Sister Hazel Deals With The Pressure Of Success

05/08/2000 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(5/8/00, 3 p.m. ET) - Singer-songwriter Ken Block of Sister Hazel says he definitely felt pressure making the band's June 27 release, Fortress. The band was sitting on top of the world in 1998 with the success of its song "All For You," off the album Somewhere More Familiar.

Now, in 2000 and with a platinum album under its belt, Block told LAUNCH the band was starting to feel the heat. "I can only speak for myself, but I was feeling it because a lot of people had a lot of opinions, and we had been under the critical eye really hard," he said. "One of the things that happened about a little way into the process was, 'Wait a minute. Let's remember what was working and why we did this in the first place, and I'm just going to write for myself. I'm just going to be really honest and maintain the organic feel and the integrity that we have and not think about all that other stuff.' And as soon as that happened, we just went on a tear."

Sister Hazel's new single "Change Your Mind," drops at radio May 16.

In other Sister Hazel news, Block told LAUNCH that his wife is expecting a son any day now. "Yeah it's an exciting time. This kid is going to have more uncles and aunts and crew people," he explained. "It's the first kid in the whole batch so we're very… I'm very fortunate to have a very bright independent wife at home who's hopefully not going to badmouth me when I'm gone and the kid's cryin'. But we are all really excited about it, and all the guys, we really are like brothers. People say, 'Well you guys are, like, friends,' but we're really like brothers, and it's exciting to see everybody go through different life transitions."

-- Darren Davis, New York

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