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Hosty Duo Quicktime Video Bio
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Click on the links below to view the video biography of Cleveland County, Oklhaoma's own Hosty Duo. The high res is for all you with a fancy interent connection and the low res is for the rest of the folks who plug in via el telephono lines.
Hosty video (high res)
Hosty video (low res)
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Story of the Band
The Music began with Zulu King in 1989 in the basement of a Norman OK rent house on Page Street featuring songwriting pal John Cook, who left music to persue screen writing Mexican Wrestling Sci Fi movies in LA and Lex the Lord of Drums whose drum solo's left him with bloody stumps. Hosty then met Sagitarius Michael Byars in van bound for a pick up gig in Tulsa Oklahoma where each received twenty bucks for their services.
Soon after which,Byars moved to Austin Texas and Hosty stayed in Norman playing with Roots Rock Legend from Greece, Balsile Kaliopolis in the Reverb Brothers, the Hippie free lovn New Tribe and Heater featuring WC Field on bass and Scott "the heater" Mason on the drums. Heater's self titled album "Heater " and the follow up "Burnone" captured the Meters meet Black Sabbath sound.
Hosty also had a slew of three piece ensembles, one of which was the Silvatones featuring a recently returned from Austin, Texas Michael Byars. Another was the Mopheads, which included former Jackson five bass player Michael McKinney whose claim to fame was being featured on the Jackson Five Victory tour. Who also leant a hand in the Mike Hosty Trio's first recording "Volume" in 1996 on the track "Motion". "Volume" was a collection of various combinations of musicians as it began as a side project from the widely successful band Heater. When Heater closed its doors for business up on News Years Day of 1996, the Mike Hosty Trio began. The New Year in 1997 the Hosty Trio with Michael Byars on the drums which pared down to a Duo in June of 2000. An Anthology of the material from this period is available documenting the rock machine as they churned out an impressive four records thanks to the good folks at Discover Card.
The Hosty Duo's penchant for catchy songs and high-octane live shows has given them the opportunity to open for many diverse acts such as R.L.Burnside, Cedell Davis, T-Model Ford, Hank Williams III, Dick Dale, Marcia Ball, G. Love and Special Sauce, Bo Diddley, Tenderloin, BR5-49, Spin Doctors, Widespread Panic, ,Walter Wolfman Washington, Bobgoblin, Juice, David Garza, Dr Hook, Roger Cline and the Peacemakers, Soulhat, The Hackensaw Boys, Bardo Pond, Rubber Bullet, Little Sister, Billy Joe Shaver,Cross Canadien Ragweed, Jason Boland and the Stragglers, and, of course, Quiet Riot. In addition, several songs from their CD catalog have gotten airplay on local stations such as KGOU in Norman, KRXO in Oklahoma City and KRSC in Tulsa even overseas in Macedonia, Spain, Belgium, Brazil and the Netherlands.
The Hosty Duo has toured the United States from Norman Oklahoma up to Mineaplois, MN down to Columbia, SC south the Houston and out West to Pheonix, San Diego and up in the Rocky mountains of Colorado. From Coast to coast and up and down the length of I-35 they have played. If you dangle shinney objects in front of them they might just show up and play for you too.
Currently Mike Byars spends his tme building expansion bridges in his back yard and Mike Hosty is an air Conditoner repair man who works on the Janitrol R-450 from 1972 to 1980. In addition, several songs from their CD catalog have gotten airplay on local stations such as KGOU in Norman, KRXO in Oklahoma City and KRSC in Tulsa even overseas in Macedonia, Spain, Belgium, Brazil and the Netherlands.
Press
Hosty Duo are freakin' awesome
February 19, 2004
by Jedd Beaudoin
jbeaudoin@f5wichita.com
The most refreshing thing about the Hosty Duo's set Saturday night at John Barleycorn's was not the fine musicianship of Mike Hosty and drummer Tic-Tac III a.k.a. Tic-Tac (born Mike Byars with impeccable Swiss timing), or the long line of songs so fine that they should be bottled and stacked in a cellar somewhere but, plainly, simply, how good it was.
Hosty's fine, fine guitar lines are one part Roy Buchanan, one part Lowell George (Little Feat) with a sprinkle of Waylon Jennings sprinkled here and there for an extra dash of flavor. He also proved, during heartfelt versions of songs such as "Johnny Cash," that although he can blaze brave new trails with pick, fingers and ax, his main musical concern is adding rich melodic textures that enhance the song not just bits that will senselessly thrust solos into the spotlight and blow the whole damn machine apart.
It's also refreshing to hear a lyricist who can write songs about those on the fringe without blistering irony, such as the protagonist in "Applesauce," whose toothless gal will make you sing, or the loser in love who meets his love in a "Truck Stop Shower Stall" and almost convinces you that it was a good time, despite losing everything. Not that Hosty doesn't have his edges, which he proved on "I Will Work For Booty" and "Fraidy Hole." (The latter, a delicious paean to tornado bait, could conceivably become a seasonal hit in these parts. Or not.)
Hosty writes the kind of songs that should be on the radio, the kind of songs that can be passed from one generation to the next, songs that are timeless, universal. Sure, there's always the hope that the duo will burst forth from their home in Norman, Okla. and burn up the FM dial. But if that doesn't happen, if Hosty and Byars continue to play primarily twixt OKC and the ICT, we'll at least be able to share in the wealth of their talents.
Here's to the return of the Hosty Duo.
Alt Fresh-
How Can 1,000,000 (approx.) Hosty Duo Fans Be Wrong?..... Load Magazine
When I got the chance to interview the Hosty Duo, I was admittedly excited. They just might be the only local band for which I have every piece of merchandise that they have ever sold out of their "blue box" and I also have a tireless collection of relics from Hosty Trio days gone by. So, yeah. I'm a huge fan.
My initial thought would be that Hosty would be the talker and it would be something like an old campfire story in which he would spin wild tales about getting busted for pot, catfish that could speak and his unrequited love for local television personalities. Not so. To my surprise, Mike Hosty was reserved, down to earth and a little shy. The generally stoic drummer Mike Byars (a.k.a. Tic-Tac the Third) was the one who was really chatty.
But that's just another twist in the wild world of the Hosty Duo, a true Oklahoma treasure/legend if there ever was one. I'm a huge fan and.well, you should be, too.
LOUD: Let's start with the trio. How and when did the trio form?
HOSTY: Well, let's see. Let's go back. We really started playing late '96 in the winter time.
BYARS: Did we?
HOSTY: Yeah. Before then, me and Mike had been playing as a two piece and we had a bass player. Alex Mackey played with us for a while. And before then, we had.
BYARS: A rotating circle.
HOSTY: A rotating circle.
BYARS: It was kind of a side project to us 'cause Mike was in Heater. So, basically, the trio happened by accident.
LOUD: And "Volume" was the first CD the Hosty Trio did?
BYARS: Yeah.
HOSTY: And that was already done.
LOUD: Because I noticed that when I looked at the individual credits, it's a lot of different people other than the regular trio.
BYARS: Basically, all of those drum tracks were just recorded originally as ideas and the songs were done later on during the recording process, which was definitely stretched out over a long period of time.
LOUD: And that was done in Trent Bell's bedroom?
HOSTY: That was in the barn. No, wait. That was in the bedroom. The rest we did in the barn.
LOUD: The trio did quite a few albums in a short amount of time and the thing that is so surprising is just how great they all are. Did you come into it with a lot of songs already written?
BYARS: We were just playing every night and everything evolved really fast and we were making, you know, more than an average amount of money. So we had the money to print records so Hosty invested all of it, basically, on his credit card. He still bears the debt to this day.
HOSTY: I still owe Discover.
BYARS: So those records are cool and they've made a lot of money, but they're still not paid off.
LOUD: So Chris went off and formed his own band. So, how long has it been just the duo?
HOSTY: Well, we basically started out that way and then we had a bunch of people come in . Just kinda plugged people in. So, when was the first time we did it?
BYARS: About '94.
HOSTY: '94 was the first time we did it.
BYARS: But the duo started when the organ left the band.
LOUD: But it wasn't a major adjustment because you had done it before.
HOSTY: Well, I had to learn to play bass with my feet, which was kind of a weird deal. But, oddly enough, we found a pair of bass pedals. A friend of ours in Denver, Colorado, found them and mailed them down here and, within three weeks, we had foot bass. The next week I went out and played the thing. I didn't even know how to play it. I just got up there and said, "That must be C."
BYARS: And I think Mike playing drums with his feet helped kind of kick start it. He already had some coordination with his feet and knew what to do. When Chris joined, he had never played foot bass and we had to talk him through it. So, it's a band that's meant to have foot bass.
LOUD: So, your guitar. What do you call it, the bassitar?
HOSTY: The bassitar. The ridiculous guitar.
LOUD: Yeah, let's talk about that.
HOSTY: When we started, we had no bass whatsoever. So it was always, you know, we're not going to have any bass.
BYARS: We were really into blues without bass.
HOSTY: Yeah.
BYARS: Just a guitar and drums.a real nasty, raw sound.
HOSTY: So we did that. Just the guitar and the bass would be the kick drum. And I had an old guitar and I routed it out one day and put a bass pickup in it. Actually, I just made my own with a Fender Stratocaster and I met this guy Justin Green who made that guitar. He patterned it after Charlie Hunter's eight-string. And I think it was the first or second guitar he ever made. I got that in '97. And then we got bass and I just kind of put it away for a long time. And then, when I started playing with my feet, I said: "Let's whip that thing out again."
BYARS: So, yeah, the custom guitar maker was like 19 when he made that. He lives out in Midwest City. It has three bass strings and five guitar strings and Mike plays it with an open tuning.
HOSTY: I told Charlie Hunter that I ripped off his guitar and he told me: "Just as long as you're not playing jazz." And I said: "What we do is the furthest thing from jazz."
LOUD: Who are your influences?
BYARS: It's such a wide spectrum. I guess everything if it's good. No matter what genre it is.
HOSTY: We're into combining different kinds of styles. And we played with the Reverb Brothers [before] and it was kind of a blues band, too. And then kind of infusing the same things like the Heaters was the Meters-meets-Dick Dale-meets Black Sabbath. And this was just like Mike playing R&B stuff and I playing some blues and me coming up with a formula.kind of those one beat Stax recordings. Just one chord songs. No one would stick around long enough for me to teach them these intricate songs, so I just have this formula and I stayed with the Heater record and then the trio records and then each one just uses that template.
LOUD: The newest ones on the country record sound as if they are using a slack-key kind of sound or Hawaiian sound. That's way different.
HOSTY: Well, then I go: "Well, I guess I'll try something different again."
BYARS: Basically those are songs he did by himself. Just home recordings.
HOSTY: In my bedroom.
LOUD: I hear you've been going to Trent's. Are you working on something now?
HOSTY: Yeah. We started when Mike broke his hip and we recorded some Latin songs there.
LOUD: You're songwriting is very interesting. Are they just stories you come up with?
HOSTY: Some of them are stories and then you just stand out in between the telephone towers and you'll be hit by lightening and you'll shake and then you'll say "Gee," and then you'll write a song.
BYARS: Basically, he's a writer.
LOUD: Did you do that at Bishop McGuiness or at St. Gregory's?
HOSTY: I got kicked out of St. Greg's.
LOUD: For setting the dorms on fire?
HOSTY: That's what they claimed.
BYARS: Hosty is also known for writing bizarre letters and posting them up all over campus.
HOSTY: Communist party meetings.
LOUD: You stay pretty busy and play all the time. Do you still give lessons during the day?
HOSTY: Nope. I did, but I stopped about '96 or '97 and we haven't done anything but play music since.
LOUD: I have a friend that said that the last lesson you taught him was never pay to play.
HOSTY: My teaching method was far more philosophy than it was instruction.
LOUD: So, when did you break your hip?
BYARS: I broke my femur Christmas of 2000.
LOUD: Did that cause Hosty to have to adapt rather quickly or.?
BYARS: Well, he had already been playing Sundays at the Deli with a bass and snare on his foot for three or four years. So, basically, all the dates that were booked, Hosty played by himself.
LOUD: I heard that you split the money with Mike.
HOSTY: Yeah.
LOUD: That's very noble.
HOSTY: He's the only one that's ever stuck by me, so .
BYARS: I knew he gave me money but I didn't know that's what he did.
LOUD: How did you come up with the name Tic-Tac?
BYARS: It's a really stupid joke is what it is. I thought it would be fun to have a fake name on every record. We were playing a show at the Boar's Head and it was really busy and people called me Tic-Tac all night and, when I went out into the parking lot to load the van, people were screaming Tic-Tac out in the parking lot. And it stuck. It's like a tattoo.
LOUD: You seem very pro-Oklahoma.
HOSTY: I love Oklahoma. Texas seems so proud of their state. But if I go down to Texas, I'd rather be in Oklahoma.
BYARS: It's a nice place. I've lived in Austin, Texas, and I've been to a lot of cities. There are other cities I like but [Oklahoma] it's home. Where I live, everything I need is within 600 yards. It's all mellow. It's all laid back.
LOUD: Are you two looking to get some kind of a record deal or are you happy where you are?
BYARS: I would cut my bad leg off for a record deal.
LOUD: How far off have you traveled and played?
HOSTY: We've gone as far west as San Diego, as far east as Charleston, South Carolina, and as far north as Minneapolis. All in Old Blue right there (pointing to the group's traveling van).
BYARS: It has 296,000 miles on it.
HOSTY: The Ford Econoline. It's made many a fortune and broke many a hearts. It's caused a lot of consternation and a lot of joy. B
About the Hosty Duo....... Billy Block's Western Beat Monthly
"Out of Norman, Oklahoma, witty guitar guru Hosty and his side kick, two piece drummer, Michael "Tic Tac" Byars, entertain as the Hosty Duo with a tour schedule of 250 shows a year. Hosty simultaneously tears through gritty slide leads, blows harmonica and or Kazoo and uses foot pedals to stomp bass lines. His guitar collection includes an 8 string instrument that allows him to thump three bass strings with his thumb while he fingerpicks guitar. The Hosty Duo has developed a huge underground following of bikers, sorority gals, hippies and truckers."
Billy Block's Western Beat Monthly -May 2003 Edition
Hosty Duo: Golden Country Hits.... Loud Magazine
Despite the title, which seems ripped from Ween's "12 Golden Country Greats," there is little else to this release that is unoriginal.
After purging himself with the sprawling " Un Hombre Malo," (a career best) and "live in Denver," an album that shows what Hosty can do as a One man Band when left to his own creativity, mike Hosty and trusty companion Mike Byars (aka Tic Tac) are back on this release, their most adventurous yet.
"Golden county Hits" eschews the regular blues that Hosty usually favors for a pan-American overview that is similar to Ry Cooder's "paradise and Lunch" and "chicken Skin Music."
Hosty skillfully hits spaghetti western theme music, hillbilly rock, country rock, acoustic blues, spoken word folk, Tex Mex, Hawaiian and traditional blues. In all of these songs, Hosty proves why he is not only of OKC's finest musicians, but songwriters, too. The Hosty Duo is one of those outfits that need to be supported at every turn. Here is a good place to start.
Patrick Crain Loud Magazine June 4, 2003
Right On: In Times of Trouble, there's nothing Quite like the Hosty Duo ...... Loud Magazine
If, around 1972, Little Feat's late, great resident guitarist would have decided to fire Roy Estrada and Bill Payne and kept going with only drummer Richard Hayward, they probably would have sounded like the Hosty Duo.
A wild blend of blues, country, rock, Dixieland, gospel and Rock-a-Billy, guitarist Mike Hosty and Drummer extraordinaire Mike Byars (aka Tic Tac) prove nothing short of Oklahoma originals.
Despite the fact that Hosty is probably one of Oklahoma's finest guitarist, the comparisons to Lowell George don't stop at his instrument of choice, however, Hosty also maintains a surreal songwriting style that can fluctuate between a tale of a Cleveland County Drug bust and a heart felt ballad without sounding smug or sappy on either.
In a way, Hosty also resembles Dan Hicks, what with his droll, wry stage delivery and all. From his comparisons of his set list to the Kama Sutra to his lamentations on the demise of moonshine stills for meth labs, Hosty is that type of artist who could be doing double duty with a newspaper column. Of course he he's probably happy right where he is, as his day job and his web site give him plenty of material, time, space to experience and write about anything and everything he pleasures.
Of course the Hosty Duo would be nothing ( well not nothing, just Hosty) without Mike Byars who makes economical drumming look so easy. With his locomotive like momentum he makes Hosty's Slide guitar and path bass plucking (played on a wicked bass/guitar hybrid) rock like hell.
Hosty also showed that he and only one other person could brilliantly pull off a strong, creative authority. If they can do it at all, it takes other blues rock bands four or five people to get it right.
If goes without saying that only a person with a true heart of stone could dislike a band that plays kazoo and a washboard, performs weird o trucker anthems and odes to the impure thoughts of Linda Cavanaugh. Since they can be found playing almost every weekend, it shouldn't be a task for one to find some time to kick back and relax with the Hosty duo. Go for a CD, shirt or hi-larious road tale, check out www.hosty.com and then go to a venue near you. Go get swallowed up in their Glorious, country blues rock soaked strangeness. Mike and tic Tac the Third will love you for it.
Patrick Crain Loud Magazine March 5, 2003
Drum Picks Album Review: Hosty: Live in Denver.. Drum Magazine
Music: This is the easy part. Like a hungrier, crustier George Thorogood, Hosty plays lovingly raw blues that showcases greasy slide guitar at its centerpiece. Now here comes the tough part – Hosty is the one man band alter ego of Michael Hosty from Norman, Oklahoma, who writes in his cryptic correspondence that he had no alternative but to tour as a One man Band: "My drummer broke his Leg and I had no choice."
Drumming: One can understand why a drummer might resort to faking a fracture to leave a band that requires little more than the "boom-chucka-boom" all night long. But in the context of hosty, such a hardscrabble drumming is a masterpiece of invention. You forgive and even adore when the bass and snare slur the tempo. After all, Hosty covers those parts with his feet while playing the bass and guitar with his hands and soloing on the harmonica with his mouth. WOW.
Verdict: in the most sweaty, beer drenched, wacky sense, this CD Rocks
Drum Magazine September 2002
Album Review: Un Hombre Malo Mike Hosty ... Nightflying
Sub titled " Mike Hosty Anthology" this covers a collection of Hosty Originals from 1996 to 2000. I reviewed an album of his years ago. Un hombre Malo means a "bad man". Mike Hosty rocks on, writing and playing songs mellow to madcap, getting down right jazzy at time.
NightFlying Arkansas Summertime 2001
Album Review: Live in Denver Mike Hosty.... Nightflying
Hosty is here again and once again he has changed and metamorphosed and transfigured into something new: this time it is a One Man Band. This is a recording that got made by sheer dint of luck and a bit of chutzpah and it happens to be probably his best album since his first. Mike Hosty has been around for a while now and he is not afraid to try new tricks, or for that matter old tricks in new forms. One of his cuts on the cd is closer to rap than to a song and nobody shot him or anything so it must have gone over with the folks at Herman's Hideaway, which is where he played the gig that is preserved on this record. I need to add that one of those songs was recorded at Sticky Fingers, which is in little rock, not Denver Colorado.
NightFlying Arkansas July 2002
Rockn' Red Dirt hosty Live in Denver...... Urban Tulsa Magazine
Solo performers in small venues are known to do strange things. Some will employ an electronic backing band on a sampler while they sit and play guitar. Others might attempt to play two instruments at once. But Norman OK's Mike Hosty must be one of the most inventive. While his drummer was recuperating from a broken femur, Hosty traveled the southwest playing solo gigs, performing on guitar with additional bass strings, pound a drum with his feet and using his mouth to sing and play the kazoo. The result was truly an unusual live album, Hosty Live in Denver.
No doubt that it takes coordination and natural rhythm for a musician to tackle a drumbeat, a bass line and a guitar fills at once. But it takes raw feel for the blues to come up with a gritty, red dirt sound like Hosty's.
Driven by thick slide riffs and thumpy rhythms, Live in Denver is a sweaty, tooth and nail hike through the woods of roots music. Hosty's gruff vocals accent the dementia of Dark Country Tales like " the Devil sent me you " and " Dead and Gone ." The most interesting moment is a stream of conscious cover of "She Said", in which Hosty rambles with gusty musical vigor.
After hearing this record, one can't help but picture this devoted picker perched in a dimly lit Denver bar, guitar/bass in grasp, drum at foot and kazoo in to mouth. It must have been a heck of a show
Joseph Felzke Urban Tulsa Magazine September 2002
Hosty Takeover: Oklahoma's Hosty Duo is funny and fit for Public Consumption. Phoenix New Times
The Hosty Duo may be the only band to have an album inspired by Charles Bronson.
Eric Waggoner Phoenix New Times October 17, 2001
Hosty Duo and Roger Clyne/Peacemakers at VZD's...... Norman Transcript
The Hosty Duo's (HD) Mike Byars comes by his love of music honestly. His Grandma used to go honky-tonkn' in the days when Johnny Horton and Hank Thompson played the ol Wagon Wheel roadhouse west of Blanchard. His mom had all the vinyl. She listened to Motown, western swing and soft rock.
" My neighbor had a drum kit and he gave me access."
When he was 7, Mike started getting his brother's cast off guitars.
It just seems right that Byars has been laying down the rhythm with Norman's premier red dirt jump blues band for years now. On the dance floor, rivers of sweat have dripped from the chest of sorority girls from this boys beat.
When asked who they would bring back from the Great Beyond for one more concert Hosty: "Box Car Willie, he would crash through the window in a truck and yell HOO HOO randomly as he sang. Byars :"Baby Dodds from New Orleans, he played wood blocks for Louis Armsrtong.
Their cures for heartache: Hosty, "Cold Beer" and Byars " A trip to the races."
Byars was tight as a full tick on a ranch dog's ear. His power bursts are amazing. Hosty played kazoo on several numbers, announcing Cryptically after one , "Mr. Boots Randolph on tenor sax." He whistled the porno western trumpet line ( as played by Victor Rook) for "Gunfighter." They played a Dick Dale visits noble instrumental punctuated by exclamations of " Chewbabcca."
Doug Hill Norman Transcript August 18, 2000
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