Mouthwatering Music

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Hot Apple Pie is more than a mouthwatering desert. It is a group of hard-hitting country musicians who despite having much to serve up, cooled off before many fans were able to enjoy their well-spiced music.

Sara Lee or even your great grandmother have nothing on the recipe for success these boys possessed.

You won’t find their album front-and-center in stores and their videos aren’t in regular rotation on CMT or GAC, but their music is out there and should not go unnoticed.



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The band came to be in 2002 when Brady Seals, former member of the country band Little Texas, made a run at a solo career and didn’t make much headway. Trying to break free from the shadow of his time with Little Texas, Seals found himself back in a band, but this time he took the lead. He went from pounding keys and putting pen to paper, to putting together a quirky quad of musicians that was as crisp as its namesake.

 “I had the name and the whole vision from the beginning,” he told GAC about the band he formed with fellow musicians Mark “Sparky” Matejka, Keith Horne and Trey Landry. “I wanted something that’s fresh and new, a little edgy and yet mainstream. Hot Apple Pie is that something.”

They sure were. Never before had country music seen a long-haired and lanky boy from Ohio sing about hay and hillbillies while strutting around in a suit.

Seals’ image clashed with the words coming out of his mouth. A slick pop-rocker who could fire off down-home references and twangy vocals was nearly unheard of at the time.

I think this was part of the band’s appeal, but also part of its downfall.

On his website, Seals tells of creative differences and wanting to pursue his own musical goals as the reason HAP never released a sophomore album, but I wonder if there was more to it than that.

HAP came out before country became the catch-all genre.

It is now perfectly normal to hear pop-infused inflections on country airwaves and watch actresses belt out half-inspired ballads on award shows, but at that time different was not necessarily better.

HAP came out slightly before not fitting the mold was the cool thing to do.

I believe that because they didn’t fit in, they didn’t last. HAP’s stint ended in 2006, after releasing only one album that produced three low-charting singles, of which the most popular was the tongue-in-cheek stomper “Hillbillies”.

The end of HAP was not the end of Seals, who comes from a long line of country cousins including Jim Seals, Dan Seals and Johnny Duncan.  

Seals continues to make edgy music that pushes the limits of what’s acceptable on radio.

Of his music an continually re-inventing himself, Seals says on his website, “ I’ve always wanted to make music that affects people.  Love it, hate it.  But you can’t ignore it.”