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About Quaker City Night Hawks
Hometown
Fort Worth, TX, United States
Formed
2009
Genre
Rock
Texas' Quaker City Night Hawks play a raw, hard-hitting brand of old-school Southern rock that draws on their love of country and blues. Following their arrival in the 2010s, Quaker City Night Hawks grabbed ears with albums like 2013's Honcho and having their songs featured on TV's Sons of Anarchy. In 2016, they broke even wider with their album El Astronauta.
Hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, Quaker City Night Hawks came together in 2009 after singer/songwriter Sam Anderson and singer/songwriter David Matsler decided to put a rock band together after years of hustling for solo acoustic gigs. Anderson, the son of a minister, had grown up singing in church and had picked up guitar as a teenager. He was enrolled as an art major at Fort Worth's Texas Tech when he befriended Matsler in 2003 while playing open-mike nights around Lubbock and Fort Worth. Matsler had been taught how to fingerpick guitar by his mother, and grew up listening to folk artists like James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan. He had also studied mandolin at South Plains College in Levelland before meeting Anderson.
Over the next few years, the duo stayed in touch as Anderson transferred to the University of North Texas in Denton and Matsler moved to Austin. Around 2007, they relocated to Fort Worth, splitting their time between coffeehouse gigs, work with various bands, and writing songs together. They eventually decided to officially put a band together, building upon their love of greasy '70s rock, and influences like ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, and the Band. Calling themselves Quaker City Night Hawks, a name partially culled from writer Mark Twain's 1867 travel book The Innocents Abroad, they put together a live group of friends from the Fort Worth area. In 2012, they issued their debut album, Torquila Torquila!, and backed it up by constant touring and live shows.
That same year, the band gained a boost after several of their songs were used on season five of the popular motorcycle TV drama Sons of Anarchy. By the time they released their sophomore album, 2013's Honcho, Quaker City Night Hawks had gained a loyal cult following with fans popping up around the globe. They eventually signed to Nashville's Lightning Rod Records home of similarly roots-oriented mavericks like Joe Pug, Jason Isbell, and Ryan Culwell. Their first release for the label, El Astronauta, arrived in 2016 and featured the single "Mockingbird." It gained significant attention online, including social media support from Jimmy Fallon, Marc Maron, and others. In 2019, they returned with their fourth full-length album, QCNH, which peaked in the Top 40 of the Billboard Top Independent Albums chart. ~ Matt Collar
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