Lighting the fire

Larry Hooper woke up Friday with a toothache and a hit record.

Hooper, 37, co-wrote the song “After the Fire,” the title track on the new album by country singer Cody Jinks. The album hit No. 1 on the iTunes charts when it debuted and received rave reviews.

He hasn’t had much time to celebrate, though. First he had to get that tooth yanked at the dentist, and then he played three shows in two days over the weekend, including one at the New Granbury Live Sunday evening where he opened for John Baumann.

“The whole time, I was like, ‘this is cool’ – but I can’t really enjoy it,” he said with a laugh Monday morning. “The main thing I could focus on was that tooth.”

Hooper has been writing and playing songs since he was growing up in Elkhart, Texas, a town of about 1,000 people. A DeCordova resident, he currently works at Acton Elementary as a reading tutor, but maintains a busy schedule of over 100 shows per year.

Hooper is married to Chelsea Hooper (who writes guest columns for the Hood County News). The couple has three children – Finley (8), Fisher (6) and Fielder (3).  

SONGWRITING IN HIS BLOOD

His cousins had a bluegrass band called the Coleman Brothers, and he grew up tailing them to shows and festivals.

“We always had guitars and stuff out at Christmas,” Hooper said.

His older brother Jeromy went off to college and brought back an interest in Texas singer-songwriters and bands like Robert Earl Keen, Reckless Kelly and the Robison brothers. The elder Hooper bought a guitar and started playing, and Larry followed suit.

In high school, Hooper would write “silly songs,” even before he started playing guitar and writing in earnest.

“Any time back when I would write letters to friends and stuff, I would always have a little jingle on there, or a poem,” he said.

His first song that he put to a guitar was called “High School Romance.” In his own words, “it wasn’t great – but it was the first one.”

Hooper entered college at Texas A&M University in College Station, but didn’t graduate – in fact, he didn’t stay long enough to pick a major.

“General studies,” he grinned.

But while he was there, he received a full degree in the Texas country scene. He started playing open mikes and writing more, and became “immersed in music.”

Hooper also found friends like Jamie Lin Wilson -- formerly of The Trishas and now a solo act – and Shayne Walker, who were in a group called The Gougers. He ran in their circle and learned how to live the traveling life.

“I was their go-to opener forever, or roadie, or merch guy, or whatever,” he said. 

Through that experience, he became pals with singers like Courtney Patton, Adam Carroll and Jason Eady. They’re not names that you’ll see in Nashville lights, but they’re some of the best pure lyricists around.

He moved to Austin after leaving college, then did the “couch circuit” for a bit, living without roots. Eventually he met his wife, and was in Granbury more and more until, as he puts it, “one day, I realized I lived here.”

Putting pen to paper

Hooper always writes his lyrics first, and he’s always writing. He jots down ideas in the notes app on his phone, and adds to them every chance he gets. Eventually, he’ll find a few lyrics or ideas that go together, and those become his songs.

His style has evolved over time, and other artists have influenced him to use different techniques in his lyrics. He points to Bruce Robison’s “Country Sunshine” and Slaid Cleaves’ “Broke Down” as albums that changed his approach.

“Before, it had been a little more straightforward,” Hooper said. “They gave me the inspiration to maybe not shoot a straight arrow as much.”

While he writes solo often, he’s happy to collaborate with other artists. That process is much different in the digital age than it was decades ago.

“I haven’t written in the same room as anyone in…I couldn’t even tell you the last time,” he said. “We do it all via text message or voice recordings and emails.

“One thing about being a musician is, you don’t get to see your musician friends a lot.”

He’s found a kinship with Patton in particular, and the two collaborate often.

“Courtney Patton is my favorite person to write with, and she says the same thing about me,” Hooper said. “We just click with each other. We know what the other is thinking.

“We’re always on the same page. We’ve written probably eight or nine songs together, and from the time one of us sends the other a song, most of them are finished within an hour.”

Until 2016, Hooper’s primary musical influence, songwriting partner and friend was his older brother. Jeromy died three years ago after what was probably a heart attack, although Larry said he isn’t sure.

“He was just there one minute, and then he was gone,” Hooper said. “He was my best friend, and I looked up to him.”

“He got me into music, so I don’t know whether to thank him or to curse him.”

Jeromy’s death robbed Hooper of his inspiration.

“I didn’t write for a while after that,” he said. “It put me into a dry spell, because that was all I could write about.

“It was probably a year and a half, maybe two years, before I finished a song on my own. My well was dry at the time.”

Time didn’t heal the wound, but it did allow Hooper to pick up a pen and start writing again. At first, all he could write about was Jeromy. He still won’t play most of the songs he’s written about his brother’s death during live shows.

“Even three years later, it’s too tough.”

BREAKING THROUGH

Eventually, Hooper began filling up his notes app with lyrics again, which started the road to “After the Fire.” 

He hit it off with Jinks at a Texas Red Dirt Roads show a while back, where Jinks told him that “any friend of Courtney Patton’s is a friend of mine.”

Hooper sent a draft of “After the Fire” to Jinks, and the pair collaborated to finish the song, one of two they’ve written together. Jinks liked the finished product so much that he made it the title track and the leadoff number on his new album.

“Cody’s selling out the Ryman, Cody’s selling out Red Rocks, Cody’s playing big stadiums and stuff – and only getting bigger,” Hooper said. “It means a lot. I’m honored.”

Hooper has plans to record his fourth album soon, with Patton serving as producer, but songwriting is the future of his career.

Mailbox money

The success of “After the Fire” means Hooper will receive a nice royalty check in the mail, which songwriters call “mailbox money.” But that check will take a while to arrive, so while Hooper is ecstatic about at his friend Jinks’s success, he’s not going to experience the full weight of his own success until the mailbox money comes in.

And that check means the world to Hooper, who readily admits that he often plays shows he wouldn’t otherwise take in order to pick up some extra cash.

“Financially, it’s a necessity,” he said. “We depend on my music a lot, just to keep us from getting behind.”

Eventually, Hooper – who is his own manager, and is “obsessive” about booking shows – hopes to scale back his travel schedule and focus more on songwriting in order to spend more time with his family.

“I’m gone a lot of weekends, just because – people don’t know who I am, but I still play over 100 shows a year, I’m still busy,” he said. “So when I’m home, I’m just so tired.

“If I could get to a point where I make enough from mailbox money that I can just play shows that I want to play…I would love to get to a point where I can say, ‘no, I’m just not going to take a show.’”

With his style, relying on intricate lyrics, Hooper needs to find the right audience in front of which he can thrive.

“The show (at the New Granbury Live), where the crowd is clapping and listening and laughing at jokes and stuff, I’m more on there than I am at some loud bar where nobody’s paying attention at all,” he said.

Those bad shows give rise to the self-doubt that can afflict all artists. Writing a song like “After the Fire,” however, can provide an antidote.

“To see Cody’s fans on different pages, somebody asking what everyone’s favorite song is off the album, and a lot of people are saying ‘After the Fire,’” Hooper said. “That means a lot. Because it is a really good album, and it’s not just the song that I co-wrote.”

And it’s not just the average country fan that likes the song. Hooper’s hoping Nashville executives are taking notice – but even though he’s been writing for almost two decades, he’s not sure what the next step is.

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I still just don’t know what I’m doing, just as far as how to leverage that,” he said. “I’d love to have a publishing job in Nashville, and I have friends that have them, but a lot of it is luck – mixed with talent.”

The talent, clearly, is there.

Toothache aside, what happened Friday morning might just be the luck he needed.

grant@hcnews.com | 817-573-7066, ext. 254