For rock group Sister Hazel’s guitarist and vocalist Drew Copeland, taking the stage at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts is not just another gig.
“It’s like a second home to us,” Copeland said in a phone interview.
The band’s affinity for appearing on campus traces back more than 20 years. Four of the five members were UF students when the band got together, Copeland said.
“We were true ‘Gainesville-ians,’” said Copeland, who graduated with a degree in building construction and met his wife at the Swamp Restaurant.
The catalyst for the band’s formation occurred at a Florida vs. Tennessee tailgate party in 1990, where Copeland was introduced to Ken Block.
Copeland said Block began singing a cover of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” by the Eagles, and Copeland accompanied him with acoustic guitar and harmony vocals.
“Ya’ll need to go make some money doing that!” bystanders told the duo.
Copeland and Block took the advice. This March, the two will have been singing together for 22 years.
The pair played its first show in 1991 at a cafe on Tower Road. They performed as an acoustic duo for three years before adding a bassist, drummer and lead guitarist to form the full-fledged band Sister Hazel.
The band’s name was inspired by Gainesville resident Sister Hazel Williams, who ran a soup kitchen serving the city’s homeless in the ‘90s.
“She was a light lots of people could turn to who needed a fresh start,” Copeland said.
The impression the nun made on the band outlasted her name recognition as time elapsed.
“When we started the band, she was in Haiti,” Copeland said. “We didn’t know she was still alive.”
When Williams returned to the U.S., Copeland said she noticed her name appearing on billboards. She contacted Block and said, “I see my name in all these different places. I think we need to have a talk.”
Once Williams understood how her name connected to the band’s music, she gave the OK to rock on.
“We were somebody everybody could connect to,” Copeland said. “We had that in common with her. Regardless of race, religion, background, she was accepting of everyone.”
Copeland said life in Gainesville has influenced the band’s music as well as his own. He said the song “A Little Like Heaven” on his 2004 solo album, with lyrics set at Paynes Prairie and Hogtown Creek, points to a deeply personal love for the area.
“There’s always something going on — a feeling of youth and regeneration because of the university,” Copeland said. “Gainesville is a very special place.”
The at-home relationship at UF that Copeland said the band enjoys is reciprocated by Michael Blachly, director of UF Performing Arts.
“Sister Hazel is my ‘house band,’” Blachly wrote in an email. “They’re simply part of Gainesville’s musical DNA.”
