Who lives to 50? If you’re a musician, it’s probably a reasonable question. Troy Hudson, on the other hand, says he never dreamed it could be so good. A fifth generation Mainer, Troy Hudson grew up down the road a piece, in Bath, where he first learned to play the guitar. And there’s hardly been a time when he hasn’t been in a band, either, starting with his two brothers Todd and Tim, then in a New Hampshire band, then in Colorado, and now, back in Maine where he’s a member of The High Road, playing “original, Maine-made Americana rock.” He’s also the other partner in the Holmes+Hudson Collective, a store on the bottom floor of the Day Boat Café, that opened a few weeks ago here. Inside, you’ll find Troy; and a curated selection vinyl records, and a smattering of instruments with, tucked here and there, hand-crafted gifts and his wife Heidi Holmes’ line of plant and mineral skin care products. Otherwise, he’s at band practice; and on Friday nights, the host of the open mic at Oyster Head Lounge in Newcastle.
Music was always in my life because my parents were always listening to it. They were dancers – competitive dancers doing the Jitterbug, and they won awards galore.
My oldest brother Tim, however, loved the Beatles. And so, I did, too. One day I asked him what instrument Paul McCartney was playing, and he said, “That’s a bass guitar,” and then he told me how nobody else in the Beatles wanted to play it, so Paul said he would.
Tim always had a lot of instruments around, and he let me strum them. But because I was in love with Paul McCartney’s bass, I saved up pennies to buy my own guitar. I was probably eight when I walked into Constantine’s, a music store in Brunswick where my brother worked, with $60 rolled up in penny tubes. I bought a miniature replica of a Fender P-Bass. I still have it.
The Beatles were my favorite group even though I wasn’t even alive when they broke up. And the song “Come Together” was it for me. I mean, that intro that’s both percussive and musical! I hadn’t heard anything else like it before.
My brother was a big musical influence. He would show me chords, and he invited me to play any instrument in his room when he was off on his McDonald’s shift. I liked his Fender 6-string.
One day I told him that I had invented a new chord. Then I picked up his guitar and strummed it. He said, “That’s fantastic. You’re playing an A minor chord.” I was so mad. I thought I’d created something no one else ever heard.
But I was only ten or eleven. I’d never heard an A minor chord. But I was crazy about the sound, and still am. From then on, it was the guitar for me. My life was friends, music and baseball and then in middle school, I just focused on sports.
I came back, though, in high school, when my best friend would tell me about his guitar lessons. He made me think, “Why did I ever put my guitar down?” and I picked it up again. Since, there’s never been a time when I haven’t played.
After graduation I decided I needed to leave the nest, so I moved to New Hampshire because I’d found a job as an assistant manager in the deli at Shaw’s Supermarket. Looking back on it, I have no idea what drew me there. It was not my calling, I soon realized.
But in New Hampshire I joined my first legitimate band. We were The Roadies, and we were Mike D’Alvo, Scott Cloud, Pete Clement and me. Together, we got successful. We had songs on reality shows and on other TV shows. In the five or six years that we were together, we recorded four or five albums with Chris McGruder at Thundering Skies Studio. We were independent like a lot of bands, without a record label. We played concerts all over the Northeast, from Maine to Pennsylvania. We made money, which we defined as breaking even. We still had our day jobs. We burned the candle at both ends.
Being in a band is like being in a four-way marriage, too. How do you at 23, 25, or 26 years old really know about communicating with people? How do you know the right way to treat each other? I look back on it and think our music was incredible. I think, “What would have happened if we stayed together? Why didn’t we just push forward?”
I still have the music, and the memories, even though we drifted apart. I followed my partner to Colorado and joined a band there. When my marriage broke up, I came back to Maine — first to Bath to be with my parents, and then to this area.
I am still singing and writing songs about the personal stories I know. For most of my life, they were good kicky pop songs, but with I never seemed to ‘win’ in them with lyrics holding a lot of hurt and trauma. Sometimes I would wonder if I was writing my own future.
Then I met Heidi, the woman who is now my wife, and I found myself writing an explosion of happy songs. It was a road that I’d never been down.
I have this dream, and I’m hoping to start it this summer, of holding a monthly singer-songwriter nights where it’s four or five people, and we have a topic, we start writing together, we learn about our strengths and weaknesses, and then we create something together, as a community. That is tangible. It’s simply a song. And that process can build community.
It reminds me of a quote, and I’m not sure who it came from – maybe John Lennon: “You will never hear the greatest song ever written because it was probably written in somebody’s garage and never released.” Every time I host an open mic, there are people who come up on stage with their songs, and I think, “Oh, dear God, please get this song recorded.”
We are very much grounded in this area. Heidi is an eleventh-generation Mainer with roots (she’s part of the Leissner clan) that go back to Waldoboro’s first German ships. Her people were farmers and fishermen. It was only later that they bootlegged for the Kennedy’s.
About ten years ago we walked into the Waldoboro Historical Society. And something clicked — this town’s history, its fishing and especially, its shipbuilding – it’s still stays with us.
From where our store is, we literally look out on the river where massive ships were built.
I still don’t know how the main floor of this building was used, but someone told me the second floor had been a rooming house for men working on the boats. And at one time, the third floor was a speak-easy. To get there, you still have to climb a ladder that drops down from the ceiling. It’s a small space but it looks out on the whole river. And it’s got a bar that surely was crafted by someone who used to build ships. It’s got beautiful definition. And carvings full of detail. Even the choice of wood makes you feel the craftsmanship behind it.
These are the things that make me imagine Waldoboro’s history. And just being inside this building, I can feel the energy. It’s palpable. So, I think that if there are any spirits here, they’re pretty darned good.
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