The Dead Notes: Hammered Satin East Coast Tour

Hammered Satin just kicked off their tour at Metro Gallery in Baltimore, guitarist Conor Behrle’s home town, which marks the first of an 11-date, platform-boot-strut through the East Coast, Midwest and South.

From left: Conor Behrle, Noah Wallace, Dan Sandvick, Raymond Peters

Hammered Satin’s lead singer, Noah Wallace and Conor sat with The Dead Notes before the tour. Conor, cranking out a rush of determination, lays out the plan: “We killed the West Coast and we’re ready to slay the East Coast and South. And we’re gonna do it.”

Matt Gabbs and Conor Behrle

This tour is also going to be the first time Hammered Satin share the stage with The Biters, with guitarist/vocalist Matt Gabbs joining Hammered Satin for a number. Matt and Conor went to middle-school and high-school together and played twin-guitars in The Fishnet Stalkers for three years. They’re going to be dishing out guitarmonies at Double Door in Chicago on the 11th. Conor tells us how Matt taught him Ramones, Misfits and Johnny Thunders songs when they were 16 and 17. “To be finally able to play with [The Biters] and share a stage with them is just awesome.” Besides Matt and Conor’s history, the two bands are pretty close and it’s been a long time coming, considering The Biters even crashed with Hammered Satin at Noah’s when they played in LA.

Hammered Satin will also be opening for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver lead singer Scott Weiland and The Wildabouts. Noah goes off on a tangent describing Hammered Satin as “like a 70’s glitter rock, glam, like amazing, really bitchin’ amazing music.” When brought back to the topic of Weiland: “I mean, it’s kinda grunge, like, I don’t really shower much ... Weiland is actually a snazzy dresser.”

Though the larger-than-life look of Hammered Satin weaves the spectacle, it’s that great material that’s fresh even for Hollywood that rattles the audience around like bob-heads on a leopard-print, dashboard dance floor. East Coast audiences will witness the band debuting their new song “Reptilian” on this tour, a satire on David Icke and the Reptile Illuminati Conspiracy that puts the world at the feet of a benevolent and ancient humanoid reptile race. (It’s great sci-fi, if you ask me.) We don’t know much about this song yet here in the West Coast but we do know that Conor “does finger-tapping in the solo.” Also, Noah says it’s both “heavy” and a chick-song, “like Def Leppard or something”. We’ll make sure we listen to it and update you on what it sounds like, or maybe just post a YouTube link, or something.

Noah Wallace

Teaming up on the tour with Noah, Conor and Hammered Satin bassist Dan Sandvick, is The Ravager’s Raymond Peters on drums, who’s kept a tight backbone and ravaged Satin’s glitter trail a few times before. Hammered Satin’s Noah, Dan and Conor were the founding members and have been active in the band from day one but it’s been a revolving door of drummers ever since and it has been weighing down on the band. “We have the non-permanent drummer blues, sometimes,” says Noah, not-so-subtly advertising: ”We’re accepting submissions, Dead Notes!”

"How long are you in it for?" Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls asked Noah once, who explained without hesitation that this band is “in it for life” and that ambitious attitude has pushed Satin to grow as musicians and performers. Noah explains: “When I was younger, I was more in it for myself—like ‘how do I get my rocks off? What chick am I gonna nail? People love me! Yeah! I’m doing my thing! On stage and singing and yeah! They love me! Me, me, me, I, I, I.’—and now I think about it in a different way. It’s more of ‘what can I do for them?’ It’s a selfless thing where I want to entertain them the best I possibly can and make them have a good night.” He takes a pause and reflects: “There’s something about that mentality, when you perform, that gives you more energy.” And being in a “high volume, high torque, over the top rock ‘n’ roll band” demands as much energy as possible. Legend has it if you look closely when Hammered Satin are playing on a full moon, you can see that energy in the atmosphere in the shape of giant snakeskin tear-aways.

Dan Sandvick

And speaking of snakeskin tear-aways, Conor admits: “We don’t take ourselves too seriously but we’re serious about what we do.” And when I found myself goofing around like a liquor-laden lunatic at a Hammered Satin show, I felt foolish and cathartic all at once. While Hammered Satin can be hilarious, like The Darkness, they’re sometimes mistaken for and wrongly marginalized as a comedy act. Conor says: “I feel like that’s more of an Internet thing and when people hear us live and they hear the guitar through a Marshall stack, they kinda shut their mouths. We’re gonna shove it in their faces.”

Joe Perry and Conor Behrle

The band is being taken seriously enough to see some success. Conor feels like the Satin slingers are “firing on all cylinders right now and just waiting for the money to roll in.” As mentioned earlier, though, this is a band with dedication in droves. Conor reflected a bit on the troubles and shared words of encouragement from a rock legend: “You know, it’s easy to get down on yourself when you’re playing a guitar that cost twenty-thousand times more than you’ll get paid for every gig. But when you go and you meet Joe Perry and you give him a record and he says: ‘Don’t ever give up. I love what you’re doing,’ that’s some encouragement.”

Even more encouragement came when Lizzy Jagger showed Martin Scorsese the band's "Foxy Dude" video. It's safe to say Satin are on the rise, garnering more attention with every tour. So, check for your city below!

Tour Dates:

11/5 - Metro Gallery, Baltimore.

11/6 - The Barbary, Philadelphia.

11/8 - The Grand Victory, New York City.

11/9 - Bug Jar, Rochester.

11/10 - Euclid, Cleveland.

11/11 - Double Door, Chicago.

11/12 - Third Street Dive, Louisville.

11/13 - FUBAR, Nashville.

11/14 - House Show (Facebook invites only), Atlanta.

11/15 - Broadways, Asheville, NC.

11/16 - Smash Records, Washington D.C.