Brian Howes gets a little hot under the black-leather collar when asked who listens to his kind of rock music. Speaking on a BMI-sponsored songwriter's panel before last year's Grammy Awards, the Vancouver-based producer, who has co-written hits for Hinder, Chris Daughtry, David Cook and Puddle of Mudd, sent an emotional shout-out to the common fan.
"I call it the hosers in Canada, the rednecks," he said. "The flyover zones. The people in Middle America seem to still buy records . . . You can sit on the back of your flatbed Ford, have a six-pack, crank some AC/DC and throw on some Daughtry or Hinder."
"Flyover rock" (like its more politically minded sister term, "red-state rock") is the kind of insult critics apply to what they find bland or derivative. Yet for Howes and his peers, identifying with music's middle ground is a point of pride and commitment.
"This is no slam against the media -- I used to be that elitist punk guy," said Howes, who played in a successful ska-punk band in the 1990s, by phone recently. "But the media are looking for the next cool thing, whereas Middle Americans just want good music that makes 'em feel good."
Since the days when former art-school kids the Rolling Stones declared themselves exiled on Main Street, populism has served as a normalizing counterpoint to rock's freaky bohemian tendencies. The idea of the "average Joe" keeps rock stars grounded and helps fans relate. But for artists like Hinder, Nickelback and "American Idol" winner Cook -- all of whom release albums nearly guaranteed to top the charts this month -- ordinariness has become a source of distinction.
Their music's phenomenal success says a lot about what rock signifies in the 21st century and how much the mythical "rock 'n' roll lifestyle" has influenced the way so-called ordinary people live.
"Sarah Palin likes the music that Tipper Gore hated! I find it kind of perplexing," said Chuck Eddy, author of books including "Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe."
In the mid-1980s, moderate "Washington wife" Gore helped organize Senate hearings to examine the content of songs by Poison and Motley Crue (as well as Prince and Madonna). Now, partly because of hard rock's legacy, a little excess seems like fun, and the uber-conservative Palin shows her hard-rock roots by giving her son Trig the middle name "Van," after Van Halen.
Flyover's turf
