Eddie Haymaker

I am sure many of you heard that Eddie Haymaker passed away this past Saturday, unexpectedly. To say he was an institution for our small town is an understatement...he made music happen in Ruston. Here is something I wrote over the weekend about his impact on me and how I see his impact on Ruston:

Life is too busy and we don’t stay connected as we should. RIP my friend Eddie Haymaker. I wish I would have taken more time to connect with you. I am saddened and shocked to hear of your passing.

Upon hearing the words early yesterday that Eddie had passed, many memories flooded my head in a rush. Where I am today was in part molded by this kind soul. I hope Eddie knew the impact that he had on a small, town in northern Louisiana, but I know I didn’t tell him of this quite enough. The last time I saw him was at our Stonybridge reunion show in October 2011. I was the lucky one, our band were the lucky ones, for Eddie to come over from Texas to support us…once again. Thank you Eddie.

Growing up I was fascinated by the various instruments that were in the window of his small, but stocked music store. Driving by Haymaker’s Guitars sometime in the spring of 1984 I asked my mother if I could take drum lessons…the Pearl kit in the window was just too enticing. I signed up for school band and then started lessons at Eddie’s that summer and it changed my life, forever. Thank you Eddie.

I would get to lessons early and stay late. I would walk to his store from my summer job. I would drop in when I was downtown with my mother. All to check out the drums and cymbals that I was going to buy on day...all of them. Spending this time there was where the relationship with Eddie started and grew, but at eleven years old I didn’t know that. I do now, at 47. Thank you Eddie.

Over the years I bought my first set at the corner Haymaker’s and 3 of the 4 that I have ever purchased). Man do I wish I still had that 1970’s blue sparkle 4-piece Royce kit with a beat up 20” Camber ride and 14” Paiste 404 Medium Hats that I bought with my own, earned money...from Eddie. Maybe one day I can track one down. I am lucky to have the final kit I bought from him, my Sonor, but I would not have done so if Eddie hadn’t pushed and encouraged me. This went on for months to consider it and then he even let me gig with it for a few weekends to “test drive” it. Anyone who has seen me play knows that Eddie was crazy to let me bang away. Thank you Eddie.

Eddie would ask me who I was playing with and encourage me and all of us that were playing to simply have fun and keep going…and to keep taking lessons at Haymaker’s Guitars. He was also the one selling us our “hard stock” concert tickets to AC/DC, James Taylor, Van Halen, REM, Tesla, Hall & Oates (yes my first concert attended by myself) and many others. He did it all keeping his small business going while promoting music. Thank you Eddie.

So many friendships, so many bands, so many gigs, so many memories. In talking in a message chain last night with some friends, old buddy Mat Dauzat correctly said that Eddie was setting many of us on a trajectory to move beyond Ruston in music or other fields. He opened hundreds of us up to the world and what was beyond Ruston. He was a catalyst, no, he still is a catalyst. Thank you Eddie.

Let’s take Eddie’s passing and do some good. Think of those that have influenced, guided, supported, mentored you and reach out. Call them or write them and tell them you appreciate them. Reconnect and share with them their influence. Don’t wait. Tomorrow may never come.

Thank you Eddie.

And this from my good friend Robert Schneider, from Ruston, of Apples in Stereo / Elephant 6 Records fame...

Thank you for giving me music, Eddie Haymaker: Today I found out one of my greatest lifelong musical heroes passed away. Eddie Haymaker was an extraordinarily talented guitarist and the owner of Haymaker’s Guitar Shop in Ruston when I was growing up. He let me hang around in there experimenting with instruments, synthesizers and recording gear, and made me feel part of music since well before I took up music myself. His guitar shop was my universe when I was an elementary school child, and continued to be the center of my world through my teenage years growing up as a young musician in Ruston, out of place in my environment. My parents bought me a children's classical guitar from his shop when I was in 5th grade and I took lessons in a tiny room in the repair shop at the back of the place. This was some years before I took up guitar for real, it was my gateway into music, and as I would leave my lesson every week, my school friend Jeff Mangum would come into the same small room for drum lessons. It was how Jeff and I first discovered we were each into music, passing by each other in the back of Haymaker’s shop. My parents bought me a used RadioShack Moog synthesizer from Eddie for my 12th birthday, that was my first real instrument — with the synth and a boombox, I started writing and recording music and never looked back. I bought my first electric guitar from Eddie on layaway when I was 13, and I would go into the shop every day after school and he would let me take it out from the layaway storage and play it. This story is shared almost exactly by all of my Ruston-raised Elephant 6 colleagues, and all of my musical friends from Ruston. Along with the airwaves of the college radio station KLPI, which usually blasted inside his shop, Ruston was turned into a music town by this man and his crew.

None of the music I have made, none of Elephant 6 would exist at all, without Eddie Haymaker's encouragement, support, teaching, networking and physical gear. He sat with me as a little kid and showed me how to press the strings and pluck a guitar. I vividly remember the nylon strings cutting my fingers, and Eddie telling me they would turn into calluses if I kept it up. (Eddie, I still have those calluses today!) He patiently showed teenage me how to use the demo 4-track on display in his shop, which I rented on weekends and taught myself to produce with. When I was 16 I cashed out my life savings and bought a 4-track of my own from Eddie, which kicked off a lifetime of recording for me and my friends (a few years later we founded Elephant 6 by direct cause-and-effect). Eddie was always so supportive. His reggae band The Rusty Dreads was the first group I ever followed, never missed a show — my friends and I would sneak into frat parties (a primary musical venue back then in the small college town) through the woods to watch them play. I met my lifelong best friend and musical collaborator, Bill Doss, in his shop, and spent literally almost every day of my childhood and teenage years admiring, learning from, and joking with Eddie as he operated his legendary guitar store... patiently teaching an enthusiastic little kid and everyone else what it means to be a musician: to be gentle, patient, competent, sincere, someone who builds community, someone who teaches and encourages the younger generation. He was the definition of cool (and probably taught me that word).

Thank you forever, Eddie, for leading me to Music, for leading all of my friends there, and bringing musicians together in a small town that was really not cut out for freaks like us.