How COVID-19 silenced WA cover bands, including a renowned Jimi Hendrix impersonator
Like many people, the coronavirus brought Randy Hansen’s world to a screeching halt.
In a matter of weeks, Hansen watched as his life and livelihood were upended.
Six months later?
The 65-year-old still has no idea when he’ll work again.
“I was so busy it was incredible. I was looking forward to time off,” Hansen said of his work-life balance before COVID-19.
“It’s weird,” he continued. “This is the longest time I’ve ever spent at home.”
As the pandemic stretches into the fall, with few signs of subsiding, Hansen’s predicament is hardly unusual. He’s one of thousands left waiting for the return of some semblance of normalcy and a return to regular paychecks.
There’s just one small distinction.
For the last 45 years, Hansen — a lanky Seattle-area native with blazing fast fingers and an unmistakable showman’s flare — has arguably been the premier Jimi Hendrix impersonator in the world.
For the time being, COVID-19 has made cover bands a casualty, and it’s a pain Hansen — one of the most tenured and prolific tribute artists in the world — knows intimately.
Back in January, Hansen — who has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe and shared bills with the likes of Heart, Stevie Ray Vaugn and Steve Miller — played one of his last shows in Tacoma, at the McMenamins Elk Temple Spanish Ballroom, he recalled Tuesday.
Since then, he’s had nothing but time and virtuoso guitar licks on his hands.
“It’s the only thing I’ve lived off of for the last 45 years. I’ve never had another job,” the guitarist said by phone from his home in Auburn, sounding cooped up and antsy to return to the stage.
“Now, it feels like I just retired. But I didn’t really retire. I’m ready to go another 20 years,” Hansen said.
COVID-19’s impact on live music
In the months since the coronavirus pandemic changed everything, there has been no shortage of stories about the economic toll it has taken.
By now, we know all about the unemployment filings and the families continuing to struggle, and we’ve read about the many businesses that remain unable to operate like they did before COVID-19 hit.
The latter includes live music venues, the effects of which Tacoma has experienced firsthand with the recent closure of The Swiss and the reported struggles at venues like Jazzbones.
The current plight of live music is also where performers like Hansen enter the equation.
Without clubs to play in, Hansen and plenty of other less-well-known musicians have been indefinitely sidelined. So have sound engineers, bookers, bouncers, bartenders and a host of others. The state’s ban on live entertainment — which was put in place by Gov. Jay Inslee to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus — has effectively shut down the live, local music economy.
Hansen said he understands the need for the state to prohibit live entertainment and the widespread cancellation of shows across the world.
“Luckily” he’s been able to sell a few guitars to help pay the bills, Hansen said, and occasionally he also receives a modest royalty check from some of the original movie soundtrack work he’s done.
So far, it’s been enough for Hansen to get by.
He also knows plenty of other musicians are in an even tougher spot right now.
“Musicians need to play,” Hansen said, noting that — beyond the financial implications — bands and musical artists thrive off performance.
From an artistic standpoint, cover bands and tribute acts probably aren’t the first coronavirus victims people think of. To many, bands and artists playing original music can seem like more creative and sympathetic subjects.
But to area clubs and venues, there’s little question about the important role local cover bands play in the music ecosystem.
According to Dan Rankin, a Tacoma-based independent music promoter who in the past has booked shows at local venues like Jazzbones, the Airport, Station 56 and Maggie O’Toole’s, cover bands and tribute acts can help “keep the lights on” at a venue.
Sure, purest might scoff, but for a club owner, Rankin said, he understands the appeal.
“You’ve got to fill the calendar, so you take those bands, and oftentimes people are more drawn to them because it’s kind of like seeing the original,” Rankin explained.
“People relate to the music already, because they’re playing all the hits.”
It’s a fact that Troy Hill, who helped his family book music at The Swiss in Tacoma for nearly three decades, is well aware of.
Hill said that cover bands like Kryboys, the Spazmatics and Dance Factory all helped business as the Swiss thrive.
“It was always packed,” Hill recalled this week, noting that “music and clubs … just go together, and you need both to survive.”
Hill speculated that some music goers are drawn to cover bands out of nostalgia for their youth, while others probably “just want to go where the people are.”
Jerry Battista, who has played guitar in a number of local bands, including the cover band The Davanos, described the gig fondly on Tuesday.
Primarily playing clubs in the Seattle area’s north end, the 62-year-old said, the Davanos take an original and twangy approach to “pretty much everything, from The Beatles, Stones and Monkeys to Elvin Bishop.”
While The Davanos isn’t Battista’s only gig — he also plays lead in the original group The Dusty 45s — historically, it’s been one of his most dependable, he explained.
Back in 2008, Seattle Weekly noted that the cover band drew “a consistent crowd” at the Rimrock Steakhouse in Lake City, a beloved venue that eventually closed three years later.
All told, Battista said, he played roughly 300 shows in 2019.
“To make a living, you have to do that,” Battista said of life as a working musician, noting that his part in The Davanos helps make it possible.
Now, like Hansen, Battista has no idea when he might take the stage again.
He’s eager to do so but also said he knows why it makes sense to wait.
At one of The Davanos’ final shows before the shutdown, Battista said, much of the band contracted COVID-19, likely from sharing a microphone.
The virus left him “down for the count” for nearly three weeks, and, by the time he picked up his guitar again, he’d lost his callouses.
“If you would have asked me a couple months ago, I would have said, ‘I’m good with (the band on live music).’ Now, I’m getting to the point where I want to get out there and play, but I understand why we can’t,” Battista said.
“It’s not time yet.”
Staying creative
From his home in Auburn, Hansen acknowledged his boredom.
The Hendrix impersonator should be preparing for a jaunt through Germany right now, but instead he’s been trying to stay busy any way he can.
He’s been writing and recording music, he said, and also spending time painting and drawing.
“I’m just trying to keep my creative juices flowing, you know?” Hansen said, adding there are a few unexpected benefits to being stuck at home.
For instance, the break in his busy touring schedule — which normally consumes seven or eight months every year — will allow him to vote in an election for the first time in ages, Hansen said.
Over the summer, Hansen also built a stage in his backyard, adorning it with a yellow and black striped fabric he found at Goodwill.
Originally, he hoped to use the stage to play small outdoor shows, but even that activity was curtailed in July.
Still, as he was eager to do for a News Tribune photographer this week, that doesn’t stop Hansen from occasionally suiting up and plugging in to play.
These days, he’s careful to make sure people don’t congregate too closely in the alley when he does.
Asked about his coping technique, Hansen said he’s focusing on making sure he’s prepared for when live music eventually returns.
“We need to keep people away from each other, so I understand that. As long as we have to do it, I’m trying to ready myself,” Hansen said.
“I don’t want to emerge as the same caterpillar. I want to emerge as the butterfly,” he added.
