Painting of Hasil Adkins by his good friend, Joe Coleman

Appalachian avant-garde rock ‘n’ roller Hasil Adkins is undoubtedly one of the weirdest figures in rock history. Extremely prolific, his full discography is basically impossible to track down, with too many short runs and one-offs to count. With the tone of his music nearly always invoking the psychotic, and his subject matter ranging from murder to fried chicken to women to aliens, you’d expect a much gruffer interview—or at least a much more spastic one. I mean, the guy sounds like a hillbilly Satan’s one man band—with elements of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Captain Beefheart, and Hank Williams thrown in for fun.

What follows, however, just sort of sounds like a conversation with my Appalachian Papaw—right down to his inability to take a compliment. The man is nothing if not a charming eccentric, completely gracious, even when a DJ repeatedly gets his name wrong.

During the interview The Haze explains the fairly pedestrian origins of his opus, “No More Hotdogs!”