The Shotgun Band's Equipment, The Shotgun Band Wilkes County

The Shotgun Band (Wilkes County)

The Shotgun Bands Equipment 

Our PA and sound equipment was owned by myself, Bruce Evans, and Keith Hamlin. I owned the power amps, Bruce owned the speakers and some of the lights and Keith Hamlin owned the remainder of the lights. For front speakers Bruce caught a couple of rock bands breaking up and bought their equipment at a steal. 

We had two huge 2-15 inch JBL bass scoops which had to be hand trucked powered by a Peavy CS 800 watt amp, two 2-10 inch JBL cabinets, powered by another Peavey CS 800 watt amp, and two large JBL horns powered by a Peavey CS 400 watt amp. We used two 1-12 inch floor monitors and 2 Peavey SP-2 with one horn and one 15" speaker for side field monitors powered by a Peavey CS 400 power amp. We used two 16 channel mixing boards, a rack mountable effects, and a rack mountable crossover. On each side of the stage we had a tree with four 500 watt par can lights and four 500 watt par cans across the back trestle. That was a total of 12-500 watt par can lights. We had two 100 feet snakes one for sound and the second for lights.  

Bruce Evans purchased a Charles Chips potato chip step van to haul our equipment in and we painted over the Charles Chip logo and Keith Hamlin the sign artist painted on it our Shotgun logo. 

Some other things that we did were that we had names and addresses of our fans and mailed out a monthly newsletter so they could come and see us wherever we performed. We had all types of Shotgun outer wear with shirts and jackets and bandannas to sell. All of this equipment doesn't include our stage amps and guitars or instruments. The power amps back in the day were twice as heavy as they are today. One CS-800 Peavey power amp weighed 75 pounds. We would set up all of this equipment and break it down at least 45 weekends per year. There would be a good hour and a half to set it up and a good hour and a half to tear it down. As a musician you get a lot of heavy lifting. There is also a lot of sound checking involved. Each location has different acoustics and the drum mikes have to be adjusted individually. It is worth every dollar that you make. You also have to buy all of your gas and food. There also is a lot of hours spent driving to and from the clubs and back to your home in the wee hours of the morning. You lay there at night as the song says "the amplifiers were ringing in your head" all just for a little time of the fame of performing on the stage. You have to love doing it because you never get rich.  

Keith Hamlin Drummer for The Shotgun Band

Keith Hamlin Drummer for The Shotgun Band

There is so much I can say about Keith Hamlin. He was the best drummer that I have had the privilege to perform with. He was accurate in all of his rolls and his beats. He was  neither too fast or too slow . He didn't speed up or slow down while he performed. His drumming made my job as a bass player easy. 

This is the secret to a band with a tight sound. The drummer and the bass player have to play together. When the rhythm section is tight the rest will come together.

 Keith Hamlin was self employed and had his own business known as Keith Graphics. He also worked for his uncle at the local music store called The Bible Book Store. He was an artistic sign painter. He did the art work on our Shotgun Band truck and our lighted sign that we carried around at each performance. 

When Keith began performing with us he carried a lot of equipment with him. He took his own drum riser which would set him up higher behind us and his own lights behind the drummer. He would set up two sets of drums an acoustic set and an electronic set. He had his own stage monitor so he could hear himself. Keith didn't sing but every drum was miked precisely. He used a set of Rogers acoustic drums and he had each drum tuned exactly for the best sound. Before Keith started with The Shotgun Band he performed in two different rock bands. One was called Plastic Faces and the other was called Kidz. He would perform each song exactly like the original record. A drummer has to have a lot of stamina and be fit to perform for three hours in a row and Keith was just that. Keith performed with us for six years and we were blessed to have him. When he left us he did just like you would in a public job. He gave us a notice not to leave us without until we could find a drummer. Today Keith is retiring from drumming. His last band was called Problem Child a tribute to AC DC. I saw him at one of his last recent performances and he played perfect and then the ambulance had to take him to the hospital for heat exhaustion. What a way to end a career.

The Shotgun Band (Wilkes County) The Middle Years

The Shotgun Band (Wilkes County)

The Middle Years.

Midway during the life of the Shotgun Band we had a major change in members. We lost Keith Hamlin on drums and picked up Clayton Handy Jr from McGrady NC and lost Mike Beeson and we picked up  Mike Reeves on Keyboard from Wilkesboro NC. Bruce Evans and myself continued along with these two members. One thing about Junior he sang and played drums which Keith Hamlin didn't sing. It was an interesting mixture. We performed a lot of the same songs but lost a lot of the Alabama tunes which Mike Beeson did a great job on baritone vocals. 

With this band we entered the Marlboro Country Music Championships in Greensboro NC and won over a lot of bands and placed third in the competition. 

The next change of members was when Mike Reeves left us and we went down to a three piece band. This didn't stop Bruce we continued to perform. It was Clayton, myself and Bruce. I always wanted a fourth man but Bruce and Clayton wanted just three because the money was more. With three members  we were forced to perform a lot more rock tunes. It was harder on me without the fourth man where I had to overplay to fill in the holes. On the end of life of The Shotgun Band we lost Clayton and Keith Hamlin came back to play until we disbanded. 

The Shotgun Band never practiced except at the beginning the first two weeks of organization and if we learned any new material we would run over it before a show and polish it up each time we performed it. We did get together a few years later and performed at Jacks Drive In, in North Wilkesboro NC and used Charles Dockery from Dobson NC

on the drums.

Oddly enough Clayton Handy and Mike Reeves are Pastors of churches, Bruce was a Gideon before he passed away and I perform in a Gospel Group and teach Sunday School.