Word: sonefeld
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Late in the afternoon, the four members of Hootie & the Blowfish--singer Darius Rucker, guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and Sonefeld--leave the small bar where they have been hiding/waiting/drinking and head to a tent behind the stage where they are scheduled to perform. The crowd begins murmuring in delight and shock as word spreads that the band is backstage. A chant builds: Hoot-ie! Hoot-ie! But just then--and, if you're a student of outdoor rock festivals, you knew this would happen--it begins to rain. Hard. Noah's ark hard. But at this point, there...
...rock stars who don't look or act like rock stars. Typically dressed in baseball caps and baggy jeans, they look as if they're about to do some farm work or finish the back nine. While Rucker, 29, and Felber, 28, are still single, Bryan, 28, and Sonefeld, 31, are both engaged, settling down. All four still live in Columbia, within walking distance of one another, in homes that are sizable but modest (Sonefeld's pad boasts a Foosball table--the perfect just-a-guy, have-a-beer, I-love-you-man touch). But don't let the downscale...
Hootie's music is actually rooted in more sadness and struggle than the band's detractors are willing to admit and fans are prepared to accept. Three of the band members come from comfortably middle-class upbringings--Felber and Bryan grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Sonefeld hails from the cozy Chicago suburb of Napersville, Illinois. Rucker's upbringing in Charleston, South Carolina, however, was poorer and harder. His mother was a nurse and his father was "never there"; money was tight and times were hard. "The only time I really dealt with my dad was Sunday morning before...
Rucker, Felber, Bryan and Sonefeld met in 1986 as undergraduates at the University of South Carolina at Columbia--the band's name came from nicknames given to two university classmates, one with owl-like glasses and another with full cheeks. Making the cultural transition from the North to the South was a difficult one for the group's three Yankees. At the university at that time, band members recall, whites would sometimes be kicked out of frats for having too many black friends. Hootie & the Blowfish's very first gig was held at an off-campus fraternity with a reputation...
...bars, parties: any parties--birthday parties, frat parties, you name it. They would would sing REM and U2 covers and maybe a few Hootie originals, then crash on a dorm-room floor. "We'd drive 12 hours to do a show," Bryan recalls. "For $150 and two free beers," Sonefeld says, finishing his band mate's sentence, a habit among all four members of Hootie...