The PondHawks- Grammy winners?

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The PondHawks – A Chicago band you should know (Jorie Gracen & Mario Novelli)

Interview conducted on January 10, 2019

by Dan Locke

The PondHawks are a pop/rock unsigned indie breakout band from Chicago with 2 Top 10 albums and songs that charted at #1. Their music is influenced by The Beatles.

The Pondhawks

Daniel Locke: Why did you pick the band’s name? Is it because it is an insect-like The Beatles?

Jorie Gracen & Mario Novelli: We didn’t consciously think of naming the band after an insect. Mario was working on a drawing for the band’s logo. He had a Tiffany lamp that just happened to have a dragonfly design, so he cleverly came up with an idea of a guitar or bass with wings. He picked the bass because it had a long neck which would be like the tail of a dragonfly. Thus the bass was inverted with the neck facing down. Mario is a nature lover and had a book that listed all the names of the dragonfly species around the world. He called me and we went through the names and settled on the name “PondHawk” which is a species of dragonfly in North America. Dragonflies are the ‘hawks’ of the pond. They keep the mosquito population down. In mythology, a visit from a dragonfly is considered good luck.

You are being considered for a Grammy for your song “River Grove” under the genre of Best

Mario Novelli

American Root song. Many people don’t know what that type of music is. Can you tell me more about it and what bands play that type of music?

That is a category that comprises multiple genres including; Americana, Bluegrass, and Folk. Our song “River Grove” falls under Americana/Pop and Folk genres. American Roots is music that originated in the USA. “River Grove” is about the band’s hometown. Songs that would fall into the genre of American Roots/Pop/Folk would be would be “City of New Orleans” (Steve Goodman) “Lake Shore Drive” (Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah), “I Got A Name” (Jim Croce).

How did you find the location for the video and why did you write the song about River Grove?

The song “River Grove” is about the hometown of The PondHawks. We decided to write the song because it has been home to Mario’s family for five generations starting with his grandfather, who was a mandolin player. The town of River Grove aka “The Village of Friendly Neighbors” was founded back in 1888 and recently celebrated their 130th year anniversary. And it just so happens there is a historical house from the 1870s in River Grove that has guided tours. After we took the tour, we knew it would be the perfect setting for our video. Next time you are in the Chicago area check out the River Grove Historical House:

Was the organ that Jorie played in the “River Grove” video at the location already?

Jorie Gracen (credit: Dan Locke)

Yes, the organ is at the River Grove Historical House. It is 200 years old and was recovered from a church that burned to the ground. The organ, miraculously, was left untouched. It has bellows under the keyboard where the sustain pedals would be on a modern-day piano or organ. In order to hear the sound of the keys, one would have to pump the pedals that look like gas pedals on a car. One for the right foot and one for the left. There was no electricity in those days.

The first time I saw your band was at the Chicago IPO (International Pop Overthrow Festival). How did you find out about that little music festival?

David Bash who is the organizer of the International Pop Overthrow Festival contacted us through our

David Bash (credit: Dan Locke)

MySpace page in 2009 where he noted that we had over a million and a half plays for our songs. The handful of songs we posted were from our …Landed album that was in the process of being recorded and would be released a year later. He asked us if we would like to do a set of our originals for the IPO Chicago. We were honored to play the festival, which we did for several years. Our songs are on various IPO compilation albums which are now collector’s items.

How did you open up for Davy Jones at the Arcada Theatre?

We actually opened for Davy twice at the Arcada Theatre. The first time was in 2007 and the second time was in 2010. The first time we were in another band and did mostly covers. The second time we played as The PondHawks and Davy personally requested that we open for him. We had just released our first album The PondHawks Have Landed, which was being played on radio stations across the US. Davy’s band heard it and loved it! We may have been the only ‘new’ original band that ever opened for him.
At the time when we planned our setlist, we didn’t know how a full set of our originals would go over at the concert. The audience was there to see Davy and hear The Monkees’ songs. Cover songs would have been more appropriate for the crowd, but we decided to take a chance and play our originals hoping that people would like our music. And they did!

The Pondhawks with Davy Jones

After the show, we went to a local restaurant/bar that was the popular ‘after show’ watering hole. When we walked in, the place was packed. No place to sit. We paused to see if there was a table available and all of a sudden everyone in the room stood up, applauded, and yelled, “THE PONDHAWKS!!!” We were in shock! A table was found and people ran over to congratulate us on our concert. Many wanted to buy us bottles of champagne and asked for our autographs.
That was one of the highlights of the evening, but before that all happened, the biggest highlight was Davy asking the venue photographer to take a photo of us, with him! We had just finished our set and Davy had been watching us from the wings of the stage.
After Davy finished his show, he went backstage to our dressing room to thank us for opening for him. He said, “you’ve got so much energy on stage!” He also said that he loved our song “Dragonfly” and our harmonies.

For your video “Midnight Howl,” how did you hook up with Randy Riesen? For most people don’t know he did a video shoot with Paul McCartney and Bon Jovi?

Mario is a friend of Randy’s and asked him if he was interested in shooting a music video for “Midnight Howl,” which was the first song we recorded as The PondHawks. Randy said, “YES!”
Randy also shot backstage footage for Paul McCartney years ago when he did a concert at the United Center in Chicago. The footage wound up in Paul’s 2005 DVD The Space Within Us released in 2006. Randy has also worked on a music video for Bon Jovi.

Do you still have Snowball?

Snowball is not our bird. He was a rescue Cockatoo given to Bird Lovers Only Rescue Service. Irena Schulz who runs the rescue service discovered that Snowball liked to dance to music. So she asked bands to submit their music and if Snowball danced to the song, they would get a video. Snowball is very picky about the songs he dances to and very few songs passed his dance audition. Thousands of CDs were submitted by unknown and famous bands.

Snowball creates his own choreography, so each song has a different dance. He has been studied by animal behaviorists who have verified that Snowball does indeed create movements to the beat of the music. We were thrilled that he liked “Crying Hyena” from our album, The PondHawks Have Landed.

Bird Lovers Rescue, a non-profit organization is currently raising funds to build a bird habitat for their rescued birds. You can find out more about them here. https://birdloversonly.blogspot.com/

How many times have you met Paul and Ringo?

Jorie with Sir Paul

Several times. We love The Beatles! If it weren’t for The Beatles’ music, many bands (ourselves included) may never have formed.

What did you think about Brian Ray’s (Paul McCartney’s guitarist) quote about your song “Sweet Dreams In The Rain”? “Wow!!! ‘Sweet Dreams in the Rain’: Epic! Couldn’t help but think ELO.”

Brian Ray, who is also a record producer, helped us with our first album, The PondHawks Have Landed. We recorded the album ourselves in our own studio and had no idea how to run the equipment, but learned by trial and error. Brian listened to a few of our recordings and gave us advice on how to mix the instruments properly. “Sweet Dreams In The Rain,” is one of the songs Brian had not heard until the album came out. I think he liked that one a lot!

You are still basically unsigned. How are you getting so much airplay on the radio?

We do our homework and devote many hours contacting DJ’s, radio stations, bloggers, magazines, and newspapers to get the word out. Right now we have over 600,000 fans worldwide.

The band is basically a couples band. What is your feeling about couples bands.

We write music for male and female vocals. It is a great combination because, there is a unique vocal quality when male and female voices harmonize together, and that has become the signature sound of The PondHawks.
Many bands have done the same successfully: Sonny and Cher, The Mamas and the Papas, Paul McCartney and Wings, The Plastic Ono Band, Fleetwood Mac, No Doubt, Blondie, to name a few.

How do you see your band in the next five years?

The PondHawks will be focusing on writing and recording music, which is the reason why we formed the band in the first place. There will be more albums coming out in the future. At the moment we are currently working on our 4th album, so we hope people will enjoy our music in the next five years and beyond.

Anything in closing?

We invite people to visit our online social media pages, to say “hello!” and listen to our music.

If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, we have contests with prizes, merchandise giveaways, news about where we are playing and updates about what we are doing.

Here are the links…

The PondHawks Playlist (free listening)
https://www.reverbnation.com/thepondhawks/playlist/-4

The PondHawks Email List (free song download when you subscribe)
https://tinyurl.com/4b7nd2x

Official Page
https://www.thepondhawks.com

The PondHawks Merchandise page
https://www.pondhawksmusic.com

The PondHawks on ReverbNation
http://www.reverbnation.com/thepondhawks

Like us on Facebook
https://facebook.com/thepondhawks

Play our videos on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/jpondhawk/videos

Like us on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yc2k8a25

Play us on SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/the-pondhawks