"Wherever there are rock 'n' rollers, we'll play. That's what we've been doing for more than 30 years - rock 'n' roll. It's made me everything from an honorary mayor to honorary member of a motorcycle gang"
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There is a swaggering democracy baked into Hawkins' worldview: rock 'n' roll isn't a genre, it's a passport. "Wherever there are rock 'n' rollers, we'll play" frames the audience not as consumers but as a tribe, a loose affiliation you can find in any town with a working jukebox and a little appetite for noise. The line is promotional, sure, but it's also a credo about mobility and belonging - the touring musician's version of showing up where life is happening rather than where prestige lives.
The 30-year marker does double duty. It's a flex about durability in an industry built to chew up eras and spit out nostalgia tours, and it's a refusal to mythologize the work. No tortured artist mystique, no genre-bending mission statement: just "we've been doing...rock 'n' roll". That plainness is the point. Hawkins positions himself as a lifer, someone who kept the engine running long enough for the culture to reward him in strange currencies.
Those rewards are the punchline: from "honorary mayor" to "honorary member of a motorcycle gang". The symmetry is comic and revealing. He's bragging, but also winking at the absurdity of being officially unofficial - celebrated by civic institutions and outlaw subcultures alike, neither one fully claiming him. It's a neat portrait of rock's social function at its peak: a bridge between respectable public life and the thrilling margins, where the same performer can be sanctioned and scandalous in the same breath.
The 30-year marker does double duty. It's a flex about durability in an industry built to chew up eras and spit out nostalgia tours, and it's a refusal to mythologize the work. No tortured artist mystique, no genre-bending mission statement: just "we've been doing...rock 'n' roll". That plainness is the point. Hawkins positions himself as a lifer, someone who kept the engine running long enough for the culture to reward him in strange currencies.
Those rewards are the punchline: from "honorary mayor" to "honorary member of a motorcycle gang". The symmetry is comic and revealing. He's bragging, but also winking at the absurdity of being officially unofficial - celebrated by civic institutions and outlaw subcultures alike, neither one fully claiming him. It's a neat portrait of rock's social function at its peak: a bridge between respectable public life and the thrilling margins, where the same performer can be sanctioned and scandalous in the same breath.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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