Quaker City Night Hawks weren’t gone, necessarily, so much as scarce.
The beloved Fort Worth band — its sound a party-starting stew of Texas boogie, Southern soul and bluesy, funky bite — last played a local gig in October, part of a bill at the Echo Lounge & Music Hall.
So the reaction was near euphoric when it was announced the quartet (Sam Anderson and David Matsler, co-founders and long-time songwriters, joined by the two newest members, bassist Max Smith and drummer Jordan Richardson) was headlining Tulips in Fort Worth on Aug. 30. The show’s presented by KXT.
But why the lull?
“We’d been hitting it hard for about seven, eight years in a row there — the 15 years that we’ve been around,” Anderson said during a recent conversation. “So, we kind of took a step back. We were fresh out of a record contract, and we wanted to rebuild a team around us with close friends and people that we know. … We took that time to reset everything and figure out [how] to take another whack at everything.”
Part of that renewed focus involves new music, as the band’s last album, QCNH, dropped five years ago. The group will premiere its new single on Aug. 29 right after the KXT Local Show, ahead of its headlining gig in Fort Worth the following night. (The band will be joined on that bill by Matthew McNeal and Matthew Logan Vasquez.)
“As we roll everything back out, we’re trying to set it up — we’ve always wanted to be a little more conducive to how we want to present ourselves, rather than certain packaged ideas and stuff that we honestly never really seem to kind of squeeze into that well. It’s been wonderful for the creative process, too.”
Song placements in TV series like “Reacher,” “Tulsa King” and “Riverdale” have kept the band on the radar, even as touring scaled back, but Anderson said Quaker City Night Hawks is ready to get back on the road, albeit, at a manageable pace. Gone are the wall-to-wall days of months-long touring — after all, the Quaker City Night Hawks now have to think about the next 15 years.
“We’re planning a couple of shorter tours — the 10-to-12-day range,” Anderson said. “This line-up that we have right now has been the most positive and exciting line-up that we’ve had and everyone clicks really well. Just enjoying being around each other definitely makes the longevity a little more plausible.”
Quaker City Night Hawks at Tulips, Fort Worth. 8 p.m. Aug. 30. Tickets are $20.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
