, But at least you'll find the people that

(04:55):
will gravitate towards you because you're doing what's right for you.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, that's great advice. Now, Mark Miller, who we mentioned earlier,
has written a book about the forty years and SOB
who's still the lead singer. How did you first meet Mark?

Speaker 3 (05:09):
I met Mark.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
We've known each other since we were about thirteen years old,
when he and his mom and his brother moved to
the little town where I was born and raised, a Popka, Florida.
And that's like I was in eighth grade and Mark
was in ninth. So we've known each other since then.
And that's also a really giant blessing in my book,

(05:30):
to get to work with somebody that's genuinely like a brother.
So yeah, you know, music stuff can come and go,
but you know that family will be in my life forever.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
He's almost like a brother. As you said, wow, he
totally absolutely. Of course the three number one hit step
that step some girls do, which, by the way, my
favorite line there happens to be white trash in that line,
and thank God for you man, great memories. And you
guys are not going to say goodbye to the road
anytime soon, are you?

Speaker 3 (05:59):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
No, we I think in some ways are having more
fun than we've ever had. So we have no intention
of retiring. People will ask, well, were you going to retire?
It's like, and do what No, We're this is still fun.
People still come out and are having a good time
with us. So that's that's kind of the bottom line
for us. As long as it's fun for everybody involved,

(06:19):
we're going to keep doing it.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well, good good. In the name of the book, I'll
let you plug Mark's book. What's the name of the book?

Speaker 3 (06:25):
The Boys and Me?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, is the name of the book, which is also
one of our songs, And it's a wonderful book for
anyone who is a fan of the band or wants
to know what it's like to try to, you know,
kind of keep a machine like this going for all
those years. It's a great look into that, as well
as a documentary that we also had come out last
year called Get Me to the Stage On Time.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
There's another look into what.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
This forty something year ride has been like, including the
times when I think everybody in Nashville had counted us
out except for ourselves, and we just we were always
too hard to quit, never give.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Well, how can we see the documentary? Then? How can
we watch the documentary?

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Is? You can watch that on Amazon, Apple and any
of any of the streaming services where you can rent movies.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's on there, and of course, if you want to
see what they look like, in satellite back on Star shirts.
You can find that anytime on YouTube right there, that's right.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
And when you come to see us at the hotspot,
if you squint, we look exactly like that, you know,
or if you watch us through a paper towel, we've
not aged a bit, so the energy level is the same,
but there could be slight aging.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Oh, don't miss them, Sawyer Brown Hotspot Sunday night. It's
gonna be a lot of fun. And thank you, Hope
for calling in and we look forward to seeing you
Sunday night.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
All right, so welcome, We'll see you