The Hopefuls: Six Years Later

I knew in writing about The Hopefuls that I was writing an incomplete story. As long as Erik Appelwick, Eric Fawcett, Darren Jackson, and John Hermanson keep making music, there’ll be more to tell. In that spirit, I’ve decided to continue to compile and document their ongoing adventures, and release updates every two years.  

Believe it or not, it’s been six years since I sent The Hopefuls: Chasing a Rock ‘n’ Roll Dream in the Minnesota Music Scene off to the publisher. So it's time again for an update. This one covers mid-2022 to August 2024.

The first update, covering mid-2018 to mid-2020, is available here. And the second, covering mid-2020 to mid-2022 is here.

Appelwick

Following the February 2022 release of the Vicious Vicious album Paradise, Erik Appelwick went silent, only emerging briefly between December 2022 and August 2023 to release three singles with Bethany Parks under the Citrîne moniker: "Walk It Back," "Alchemists," and a cover of "What A Fool Believes."

In April 2024 Appelwick appeared again, with a surprise release of the fourth Monolux album, Always/Forever. As with the other collaborations with Appelwick's Tapes 'n' Tapes bandmate Matt Kretzmann, under the Monolux name, the album is full of meditative instrumental soundscapes (or "music for staring at the ceiling"). Kretzmann's write-up for the release summarizes Appelwick's approach to releasing his music: "We have nothing to sell, no shows to promote, nothing ready for radio. We just made another thing and the time has come to share it."

Fawcett

Eric Fawcett continues to be firmly committed to his new career as a therapist. He is also teaching. He shared on Facebook: "I’ve had more than my share of pinch-me career adventures. Recently, my grad school alma mater asked me to co-teach their Couple Therapy course and I’m pinching myself black and blue."

Johnny

Storyhill continued to be an ongoing concern for John Hermanson and Chris Cunningham through 2022 and the beginning of 2023. In December 2022 they were the surprise guest at The New Standards' annual holiday show, playing a cover of Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble" (while Rupert danced, naturally), and "Give Up the Ghost" with Dan Wilson sitting in on piano.

Then, in July 2023 the duo released a statement saying that their performance at the 2023 Storyhillfest would be their last for the "foreseeable future" and that they would be taking a break to "reflect and focus on other priorities in our lives."

The guys were careful not to label this the end (as the did in 1997) nor to call it a hiatus (as they did in 2015). "The reasons for this are complex and personal," they wrote in the statement, "but we want you to know that we love playing music together and neither one of us wants this to be an ending." If past patterns hold, we might expect to see them back around 2026.

Meanwhile Johnny has started a new business centered on a product of his own creation, called Limber Bows. These curved climbing and hiking sticks were the result of a found piece of curved stick buried under ashes produced by the Wolverine Creek fire of 2015. Johnny found that the curve and flexibility of the stick added an extra bounce to his step. After creating many prototypes, he settled into a way to mass produce the bows, and now sells them by the pair.

Finally, Johnny has worked with Hope Lutheran Church in Bozeman to transcribe and edit a songbook of 25 original congregational songs and three liturgical settings, many of which came from his Psalms project. The book is titled Are the Morning Stars Still Singing: Congregational Songs and Liturgical Settings for Worship.

Darren

Darren Jackson promised a new Kid Dakota record called MICD in 2022, but that didn't come to pass. Instead he continued to shows at small venues around Minneapolis with new drummer Lars Oslund. In addition to drumming, Oslund also plays guitar, leading the duo to experiment with a dual-guitar / drum machine sound at some live shows.

In March 2023, Kid Dakota played South by Southwest as part of the Graveface showcase, and not long after they announced the impending release of a new album titled Praegustator. The album was finally released by Graveface Records in summer 2024. The press release labeled it "not for the faint of heart" and indeed the record explores some of the typical Kid Dakota themes such as addiction and existential dread, but also expands to more global topics such as income inequality and climate change. Musically, however, it's warm and welcoming, and mostly mid-tempo. 

In an interview with Simon Calder, Darren said his next album would be a 180 degree shift into a "very poppy" sound. He also said he's not as focused as he was when he was younger on having a unified identity as a musician. "I just want to be someday at a place where I've recorded all the songs I've written," he said.

Darren has also begun teaching music lessons at Blue Tree Music Education.

Honorary Hopefuls

A member of the proto-Olympic Hopefuls, Camaro, Jay Hurley has returned to making music with a local group called Manias. They have released a handful of singles and are performing shows around the Twin Cities.