Ha Ha Tonka, courtesy of FH Artist Management; Ozark Mountain Daredevils, courtesy of Entertainment Services International
MISSOURI ARTS COUNCIL ▪ APRIL 2012
Two Daring Bands Rock Their Missouri Roots
by Barbara MacRobie
They started out as a bunch of friends who just wanted to write songs
and play music together. Then they dreamed of making a record. In
those days, it really was a record—a 12-inch platter of vinyl encased in a
chipboard sleeve. Michael “Supe” Granda has never forgotten the thrill
of that first recording. “When I actually got that cardboard and plastic in
my hand, I trembled,” he told us. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been
dreaming about this for years!’”
The name of the record was the name of the band, The Ozark Mountain
Daredevils. Since they first came together 40 years ago, the Daredevils
have made 15 recordings including several worldwide hit singles. They
moved from playing the bars of Springfield to touring North America and
Europe. Dozens of different band members have come and gone (and
often come back again). But Supe and his friends and fellow founding
members John Dillon and Steve Cash remain the core of the band.
The Daredevils’ first record, affectionately
called “The Quilt Album” by fans
Although now semi-retired, the Daredevils still play together several times a year, entertaining and inspiring
both audiences and other bands—bands like Ha Ha Tonka.
“We’re big fans of the Daredevils,” said Ha Ha Tonka’s lead singer, Brian Roberts, when we talked with
him this month. This young quartet, who like the Daredevils began their career in Springfield, have become
an increasingly noteworthy presence on the national scene since they started out seven years ago.
“As diverse and wide as the State of Missouri”
Both bands have drawn on their Missouri origins to create sounds that stubbornly resist being pigeon-holed
into just one genre.
Rolling Stone once said the Daredevils were “a mixture of Country, Appalachia, the south, and Rock &
Roll.” A review of Ha Ha Tonka last year on St. Louis’ KDHX-FM said, “Call the sound of Ha Ha Tonka
folky indie rock; call it Southern rock;
call it Ozark-steeped-blues-rock. What
the labels don't convey is the band's
sense of raw power.”
Both bands attribute their unique
identity to their Missouri roots.
“Missouri is in our very essential
makeup as a band and as people,”
said Brian. “I think it could not be
measured how important it is. We’re
from the Ozarks and that’s what we
sing about. We’re just trying to be a
rock band, but we come out sounding
like a rock band from the Ozarks because
that’s the only way we know how to play.”
Ha Ha Tonka: Lucas Long, Brett Anderson, Brian Roberts, Lennon Bone
“In our music,” said Supe, “you can find tons of different influences as diverse and wide as the state of
Missouri. There’s St. Louis with Chuck Berry playing rock and roll. The Kansas City jazz scene. Springfield
and bluegrass.”
To illustrate, Supe asked us, “What do you think of a band that plays Jackie Blue and Chicken Train back
to back?” Jackie Blue is the band’s most commercially successful song, a sweetly crooned pop-rock
number that reached Number 3 on Billboard Hot 100 in 1975. Chicken Train, on the other hand, was
recently described by a fan on YouTube as “hillbillies on acid.” Originally recorded in 1973 on the band’s
first CD, it’s a rollicking back-porch tune with harmonica, jawbone, and clucking noises.
One specifically Ozark sound that shows up in Ha Ha Tonka’s music is
four-part vocal harmony rooted in gospel music. Sometimes the band
sings unaccompanied. “Our drummer comes forward and there are just
all four of us around two microphones,” Brian said. “It’s a nice moment in
a rock show where we’re quiet for a bit. We see how much people are
paying attention, we give grandma in the audience a break! It helps that
all four of us can sing pretty well.”
With so much diversity already built into their music, it’s not surprising
that when asked how their music had changed over the years, both Brian
and Supe independently gave the same answer: They’re simply better at
what they love to do.
Ha Ha Tonka’s third and most recent CD
“We’re no longer 19-year-old kids playing guitar—we’re 60-year-old men who’ve gotten pretty good
with 40 years of practice,” said Supe.
“Hopefully we’ve gotten better,” Brian said. “We do want to keep from freezing. We do have more diverse
instrumentation now. There’s a lot of mandolin in our newest CD, Death of a Decade, which gives it a
different sound from the other two CDs.”
Meeting at Missouri State University, playing gigs in Springfield
Both Ha Ha Tonka and the Daredevils first jelled as bands as college friends at Missouri State University.
(“Supe” in fact got his nickname from the Superman suit he sometimes wore for the band’s college
performances.)
”Three of us—Lennon Bone, Luke Long, and me—grew up together in West Plains,” Brian said. “We met
Brett Anderson from Lee’s Summit, our lead guitarist, in our hazy college days.”
Of the three original Daredevils who are still running the band, Supe hailed from St. Louis, Steve from
Springfield, and John from Stuttgart, Arkansas. “We were friends for years before we became bandmates,”
said Supe. That camaraderie would serve the Daredevils well in their rocky early years.
“Springfield was pretty dry at first,” Supe
remembers. “When we first got together,
the only people who wanted to hear our
music was us and a handful of our friends,
because the environment was, ‘Play
something by the Beatles, the Doobie
Brothers, the Eagles! We don’t want that
original garbage you guys are playing.’”
But we stuck to our guns.
The Daredevils then. 1973, pictured on the back of the Quilt Album
“Once we put that record out, everything
changed. All of a sudden, people were
buying our record and playing it. Now
when they came to hear us, they wanted
to hear Chicken Train.”
With the road paved by the Daredevils decades ago, starting out wasn’t quite as rough for Ha Ha Tonka.
“A band from the Ozarks that garnered that kind of notoriety nationwide—they gave every band hope,”
Brian said. The Springfield music scene had changed, too.
“We were really fortunate to start our band in Springfield,” Brian said. “There was a band called Big Smith
that took us under their wing. At the same time some friends of ours were starting a band called Someone
Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin. So it helped that friends and mentors were being successful.”
A change that rejoices Supe’s heart is that technology has enabled the band to spread its music further.
“We can make our music and sell it to somebody in Portugal next week,” he said. “That’s very, very cool.”
The postings of their songs and live videos on YouTube have attracted hundreds of thousands of views.
A thrilling spring night in Boonville
No recording, though, beats live performance.
The two bands were able to express their
mutual admiration in person last May when
they played together at Kemper Park in
Boonville for Missouri’s annual bicycle/music
festival, the Pedaler’s Jamboree.
“It was a thrill to be sharing the stage with
them,” said Brian. “And they were super-nice
guys to boot, which is always great when you
meet people you’ve looked up to.”
“It was a beautiful evening. We had a blast,”
said Supe. “Those guys are good! They
reminded me of the way we were. I saw beards
that weren’t gray.…I saw the energy of youth.
I want them to enjoy every moment of it. ”
The Daredevils now. Front, left to right, Nick Sibley, Supe Granda,
John Dillon, Steve Cash, Ruell Chappell; Back, left to right, Bill Jones,
Dave Painter, Ron Gremp, Kelly Brown
That happy prospect seems likely for Ha Ha Tonka.
“We’ve been really, really lucky as a band,” Brian said. “We got signed by Bloodshot Records, got off on
great tours, have grown as a band nationally. We’ve been so lucky to actually do this for a living.”
So about those names…
How did you choose your band’s name?
Ozark Mountain Daredevils: John Dillon (on band’s website)
“We plowed through a number of names when we first got started.
Finally we came up with ‘Cosmic Corncob and His Amazing Ozark
Mountain Daredevils.’ It was more of a joke than anything else—
however, a record deal came along rather quickly and we shortened
it to the Ozark Mountain Daredevils—and the record company, to
our surprise, loved it…I hated it even though it was my idea, but now
I think it’s great. It really does explain who we are—what we are
about—and where we're from.”
Ha Ha Tonka: Brian Roberts
“It’s always a strange thing to pick a name. You can over-think it, because your name eventually becomes
synonymous with your musical style and your ‘brand.’ All of us have taken trips to the Ha Ha Tonka state
park. So we figured with this unusual name, we could shield ourselves—in interviews, you know, if
someone says, ‘I hate your band,’ we can always say, ‘Well, we have this really cool state park….’”
Did you consider other names?
John: “My favorite was ‘Burlap Underwear.’"
Brian: “There are lot of names we considered seriously that we
never should have considered seriously, and I’m very, very glad we
didn’t choose them. As soon as we have a hit as big as Jackie Blue,
I’ll let you know what they were!”
Note: Ha Ha Tonka State Park is in Central Missouri on the Lake of the
Ozarks. The region was dubbed “Ha Ha Tonka” in the 1890s by land speculator
Robert Scott, who claimed it was an Osage Indian expression meaning
“laughing waters.” True or not, the name has stuck.
Hear them live
Find the bands’ upcoming performances with these links.
Ozark Mountain Daredevils
 Ozarkdaredevils.com has a current list of performances: on the homepage, scroll down to Concerts
in “Links to Pages on This Site.”
 The Daredevils’ Facebook Page also has recent updates on their schedule.
Ha Ha Tonka
 Hahatonkamusic.com lists, on the homepage, performances taking place during the next three months.
 Ha Ha Tonka’s Facebook Page is updated frequently.
Hear them on the internet
Ozark Mountain Daredevils: Hosted on our website, courtesy of Entertainment Services International
 "If You Wanna Get to Heaven"
 “Standin’ on the Rock”
Ha Ha Tonka: Many official music videos and audio sessions are available on the Media section of their older
website, hhtdoad.wordpress.com.
Hear them on CD
Ozark Mountain Daredevils: Thanks to the dedication of Daredevils
fans who formed the company New Era Productions, many of the classic
records have been reissued on CD. There is also a new two-CD set,
Alive and Wild, a live recording of a 2010 concert at the Wildwood
Springs Lodge in Steelville.
Ha Ha Tonka: In what seems especially appropriate given Ha Ha Tonka’s
admiration for the Daredevils’ classic 1970s recordings, two of their own
recordings—Death of a Decade and Novel Sounds of the Nouveau
South—are available on vinyl as well as on CD.
Ozark Mountain Daredevils photos, audio files, and album cover art courtesy of Entertainment Services International.
Ha Ha Tonka photos and CD cover art courtesy of FH Artist Management. We especially thank Jason Engstrom of
Entertainment Services International and Frank Hill of FH Artist Management for their help.
Two Daring Bands Rock Their Missouri Roots was created in April 2012 for the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency and
division of the Department of Economic Development. The Missouri Arts Council provides grants to nonprofit organizations
that meet our strategic goals of increasing participation in the arts in Missouri, growing Missouri’s economy using the arts,
and strengthening Missouri education through the arts. For information, contact [email protected].
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Please feel free to share and distribute. Attribution: Courtesy of the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.
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