Philip Hunsicker
Phil’s Story (and He’s Stickin’ to It)!
Phil is a writer, musician, and radical environmentalist – the three things his pragmatic high school guidance counselor specifically told him not to pursue. Phil’s writing, whether in a novel, a song, a poem, a children’s book, an article, an opinion piece, or even a professional work product, includes varying degrees of his sense of humor, which he thinks is as important to his survival as coffee spiked with Irish Cream, John Prine songs, a good boat, and his vintage Martin D-28 guitar.
At the age of three months, Phil flew to Japan (with some assistance from his mother), and that trip, according to his father, is when Phil caught the travel bug. This desire to see what was over the next hill led to stints as a student of marine biology in Florida, a Peace Corps volunteer in Central Africa, a fishery biologist in Alaska, a grad student in Vermont, a game park director for the World Wildlife Fund in the African rain forest, a ghost writer for Minnesota Public Radio, and more recently, a part-time bluegrass musician and full-time expert on aquatic invasive species (AIS) in Minnesota.
Phil and his wife, Denise, live on a quiet lake in Minnesota where he continues to write, play music with his band – Hans Blix and the Weapons Inspectors – and fight the good fight to preserve the natural world. And yes, he still enjoys doing what others tell him he shouldn’t.
HANS BLIX AND THE WEAPONS INSPECTORS
Even writers of fiction need other ways to step away from real-world problems. I like watching sports on TV and the occasional escapist movie, but if I want to be more interactive, I sing and play guitar with Hans Blix and the Weapons Inspectors. We are a 6-piece acoustic string band that plays an eclectic mix of music sometimes described as “Americana,” or “Grassroots,” or “Front Porch Music.” Take your pick. They all include influences of bluegrass, old-timey, folk, blues, Irish fiddle tunes, and more. We also throw in some John Prine, Jason Isbell, Bob Dylan, Gillian Welch, and Steve Earle for good measure. There is something for almost every taste. The band expresses its regrets to disco and hip-hop enthusiasts.
The band is named after a Swedish diplomat and his team of United Nations weapons inspectors who were kicked out of Iraq in the early 2000s when the band formed. This led to the beginning of the Iraq war and a band name too good to pass up. We hope the real Hans Blix and his attorneys agree.
The Grateful Dead has its ‘Deadheads.” Jimmy Buffett has his “Parrotheads.” Hans Blix has its “Warheads,” and they have seen the band perform in bars, resorts, festivals, and craft breweries in and around our town of Brainerd, Minnesota. In addition to hitting the right chords and not forgetting lyrics, the band’s objective for every performance is that the audience has as much fun as the musicians do. We usually succeed.
Hans Blix is made up of six friends who share an appreciation for eclectic but traditional-sounding music that’s fun to play and just as fun to listen to. Four of us met through our day jobs doing conservation work, so not only are we proficient with our musical instruments, but we also know our way around a wetland, a hardwood forest, a sensitive shoreland, and an invasive species. The fifth member is a Legal Aid attorney, which the other band members felt was a good strategic move since bands aren’t typically known for their strong desire to follow the rules. Plus, the guy plays a mean bass and banjo. Our sixth and newest member is an energy planner with an emphasis on renewable energy, so we all have a heightened sense of social responsibility to go along with our passion for music. She was recruited to be a weapons inspector in 2018 because our fifth member decided he liked playing the banjo more than the bass, so we needed a full-time bass player to keep us on the beat, but more importantly, to help drown out the sound of a full-time banjo. Other interests of band members include raising sheep, horses, chickens, dogs, and above-average kids, brewing beer, maple syrup, bicycling, running, canoeing in the Boundary Waters, taking on massive home remodeling and building projects, coaching cross-country skiing, throwing great parties, and of course, writing the next great American novel.
Kristen Blann sings and plays fiddle, flute, and accordion. Mike Duval sings and plays rhythm guitar, harmonica and zither. Kent Montgomery sings and plays mandolin. Laurie Chamberlain sings and plays the banjo. Erica Bjelland sings and plays bass and accordion. I sing and play lead flatpack guitar.
So why do I play in a band? First, it’s cool. What red-blooded, rock-and-roll-weened American male hasn’t wanted to play in a band and make women scream and faint? That hasn’t happened yet with Hans Blix, but I keep thinking it could happen any day now. Second, when you can make money just by playing music with your friends, that’s beyond cool; it’s Elvis cool. I’m talking 1950’s or early 1960’s Elvis, before he started doing those cheesy movies, and definitely before 1970’s Elvis when he was squeezing into those sequined jumpsuits. Third, music is the opposite of writing. Writing can be a very private affair. You spend hours locked away in a small room with no distractions so you can turn blank pages into words, sentences, and paragraphs that pull people in and take them for a ride. Playing in a band is the opposite. Yes, musicians also want to pull people in and take them for a ride, but playing music in a band is not about individual effort. It’s about individual effort contributing to a larger, fuller, more important group sound. It’s about coordinating and interacting and feeding off each other. It’s about finding your tribe – a group of people with similar values and interests. It’s a very social experience, which isn’t what writing is.
When we practice music, we play the old stuff to keep it pounded into our aging brains and we try on new tunes for size. We laugh at our chord mistakes and our lyric flubs. We laugh about how I always break my G-string in front of an audience. We give each other a hard time. We drink craft beer or Mike’s homebrew if it’s ready. We have coffee and a slice of the pie when our sore fingertips or strained vocal cords need a break. We catch up on each other’s busy lives and we critique the latest conspiracy theory garbage spouted out by political buffoons. We talk gigs, setlists, sound system tweaks, and the status of my old red Kay guitar that I bought in 6th grade for $60 and has been collecting dust in a friend’s repair shop for more years than it took me to get to sixth grade. We laugh some more. To be honest, I’ve gotten more enjoyment out of talking about the Kay with my bandmates than I ever did playing it.
I’m part of a writer’s tribe – those who live in their heads, prefer to observe rather than interact, and hide behind their laptops in quiet settings. I’m also part of a music tribe that gets out to fraternize with other tribes in noisy bars, likes being the center of attention, and prefers to be in the middle of the action instead of loitering unnoticed at the fringes.
Like any good character in a novel, I am multi-faceted.
Check ‘em out right here: · www.facebook.com/hansblixandtheweaponsinspectors