The Tone Pirates Still Kicking with More Haggard

SAN ANGELO, TX — Dan Carroll, front man for the San Angelo band The Tone Pirates, said the band got together nine years ago when Carroll was reinvigorating his music talent. “I probably hadn’t touched a guitar in 20 years,” Carroll said. He discovered others, some with college degrees in music, who wanted an outlet to rekindle their skills and perform live like Carroll did.

The catalyst was when a friend of Carroll’s asked him to play for a private birthday party. At the time, Carroll said, he was working on his stage fright. “I’d maybe sing to small groups and stuff like that, but the thought of being judged on a stage in front of a big crowd was a scary thought,” he said. But still, he didn’t want to let down his friend.

Carroll recruited seasoned musicians to make up for his lack of confidence in his voice. He claims the new band got together and practiced for 30 minutes prior to the performance. “We were playing the party, and man we were actually sounding good,” Carroll said. “We didn’t tell many that this was the first time we’d all played together as a band.”

That was 2009, and Carroll’s confidence was sealed, and so were The Tone Pirates. The band has cut a few full-length records since then, produced by Carroll’s long-time friend David Sanger, drummer for Asleep at the Wheel. Carroll has known Sanger since the ‘80s when Carroll drove that band’s tour bus.

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Saturday night, The Tone Pirates performed four one-hour sets at the annual “Hoolihan,” the popular invitation-only annual barbecue picnic hosted by the landowners at Mertzon’s Hoolihan Acres.

Since the last Tone Pirates record, 2016’s Hats Off to the Hag, a tribute to Merle Haggard, the band is really keen on playing Haggard. In fact, Saturday night, the Tone Pirates played an entire set of Haggard—11 songs total, including “Big City” and “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good.”

The band will mix it up, though. The band’s diverse musicians, including the father-son guitar team of Leon Langley on steel guitar, and son Billy Dan Langley on lead guitar, let loose on the blues guitar-intensive “La Grange” by ZZ Top and a few Stevie Ray Vaughn Classics like “The House is a Rockin’.”

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Other band members include the owner of American RV Norris McCarty on bass, Matt Kisko on drums, and Harvey Wanier on fiddle.

The keyboard player, John Talley, is also known for his love of old Volkswagens. Armed with a degree in music, Talley runs a car restoration business. We profiled one of his many projects in Dec. 2016.

The Tone Pirates perform mostly at private parties, but if you can catch them at a local music venue, make sure you come prepared to dance.