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OKD: Well, it was developing. Like now my voice is kind of clear considering how
rough it used to be. But back in the day when I started the Howlers, I drank whiskey
every night and smoked Marlboros. So I already had a tendency to have a little kind

of a rough voice and I pickled my throat [laughs].

BiTS: Okay, so when you first formed the Howlers, were you playing locally around
Mississippi?

OKD: Yeah, we were playing in Hattiesburg, but we were playing in Jackson,
Mississippi and all the little towns around. Mostly the south, south Mississippi, from

about Jackson, Mississippi down to the coast, to the Mississippi coast.

BiTS: So how did the move to

Texas take place then?

OKD: Well, the Howlers were

playing in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, it was a really good

band, so we wanted to try to do
something with it, and we were

scared to death to move to
Nashville or New York. I'd never

even been to New York at the
time. So I went, that's too big. We

didn't want to move to Los
Angeles. It was too far away. So

the Austin music scene was kind
of taking off, and some of our

friends moved to Austin and they
went, man, y'all got to come here. It's happening.

So we went out and visited them and saw all the clubs and people packed in there,
and we said, we could do good there. So we packed up in Mississippi and moved to

Texas in 1976, and started playing.

BiTS: That's quite a chance to take. Did you have work to go to and that sort of thing

when you moved?

OKD: Oh yeah, we got work as soon as we got here. We played one job and some

people from the Armadillo World Headquarters heard us. They went, man! Asleep
at the Wheel was a big band and Commander Cody.

BiTS: Yeah, I remember.

OKD: So we would be an authentic western swing band, but we were really a rock

and roll and blues band, but we could also play western swing.