Derived from the hearts of a couple country boys, one from Dublin, Texas (Neal Cowan) the other from Venus, Texas (Joshua Ward), The Hawkes came together in 2005. The Hawkes pride themselves as an original Texas Music group who got its start playing open mic nights and singer songwriter competitions from which they received an amazing response from listeners.
The next step toward becoming a band would come when the group picked up Tracy Neff as bassist. Tracy was a high school friend of Neals and was a perfect fit with The Hawkes. Tracy brought a great groove to the music Josh was writing and Neal’s guitar licks. Tracy also brought his sense of humor…if you’ve spent any time at all with Tracy or The Hawkes, you know that “Chief Big Smoke” (aka Tracy Neff) will be getting someone to laugh somewhere.
The Hawkes were making good music, but they needed someone to keep that rock solid beat. There was a little place over in Grand Prairie, Texas where different musicians could come and audition with different bands and The Hawkes auditioned two drummers. “When we walked in, there was a drummer playing with a rock band and I told Josh…that’s the guy we need!” said Neal, and “that guy” was Brandon Wallace. Brandon was a drummer who had been playing as a professional drummer for several years. The boys got up and played together for the first time and it was pure magic. The Hawkes were on their way.