Until last Friday, it had been more than a decade since the Blue Angels had a high-profile rendezvous with the rock & roll ethos. It was in the late-Eighties when the elite Armed Service aviators starred in Van Halen's "Dreams," the first video of the histrionic Sammy Hagar era. This time around, the Angels took a journey somewhere less familiar -- riding shotgun with the earthy alterna-pop band Sister Hazel.

After meeting the pilots backstage at a Chicago show last year, Sister Hazel bassist Jeff Beres and rhythm guitarist Andrew Copeland became enamored with the Blue Angels enough to visit the Angels' El Centro, Calif., training facility last week. Both Beres and Copeland got the opportunity to play passenger in an FA-18 for an hour -- in fact, the Angels even let them steer a little. "It was absolutely incredible," Copeland says. "Right after we took off, we went vertical. It was super-intense. It'll change your whole outlook on roller- coasters or things that are supposed to be scary." Scary enough to churn Andrew's stomach. "Oh, I did [vomit]," he readily admits. "I say that with no shame. They say it happens all the time."

The members of the Florida-based quintet reconvened last week after an extended break to begin preparations for their next album, tentatively due out this summer. Almost totally devoid of publicity or video play, the band's major label debut, Somewhere More Familiar, quietly went platinum. "I think we'll do it louder next time," says Copeland. "We were all pretty stressed about our sophomore album, then we were like, you know, we're in a really great position. Now we've got the budget and time we would've liked to have had for the first one.

"You're probably gonna see a lot of maturity in the songwriting, but we don't want it to sound too polished," he continues. "Sometimes you wonder what people mean when they say, 'Man, your live shows blow your record away.' You just think, 'God, our record must suck!'"

If Sister Hazel's live show has an edge on their albums, it could have something to do with the band having toured for four years straight, something Copeland doesn't look back upon with complete fondness. "It's kind of hard being with five guys every day on a bus. I mean, you can imagine. Luckily, we all have good relationships. I'm looking forward to [the next tour], but before January it was like, 'Man, don't even think about getting me back on the road.'"

Copeland figures the touring won't be quite as lengthy next time around, or the break between records quite as long. "There may be an acoustic or B-sides CD in between [the next record and the one after], we don't know," he says. "We're open to suggestions."

ALLISON STEWART
(February 23, 1999)