DECHEN HAWK Music from His Soul When did you first get into music? Please explain. Music spoke to me from the womb. My momma rocked me to sleep to Stevie Wonder. I was always singing as a kid, making songs up on the playground. My parents bought me one of those toy pianos. I’d play it for hours. I took piano lessons as a child. But it wasn’t until the death of my father at age fourteen that I reached for an outlet and asked for an electric guitar. The rest as they say was history. I started writing and recording songs immediately and haven’t looked back. Who or What inspired you to pursue a career in music? You know, it was never a question for me. I knew through and through that I was a born musician and that I wanted to make a living doing what I love. I was inspired by my band teachers in High School. They were young performing and recording artists. I wanted to be like them. MTV was bursting on the scene when I was young and I wanted to be like those artists as well. I was a teenager in the ’90s and that was a special time for music. Artists of all types, styles, and genres were making it as musicians and getting signed to major labels. It was all super inspiring. How has your music evolved since you first started in the music industry? I think I’ve evolved more than my music. My music has always been powerful and moving. I’ve just gotten better at letting it flow through me and having the skills to bring that to fruition. I also think there’s a maturity in simplicity.
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I made things complicated when I was younger. Now I try and make it as simple as possible. As the great Thelonious Monk said, “Simple ain’t easy.” Stylistically, I went from a more singer-songwriter sound in the beginning to a more soulful R&B sound later on. Now I’ve arrived somewhere in the middle. I craft moving soulful songs.
