Stick Lounge Podcast had the pleasure of sitting down with legendary guitarist Randy Hansen and his longtime manager, Kevin Fillo. This unforgettable interview was a blast! Randy treated us to a personal performance right in the Stick Lounge, gifted former Des Moines Mayor Matt Pina a custom guitar, and shared incredible stories from his life, his tours, and the many fascinating people he’s met along the way.

Randy is not only an extraordinary talent—he’s also just a genuinely great guy. Kevin, one of Randy’s closest childhood friends, reluctantly stepped into the role of manager 42 years ago when Randy was ready to “hang it up.” Decades later, they’re still touring and sharing that original rock-and-roll sound with the world.

It’s inspiring to see that after all this time, Randy and Kevin remain best friends, still doing what they love—and loving every minute of it.

From Randy’s website

“Born December 8, 1954 in Seattle, Washington Randy is a U.S. guitarist, best known for his emulation of Jimi Hendrix. He clearly has a bit of physical resemblance to Hendrix in his facial features, and carries that resemblance further by emulating such signatures of Hendrix's style as playing a guitar with his teeth or behind his back. His music appeared in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, and his debut album was released in 1980 on Capitol Records.Hansen's high energy guitar work has earned praise from fellow Dutch-American, legendary guitarist, Eddie Van Halen (in Guitar Player magazine), among others. He also was a good friend of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan (writing a song about him called "Texas Twister" from his Old Dogs New Tricks CD). He has toured and played with literally hundreds of famous musicians and groups.

Hansen's Hendrix act first came to prominence with Randy Hansen's Machine Gun (1977–80), with Larry Epperly on bass guitar and Tim Kelliher on drums (Kelliher later did sessions for guitarist Daniel Jones in his band 7th Order, whose session personnel also included British guitarist Martin Pugh and veteran American rock guitarist Geoff Thorpe). All three had previously been in a band called Kid Chrysler and the Cruisers. Hansen's Machine Gun performed on bills with Heart, The Kinks, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and others, and were written up by Rolling Stone and Guitar Player. There are now videos out with Buddy Miles covering Hendrix tunes such as "All Along the Watchtower", with incredible playing by Hansen from 1997.

After his debut album, his emphasis continued to be on original releases emulating the Jimi Hendrix style of composition, in addition to including large numbers of Hendrix compositions in his live shows. He had a brief stint in the 1980s with a band that played a more contemporary style but, failing to gain a record contract of note, quickly returned to his main source of success as a Hendrix imitator. One of the high points of Hansen's career was when he played a short series of concerts with a band that included the original Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer, Mitch Mitchell. In the 1990s and into the 2000s, Hansen has increasingly turned to Europe for his live show tour dates due to greater interest from that market. He headlined a July 26, 2008 bill in Mannheim, Germany, with Love Street (Doors tribute) and Buried Alive Band (Janis Joplin tribute) as openers . He continues also to play locally in Seattle and around the U.S

Hansen has three self-released CDs of original music in print, none of them well-distributed but all available online: Old Dogs New Tricks, Good Intentions and Tower of Love. He continues to live in Seattle. There are some excellent on-line videos of Hansen and Uli Roth doing some Hendrix tunes showing great talent by both artists.”

Make sure you check out the Links for Randy and Kevin!