AssJack

AssJack — Concert Photography by Wayne Dennon

About AssJack

Assjack was formed in 1999 by Hank Williams III, the grandson of country music icon Hank Williams, alongside collaborator Garrett Bremer. Assjack is an American heavy metal band from Gridley, California, formed in 1999 by Hank Williams III and Garrett Bremer. The project began as one of the rougher-edged outlets in Williams' live shows, giving him a place to explore material far removed from his family's traditional country legacy. Assjack was one of the three features of Hank Williams III's live show, and they started off playing the Hellbilly material throughout 1999-2002, until they evolved into a strictly hardcore/punk metal band. In its earliest incarnation the band leaned into a raw, psychobilly-tinged sound, with Assjack starting off playing psychobilly hardcore before evolving into a metallic hardcore punk band. The band's proper breakthrough came a decade after its formation, when it finally released its first fully official studio recording. Assjack, the death-metal band founded and fronted by Hank Williams III, released their first album of fully authorized music on August 4 via Curb Records. For Assjack's long-anticipated 2009 self-titled studio debut, only Williams sang and played all instruments on the recording. The album included standout tracks that captured the band's brutal, uncompromising energy, with tracks like "Redneck Ride," "Wasting Away" and "No Regrets" personifying the split in the psyche of the singer/guitarist/songwriter/producer who had also been releasing more traditional country material under his own name around the same period. Musically, the record was defined by its intensity, as fast tempos, punishing guitar riffs, and intense drumming, often featuring blast beats, drove the music's relentless pace, with Hank Williams III's screamed and growled vocals providing a visceral frontline across the album's ten tracks.

Beyond the studio record, Assjack built its reputation largely as a ferocious live act, with a rotating cast of musicians supporting Williams over the years. For live purposes, the band has featured Gary Lindsey on vocals, Hank Williams III on guitar and vocals, and Joe Buck on bass before he departed to focus on his solo career, with Assjack maintaining a revolving drum slot and background vocalist slot throughout the years. Buck ultimately left the band in 2008 to concentrate on his one-man solo show called Joe Buck Yourself. Guitarist Chris Arp later stepped into the lineup as well, with Chris Arp playing lead guitar on recent tours. The band's momentum, however, was complicated by label politics, as Hank III confirmed in a November 2009 interview that no new Assjack material was in the works because of being held back by Curb Records so long, though he stated that after Curb was dropped he would be taking his music and Assjack's music to the next level. In the years since, Assjack has continued to exist as one of the heavier faces of Hank Williams III's multi-pronged live show rather than as a conventional touring headliner on its own, remaining active in name into the present. The band never abandoned its extreme roots, with its musical style remaining a fusion of thrash metal, death metal, hardcore punk, and metalcore, characterized by aggressive guitar riffs, intense drumming, and powerful vocals. Its legacy rests less on chart performance and more on its place within Williams' broader body of work, standing as proof of the extremes he was willing to pursue outside the shadow of his family's country music dynasty, and it remains a touchstone for fans who bridge the worlds of outlaw country and underground metal.

For this archive, Assjack holds a small but meaningful place in Wayne Dennon's concert photography collection. Wayne photographed the band across two shows between 2004 and 2005, capturing them during the raw, formative years before their studio debut, and those performances live on through 50 photographs preserved here, images that archive visitors have returned to view 39,310 times, a testament to the enduring pull of Assjack's ferocious live reputation and to Wayne's eye for documenting the underground metal scene of that era.

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Photos From 2 Shows

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April 21, 2005 📷 Photos

Cincinnati, OH 20th Century Theater

June 11, 2004 📷 Photos

Cincinnati, OH Top Cats

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