Couples Bands Caught Off Guard ~story and photos by Ryan Stacy
Reverend and Breezy Peyton.
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hen news of the 2020 pandemic’s severity first reached our community, many local musicians were caught off guard. John Bowyer and Jayme Hood, the couple who make up local Americana duo The Hammer & The Hatchet, had made big plans for this year. They’d just placed the order for the vinyl pressing of Road May Flood, their third full-length album, and had a tour of the Midwest set up to promote it. “We’d had a good level of success locally, and this was the year we’d stepped away from our day jobs,” Jayme
16 Our Brown County • Nov./Dec. 2020
says. But like so many other performers, the band was soon forced to scrap the tour and hunker down with the rest of Indiana. “I was really excited, because we hadn’t toured before. So I was saying ‘We’re not even supposed to be [home], we’re supposed to be in Illinois or Wisconsin.’” Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, the high-energy country blues act with a home in Brown County and a worldwide following, were on the road when everything changed. The night they were in Austin, Texas to play at the South by Southwest Music Festival, which features over 2,000 live performances, it was cancelled. “It was like a funeral in that town,” remembers frontman Josh “Reverend” Peyton. “People were so bummed,” adds his bandmate and wife Breezy. “We knew it was pretty serious then. And then we wondered if our other shows were going to start falling off.” The band continued their tour, making it as far as Chicago before calling it quits and heading home. The adjustment to being suddenly grounded was a rough one for the Peytons, who typically spend most of the year on tour. “The first month was the worst. We were sitting at home alone, I was too scared to even go to the grocery store. I was a nervous wreck,” says the Rev. The beginning of the shutdown saw The Hammer & The Hatchet grind to a halt as well. After their tour was cancelled, Jayme found her well of songwriting ideas had inexplicably run dry. “The first few months were really silent. There was a lot of ‘Hold up. What does this mean? What do I do?’” she says. Both bands hung on to their hopes that they could pick things up again shortly. But as the months wore on, the reality of the situation sank in. Along with everyone else, the company pressing their new record was closed, so The Hammer & The Hatchet had nothing to sell online. John and Jayme
