Then there’s his optimism. This is from a man who recently split from his wife and had a massive motorbike accident, breaking his arm and puncturing a lung, which forced him to breathe with the aid of a ventilator for a while. His attitude is downright inspiring – one part fuck it, one part cheerful and one part grit.
Take this as an example. After serving in the Marines (a six year stint in all), Hancock eventually worked his way down to Nashville, where he was told that he was never going to make it. Undeterred, he turned his back on Nashville and went on to become one of the best loved alt-country boys around.
“I don’t hate Nashville. I just hate the business side,” he says of the experience. “I always liked music and I had a lot of support to go out there, but it’s a myth that you can change the system. You can’t. It’s all about increasing marketability. They made it clear to me that it’s more about money than music and I wasn’t interested in that.”
He loves free wheelin’, so you’d think that being in the Marines would have been a killer. It was, but he also attributes where he is today to his time spent in service.
“Well, when you start out in bootcamp, they break you mentally,” he reflects. “You end up a quivering mess and then they rebuild you to their specifications. When you’re told to do something, you have to do it right then, otherwise you’re going to get smacked in the face. It’s not like that outside. Someone can swear that they’re going to fix your car right away and it takes them three months. I took my work ethic away with me.
“I was in during peacetime. It was after I left that all the fighting went on, but still, you were at it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It made me tougher. If you can survive that, you can handle the music business and whatever else life brings your way. You know you can deal with it, because you look back and think, ‘Well, it’s not gonna be as bad as that’.”
Maybe that accounts for why he’s so philosophical about his accident. “I’m gonna lower the bike, so I’ve got better control if I ever hit the gravel again, but that’s it. A lot of people were wondering whether I was going to give up riding, but I don’t wanna quit! It’s one thing that stops me from going insane! Sure, I thought about it, when I first woke up in hospital and I had tubes coming out of me, but there was this kind of snooty nurse and she said, ‘I guess you’ll be selling your bike then?’ and I said, ‘No way. I’m gonna be fixing it and get on and ride.’ You don’t quit every time something happens do you?”
Hancock’s got loads of great stories and divulges all sorts of interesting things about himself: he’s proud to have given up smoking a year ago (now he uses electric cigarettes); he was once arrested in Canada and isn’t allowed back in, which is a point of disgust in light of the fact that Justin Bieber can travel about at will (“How the hell did I get on to Justin Bieber?” he asks himself out loud); Iowa Jima is one of his favourite John Wayne flicks (he’s a massive fan and the movie nearly made him re-enlist); he busted the screen on his laptop recently, but it irritated him anyway; and while he’s looking forward to coming to Australia (this’ll be his second time) he’s not looking forward to the journey. “I ain’t much into flying”, he rues. “Nah, it’s not that – I ain’t much into crashing. I wish we could catch a train to Australia.”
We’ll be seeing Hancock on the dance floor at GreazeFest. “Yeah, we make it a point to go see the opening bands,” he explains. “I’d much rather go see them than sit in a hotel room. I’m looking forward to having some fun.”
Anything else to mention? “Yep, I’m single and I’m still quite good looking.” Cheeky bugger.
BY MEG CRAWFORD
