Songwriting is a famously confessional exercise in which artists bare their innermost emotions and share them with the world. But Eric Bazilian, the lead vocalist of The Hooters, took a different approach on “Better Days,” a story about an American voter disillusioned with his choice of candidate.
“Initially it was from one particular political side of the spectrum, but then I realized that it’s kind of a timeless story because just about half the people always feel that way,” Bazilian says on a video call from Sweden, where he lives part time. “I [initially] heard another kind of voice and I recorded a couple of different people on it, and then I just realized it had to be me. I had to pull up my pants, put on my big boy headphones and go for it. And it actually came pretty quickly as I spent a couple hours getting the vocal.”
The song is part of WXPN’s “Philly Anthems” series, in which the city’s public FM station invited some area songwriters to contribute original songs in celebration of enduring themes of freedom and independence in conjunction with the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The Hooters, which had Top 40 hits like “And We Danced” and “Day By Day,” are still active and will play a two-night run at the Keswick Theater in November, but the Philly band is just one big bullet point on Bazlian’s resume. He’s worked on hugely successful albums by other artists, including Cyndi Lauper on “She’s So Unusual” and Joan Osborne, for whom he wrote the ubiquitous “One Of Us.”
Bazilian chatted with us about “Better Times,” a new solo album that will complete a trilogy, his favorite Philly songs and how The Hooters operate in a fragmented musical landscape.
For “Better Times,” did you have to switch your perspective and embody a character who was telling his story and not yours?
This song went through a few different mutations. It started out when I was in the shower and I just started singing, kind of like early Dylan, “better times better come soon, better times better come soon,” or Jesse Welles, kind of a modern version of that. And I wrote a couple of verses and it just wasn’t clicking. And then I just had an idea of this guy who’s just disillusioned. He got sold a bill of goods and he voted that way, and this is what happened. Initially it was from one particular political side of the spectrum, but then I realized that it’s kind of a timeless story because just about half the people always feel that way.
Like the second verse, “I swung the axe.” It’s a guy who’s got talked into going to war, and he’s like “what the fuck am I doing here?” You know, “for the sake of the flag, the blood and the soil, the price of an egg or a barrel of oil.”
I [initially] heard another kind of voice and I recorded a couple of different people on it, and then I just realized it had to be me. I had to pull up my pants, put on my big boy headphones and go for it. And it actually came pretty quickly as I spent a couple hours getting the vocal.
Something I like about the song is you’re not judging this guy, you’re telling his story. And I think there’s other ways that could have been done, you know?
Well, yeah, there are always other ways it could be done. I don’t think it’s been done this way before. I guess my goal was really to create something that nobody could argue with. I mean, artists, I hate naming names, but like Bruce Springsteen, the Minnesota song. Perfectly fine song, tells the story, but it’s an echo chamber. I want to reach everybody.
What are your five favorite songs either by Philadelphia artists or about Philadelphia?
I really like “Freedom of ‘76” by Ween. I gotta say, “Punk Rock Girl” [by The Dead Milkmen] “Frankford El,” which is funny because I always thought that that was like a folk song, like an old Philly song that everybody knew. And when we quoted it in “Beat Up Guitar,” the Hooters song, I didn’t realize that The American Dream had actually written it, and they never came after us.
“Fall in Philadelphia” is great, you know, Hall and Oates. I think we did pretty well with “Beat Up Guitar” too.
Is “Better Times” part of a larger project? I hear there’s a solo album in the works.
Yeah, I think so. My son heard the song for the first time. He locked in on the line “trying to be a reasonable man.” He said, “You should do an album called ‘A Reasonable Man.’”
Where am I going to get 11 more songs that are like this? The bar is pretty high, but I’ve got literally hard drives full of songs that no one’s ever heard for whatever reason, and I’ve found three or four that I think really fit well with the theme. The summer here is so beautiful, it’s impossible to get anything done, but hopefully the weather will turn shitty soon so I can get some work done.
But I’m going to try to get “A Reasonable Man” out by the end of the year. It’s funny, because my first solo album was “The Optimist” in 2000. My second solo album was “A Very Dull Boy.” And then this would be the third of the trilogy, “A Reasonable Man.” There have been a couple of albums in between, but I think these are the three that sort of tell the story
How many shows a year do The Hooters play these days?
Last summer we did 29 shows in Europe and Germany and Scandinavia. And then we do the two at the Keswick, and we did The Met, we just did the MMR Barbecue. We do three or four shows in Philadelphia and then we’ll do the summer. We’re taking this summer off for a variety of reasons, but next summer we already booked. I think it’s 30-some shows over here.
Is this the pace you guys have agreed on or would you like to do more shows than this?
It’s sort of what the market will bear. We did a tour of the US in 2023, we did a package tour with Rick Springfield and Paul Young and Tommy Tutone, and we thought we’d try it and it was kind of like, OK, we did that. We were all in one bus, band and crew. It wasn’t something we want to keep doing. I mean, it was great playing in Oklahoma City for the first time in 40 years and in Dallas. But the truth is, all those shows we could have just played “And We Danced” and “All You Zombies” over and over again, right? Because half the people there didn’t even know who we were until we got to “And We Danced” and you can see them looking at each other and going, “Oh, it’s them.” In Germany, Scandinavia, they know all of the songs. But this is what the market will bear. I mean, if we could tour profitably and comfortably 100 shows a year, I would love that. I think we all would love that.
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