Darius Rucker, Mike Mills & Steve Gorman Announce New Band Howl Owl Howl & 1st Tour Dates

Hootie & The Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker, R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills and co-founding former The Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman are the new supergroup Howl Owl Howl. The band’s first tour will take place this November.

The seeds of the Howl Owl Howl were planted in 2019 when Gorman brought Mills and Rucker together for a benefit concert in Nashville. The longtime friends began working on a forthcoming debut album in 2021. Howl Owl Howl’s debut single, “My Cologne,” will be released on October 31.

“The concept from day one was, ‘Let’s just write a bunch of songs together and see what we think, see if there’s anything cool that comes from it’ – there was no grand design beyond that,” Gorman said. “And then we all hit this realization of, ‘This is actually really good! I think we’ve caught something.’”

“It feels great to be singing with a rock band again,” Rucker revealed. “It’s like buddies getting together, but also getting to play with your idols. The stuff we’re writing is so different than anything I’ve tried to do before.”

“You never can explain band chemistry,” added Mills. “We all like each other. And we all admire each other musically. All those things come together and if it weren’t fun, we wouldn’t be doing it.”

The band will make its live premiere on November 3 at The Vogue in Indianapolis. Their initial tour continues with stops in Chicago, Washington D.C., Asbury Park (New Jersey), Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. The two-week run concludes in Georgia with shows in Athens (where R.E.M. formed) on November 14 and Atlanta (where The Black Crowes started) on November 15.

Tickets to see Howl Owl Howl go on sale on Friday, September 26.