If you turned the story of Orleans into a movie, no one would believe it. From a phone call to college drop-out and Orleans guitarist Larry Hoppen in early 1972 to founding member John Hall’s election to the House of Representatives in 2006, the legendary hit-making band has enjoyed the kind of career that just can’t be made up. There have been instantly recognizable hit singles like “Dance With Me,” “Love Takes Time,” and the perennial classic “Still the One,” which together have seen an astonishing seven million plus airplays. There have been tone-deaf record company executives who couldn’t see a smash single when it was staring them in the face and millions of fans who recognized pop perfection the second they heard it. And there have been potentially crippling personnel changes triggered by events like the untimely death of original drummer Wells Kelly and Hall’s surprising political career switch. Fortunately for music lovers, these and other ups and downs and have led not to a band undone but to what Hoppen calls a “work in progress. Thirty five years down what’s been a long and rewarding road, Orleans is still having fun with founding brothers Larry and Lance Hoppen now joined by their sibling Lane on keyboards, Charlie Morgan on drums, and Dennis “Fly” Amero on guitar. Recently we spoke with original member and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Larry Hoppen to talk about the past, present and future of one of America’s most remarkable and enduring musical ensembles.

Let’s start by finding out a little bit about your early musical years. With three brothers in the band, I’m guessing yours had to be a rather musical family.

In fact, there’s a Christmas photo from 1960 that we put up on our newsletter recently…we’re in our bathrobes near the tree playing fake instruments. But yeah, my parents were in a band in the 40s. So we were surrounded by big band music and Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole.

Your parents were both musicians?

Yes. My father played trumpet and my mom was a world class singer, and she played piano. She had a club band into the 60s. So she actually started taking me to play trumpet. That was my first instrument, and she started bringing me to clubs, when I was like ten, to play with the band. I mean not every night, but a couple of nights a year maybe.

Who were some of the bands and musicians who first piqued your interest in performing that first made you think you might want to do this. Obviously your parents were a huge influence if you were performing at age ten, but were there other musicians and sounds that made you think this was something you could do?

It wasn’t that I wanted to play the music that my parents were playing. They just set a background [in which that kind of thing] was normal. It was something you could do. And then I started playing guitar when I was about, I don’t know… ten or eleven. I got into the Ventures. The Ventures were an instrumental band, but very guitar oriented. They really started the bug for me.

So that surf sound was big for you.

Oh yeah. The Beach Boys were huge. I was very into them, pre-Beatles. Not just the guitar sound of course but the harmony vocals and the whole thing. That was really cool and then the Beatles happened when I was 12. And that really kind of cemented the deal. Like hundreds of thousands if not millions of other kids, I just thought: I’m going to do that. That’s what I want to do. And (my parents) made it clear that it was absolutely an option. It was something that people could try to do, and I was convinced that I would be able to do that. So that was a big influence. Ed Sullivan. You know how you remember where you were when JFK was shot? Well, that’s one of those times I remember. Being in front of the TV and watching the Beatles.

I was in bands in school and choirs. so I was kind of steeped in music from every angle. I was studying the trumpet seriously. My parents were doing what they were doing. My father was playing jazz records in the house all the time. And you know, this rock and roll thing was brand new. The Beach Boys were happening. The Beatles were happening. The Four Seasons were happening. All the vocal stuff was catching my ear as well. Carole King’s songs were all over the radio. Rock and roll was pretty new.

What can you tell us about your first band?

The first rock and roll band I had was when I was 12. Right around the corner from where I lived was my second mom. She was my second mom because, first, she was my Cub Scout den mother. Her son was my friend, Chip White, who I still keep in touch with. His dad played guitar. And I spent a lot of time over there. We decided to start a band. And we didn’t have any guitars so we had to borrow from his dad. We had one amp. So we got two other guys. We started everything in Chip’s garage, and the drummer played on cardboard boxes and pots and pans. We had one amplifier and no bass guitar. We just had three guitars. Two of them we borrowed from his dad. The other one the other guy had. He had a Hagstrom. But the guitar that we shared was a Harmony. I can’t remember the model, but it was a red and white Harmony. It had a tremolo bar that when you pressed down on it, the pitch went up!

Chip actually sent me that guitar about 15 years ago. In the original case and everything. His parents were so dear to me. Recently when I played our hometown of Bayshore, New York for the first time in a 35-year career, all the brothers went over to visit Chip’s parents. They’re like both 85 now, and it was marvelous. It was just fantastic.

So how do we get from there to Orleans? What’s the arc?

Well, I had bands from 12 all throughout junior high and high school. I graduated high school young because I skipped a couple of grades. I graduated at 16. I was still studying trumpet very seriously even though I was playing a lot of rock and roll. And I went to Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. I was going to be a music teacher. I quit in the beginning of my fourth semester because as soon as I got to Ithaca, I started another band. Started playing a lot and one night I went over to a Cornell frat party. It was completely crowded and I was pretty short. So I couldn’t see who was playing drums, but I could hear him. He was really, really good, and I decided that I was going to find out who this guy was. I was going to meet him. And that was Wells Kelly. He was our original drummer.

I wound up working with Wells. Quit IC in 1969. That same year, I started working with a band called Boffalongo. That band went through some personnel changes. But over the course of the next year and a half from mid-1969 through very early 1970, that band included the following people: Wells Kelly, Wells’ brother Sherman Kelly, a guy named Dave Robinson, and Bob Leinbach. In 1969, Boffalongo recorded the very first version of Dancing in the Moonlight. Sherman Kelly, our keyboard player, wrote that song. So between mid ’69 and the end of 1971 we played everywhere in Ithaca and the surrounding area.

We went to St. Thomas in the summer of 1971 and spent a couple of months there. We rented a building and ran a night club. Our manager, whose name was Alex Brooks, his uncle owned 600 acres of beachfront, which is now Frenchman’s Bay, the big tourist area on St. Thomas. He owned it, and that was our private beach. That was 35 years ago, our summer of ’71.

Somewhere in 1969, Wells and myself and Dave Robinson all went over to a jam session at a studio in the Lower East Side. And when we walked in there was a jam session going on. Wells was already there. Wells was playing drums. Harvey Brooks was playing bass. And John Hall was playing guitar. I had never met John. They were in the middle of a jam on “The Age of Aquarius.” I simply picked up a guitar and started playing harmony with John. And that’s how we met.

This was the same studio that we recorded “Dancing in the Moonlight” in. So I don’t see John for a year and a half. Something like that. And then at the end of 1971, the very end, maybe January of ’72, Wells gets a call from John Hall. John has moved to Woodstock, New York out of New York City and bought a house because he and his wife Johanna had just gotten a lot of money from having written a song called “Half Moon,” which was on Janis Joplin’s Pearl album, and also the B-side of “Me and Bobby McGee” [at a time] when 45 singles sold hundreds of thousands if not millions of copies.

So John got a lot of money and bought a house in Woodstock. He was tired of being in New York because he kept getting broken into. He called Wells up and he says, “Listen. I’m trying to make a band, and the drummer quit. Can you come down and be in my band.?” So Wells quits Boffalongo and basically sunk the ship. So we were kind of bummed out. It was winter in Ithaca, which is very bad. So meanwhile, a month goes by and we’re trying to figure out what to do, and I get a phone call from Wells and John. They said “Look, two other guys quit. Actually the other two guys quit. Can you come down and we’ll have a trio. So that’s when Orleans started.

You’ve cited New Orleans and its music scene, Cajun music, the Meters, Alvin Toussaint and so forth as early influences, and Orleans was compared to bands like NRBQ. How did that New Orleans connection come about to the point where you drew the band’s name from the town?

Well, we were playing all kinds of music. We were doing mostly John and Johanna’s original material. We were playing all kinds of stuff and the cover tunes ranged from obscure old Stax/Volt records and R&B stuff like that to tunes that John might come across from other songwriters like Nick Gravenites. We were doing a song called “Why-O” that Nick had written. I don’t know if you know who Nick is, but he was the lead singer for the Electric Flag. You know, we were doing stuff from all over the place. And we were into Dr. John and New Orleans stuff as much as we were into anything else. Playing a bunch of stuff as well.

The name Orleans came about because as soon as we started playing in Woodstock, in February of ’72, we started to get a following. We played I think it was the Espresso in downtown Woodstock, and the guy said, “Wow. You guys are really good. Everybody really likes you, Come back in two weeks.” And we said okay. And he said, “What’s your name?” and we said, “We don’t have one.” And he said, “Well you got to have a name. How else is anyone going to know?” So we were forced to pick a name. We spent time at John’s house tossing about 200 names around. And Orleans was the first one we didn’t hate. So we said, “Okay. Let’s call it Orleans. We’ll change it next week.” And we never changed it.

So it is true what we said about the material and the connection, but that’s really how we got the name. We were not thinking about a name. We don’t come from New Orleans. We were doing that stuff as much as we were doing anything. You know, Chicago was out. And bands were starting to call themselves by city names so we thought, “Okay. Orleans.”

Now you scored a monster hit with “Dance With Me” on Let There Be Music. Tell us a little about that song. How did it come about? Did the success surprise you guys?

Well, “Dance With Me” is an interesting thing. First time I heard any part of “Dance With Me,” we were rehearsing in the garage that we rehearsed in Woodstock in ’74. As usual, we would all come in and say, “Well, here’s what I got.” John played this guitar figure. And I said, “That’s really good. Go home and finish that.” So he did finish.

We made a second album for ABC before the Music album came out. “Dance With Me” was on it and so was “Let There Be Music,” but ABC said they didn’t hear a single, and they dropped us. That was 1974. So we started showcasing, and we played Max’s Kansas City. I think on the last set of our last night, Chuck Plotkin, who was from David Geffen’s Asylum, heard the band. He was very interested. He wound up signing us. David signed us and produced the Let There Be Music album.

“Dance With Me” is an interesting song because we didn’t really do it live. We sort of did, but we really didn’t know what we were going to do with it. Orleans II was a self-produced album, and it’s a little bit all over the place. So we really didn’t have a plan for Dance With Me, but Chuck did. So when we recorded “Dance With Me,” the version that everybody knows, basically his vision was we’re all around a campfire. The visual image was we were sitting around a campfire, and there’s a bunch of guys playing acoustic guitars. That’s the deal. So we started the track with just the acoustic guitars. We built the track with just the guitars, and then we did all the vocals.

Then we overdubbed, (but) we couldn’t figure out what to put on for drums. So Wells wound up playing change, tapping change in his pocket. We recorded that. Then we didn’t have a bass part so we had a bass contest. All four of us played bass, but I won the contest because I had the best bass line. And to this day I still can’t believe how loud the bass is on that record. But bass players love that record. So we got the bass. We got the drums.

Then there was the solo part, and basically we were looking for something different and we didn’t know what to do. I had a melodica. So I said, “Let me play the melodica on it.” So we did that, and Chuck said, “Okay, the first part of the solo, kind of don’t be in the group at the campfire. You’re kind of walking towards the campfire. You’re coming out of the woods and you find these guys at the campfire. So that’s why the melodica kind of starts off distant and then gets close. Then John put on fake steel guitar bends on the Tele. And there’s your record.

When it went Gold did that surprise you guys? Was it a shock to suddenly be all over the radio?

I can’t remember that (it was). I mean we were really happy. But shocked? I can only speak for myself. When “Dance With Me” started going up the charts, I was camping in Canada. I was in a forest and was cut off from society. So by the time I got out of there, “Dance With Me” was seriously up the charts because I’d been there for a few weeks. And then it went to number six I think. And we were all just thrilled. That’s what we wanted. We were happy, and we were somewhat surprised. I think what we were not so thrilled about was that that song was not really typical of what we did.

I wanted to ask about that because it was a bit of an anomaly in your catalog of songs at that point. Was that a tough thing to reconcile?

Well, what happened was when you’re talking about a national tour and that kind of stuff you get defined by your hit. And we got put on tour with Melissa Manchester. That was good. It was good to be touring nationally, and we had a great time. But it really wasn’t the best match in the world because, as our diehard fans already knew, we were much more about rocking out and playing kind of R&B white blue-eyed soul grooves and double guitar stuff. So I mean we didn’t do badly on that tour with Melissa. People liked us. But they weren’t expecting that. I think that it would have been obviously better if we had gone out with the Eagles. In ’76, when we had “Still the One,” we toured with Jackson Browne and that was a much better match.

Speaking of which, tell us a little bit about “Still the One.” Because that was probably your biggest song.

Without a doubt.

And it was a little more in line with your sound and where the band was oriented.

How that song came about was that John and Johanna had a house guest, a friend at the house who was going through a divorce, and one day she just said, “You know, why don’t you guys write a song about people staying together. There’s so many songs about crying in your beer. Why don’t you write a song about staying together.” So that was the impetus. We started playing that song live, and Chuck heard it. He decided that that was going to be the first release from the album. So we worked really hard when we recorded it in the studio to get it just so.

So you were intending to put it out there and see what it could do?

We were. You know we thought it had a good shot at being a hit, but we had no idea that it would become what it’s become, which is among other things, one of the all time marketing songs. No idea. So it really took on a life of its own. It’s what they call a “career song”. It’s been very, very good to us. You know, it’s probably approaching the four million airplay club.

You’ve referred to Orleans as a perpetual work in progress. What do you mean by this?

Well, it’s a double-edged sword to not be particularly categorizable because people like to be able to categorize things. Radio and media and everything else. Since our beginning we’ve been pretty eclectic. We’ve played a lot of different styles of music. We basically have always done what we liked. We choose songs based on what we like. We arrange them according to what we like. And when we record them we do the same thing. We say, “Well, what do you want to do?” And we wouldn’t think about trends or “we gotta put a disco beat out,” “we gotta do a metal thing,” whatever.

A good example of “work in progress” is you know, John left after “Still the One,” and we needed to go forward. We changed the band completely. And we needed to have a hit single. So the work there was to do that. We had “Love Takes Time,” and that was a top ten record. That was 1979, and then it got very difficult for us. And about 1984 we decided to throw the towel in. Lance and I were running the band at that point, and then Wells died. When Wells died, it brought John and Lance and I together again after seven years. We got an offer from Tony Brown and MCA in Nashville to go make a record. So we made a record in Nashville. We had Chet Atkins and Ricky Skaggs and all these people on the record.

We’ve always been that way. We just continue to try and experiment and do stuff that we’re able to do. Basically if we get offered an interesting situation, we’re going to try it. When John decided to run for Congress, when he called in the end of November 2005, he announced to Lance and I that he was going to run for Congress.

Did that floor you guys?

We were surprised, but we were not shocked at all because it was a natural. The band has always been politically active. Nobody more than John. John really was always the point man for our political activity. John made the No Nukes thing happen. He got Bonnie and Jackson and Graham together, and they made it happen. But it was John’s baby.

So when he said, “I’m running for Congress,” you have to remember that the previous year, just before W’s re-election, or alleged “re-election”, please put that in quotes, Bush’s campaign was using “Still the One” without asking, let alone paying. That’s what finally put (John) over the top. He said, “That’s it. I’m going to run. I’m going to stop yelling at my TV. My wife wants me to stop yelling at my TV and go do something. So that’s what I’m going to do.” And God bless him, that’s what he did. I’m really proud of him. I respect that a lot. Because I don’t know a lot of people that could, forget about getting elected, who could deal being down there in that cesspool. But he’s there, and you know what? It’s working better isn’t it? It’s guys like John that we need.

But when he told us that, we were like, “Okay. That’s great. We’re behind you all the way. Anything we can do.” So the plan was, we hope John’s going to win. Let’s get it together so that we’re not caught with big problems if he does. So we started working Dennis "Fly" Amero into the band in 2006. And Dennis was in the band when John left back in the late 70s. Fly came into the band in ’79. So Fly was an old friend, a great entertainer, a great guitar player and singer. Left-handed upside down. Like Hendrix. So it was perfect. He’s just the right guy to get.

So we started doing gigs. We did a couple with both him and John, but as John’s campaign got closer and closer to the election and John got busier and busier, he did less and less gigs with us, and Fly did more and more. Then John got elected, and Fly is his permanent replacement. And we’re having a ball. We are having a good time, and if you come see the band you will see why. So 35 years, our slogan is we’re still having fun, and that’s really true. So that’s why we’re a work in progress.

Let’s talk about the new DVD We’re Still Having Fun. What was that process like?

The DVD was done in August of 2006, just before John was elected, and it does have both John and Fly on it. Then also we added a couple of guys to the band just to beef up the whole DVD thing. We got a percussionist by the name of Manuel Quintana, a friend from Woodstock who’s a great percussionist, and Charlie Dechant, who has been Hall & Oates sax player for, I don’t know, 35 years? You’ve heard him on all of Hall & Oates’ records. So they’re part of the band. It’s an eight-piece band.. And we invited as many people in the Northeast and everywhere else we could think of. We played in a church because it was a nice setting. We covered material from the very beginning. We did “Please Be There,” which was the first cut on the first album all the way through stuff that was never released before featuring Vance singing, Fly singing, whatever.

And then there’s extras on the DVD, which include a really thrilling performance acapella of the national anthem at Fenway Park. That was a total thrill and we’re really proud and happy about the way that it came out. That’s on there. The first real video we’ve ever done is one of Fly’s songs called “Mall Cop.” It’s kind of a sick blues about mall cops. It’s pretty funny. That’s on there. And then there’s interviews with all of us, including John and Sherman Kelly, who was there. You know “Dancing in the Moonlight,” a performance of that is on the DVD, and all of our other hits. People really like it. All of this stuff is available at orleansonline.com.

You’re a pretty amazing multi-instrumentalist. You play keyboards, guitar, bass. You’ve mentioned melodica and trumpet. Do you have favorite among these? What’s the one that you really like to play?

I guess my favorite thing to play would be guitar and Hammond organ, B3. Not that I’m great. I just love that instrument. And I love hearing great guitarists or great organ players.

Do you play the organ in the live shows?

Oh yeah! And just so you know, we have another side project called Rock and Pop Masters, RPM, at rpmconcerts.com, and we work with about 20 different original lead singers, all kinds of guys. All guys that you would know from big, big bands. We have a non-stop jukebox on stage. Anyway, there’s a show coming up, and it’s the first time we’ve got Felix Cavaliere. So I’m really excited about that because he’s one of my heroes. Felix is a real down to earth kind of guy and, you know, he changed the sound of pop music.

What guitars are you playing these days?

Pretty much Strats. For acoustic, I’m playing a Babicz. They look different. They sound really good. They’re just great guitars. They’re very affordable. These guys built a better mousetrap and they’re doing really well.

How did you discover Elixir Strings?

Well, you know, you’re always out there, especially when you’re on the road, you’re always breaking strings. I sweat a lot. So I corrode my strings pretty easily. If I’m not sweating, then I’m not working. That’s kind of the way it is. So you’re always looking for something that’s going to be more convenient and less expensive both in money and time if you can find it without sacrificing quality. So (acoustically) I was using phosphor strings for a long time, not coated, and then electrically whatever I could find, the best strings I could find. But when I found Elixirs, it was kind of my introduction to the whole concept of coating them. They just sound great. They last longer, and they make my life easier.

So what’s next for you in 2008?

I’m going to Japan to play Tokyo with the Robbie Dupree Band. Robbie and I go way back. He’s the guy with “Steal Away” and “Hot Rod Hearts.” And we’ve been working together with this particular band for about five or six years. The band includes David Sancious. So we’ve been going to Japan for about five years and playing over there. I’m doing that in February, and there’s a new CD out with the whole band imminently.

And then we start with Orleans in the end of March, we’re going to play Busch Gardens in Tampa at the end of March. We’re going to play a bunch of places like our hometown again in early April. Then for the first time ever, we’re going to play in Europe in mid-April. We’ve never played in Europe. We finished an album in England in 1980, but we’ve never played anywhere in Europe, and we’re going to play in the Netherlands. Really, really exciting. Then there will be a lot of other stuff going on. We’ve got a bunch of gigs booked already. We’re playing a big July 4th event in my current hometown of Sanford, Florida. And that’s an Orleans and Friends, gig, and the friends are Jimmy James from Survivor. It’s kind of like RPM. We offer up anyone who will work with us and we’ve got about 20 guys now. We got David Pack from Ambrosia. We’ve got Rick Derringer. Edgar Winter. It goes on and on. We’re having a ball.