It was a whole new scene. A burgeoning altcountry movement finally recognized one of the earliest groups to pick up where proto-California sounders had left off. They got that California soul. Perhaps because of this, the Mother Hips aim to play a different show every night, which places them among the hardest-working bands out there. And they manage it without any trace of arena-seeking spectacle.
Rock stars are awful.
The members say they're far more concerned with refining their songwriting and playing. We pay a lot more attention to things like structure and tempo and we decide those things to get the maximum impact for each song. We used to be a lot more haphazard rock. Now we're a little more scientific. Tim Bluhm has been the band's primary songwriter, and its musical evolution has been his own.