At WKAR, some of our staffers have talents beyond the work they do in radio and television. A while back, we told you about the acting career of our sports reporter, Al Martin.
Drew Hill, an audio engineer who has produced the soundtracks to many local WKAR-TV productions, is also a musician and has released a new album of original songs.
Hill’s earliest days at WKAR were spent making live music segments sound great on the radio. Since then, he’s moved on to producing audio for many of the local shows created at WKAR-TV.
As a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, his focus has been on classic punk and proto-metal music. And, as the lead guitarist and singer in a power trio called The Cheetahs, he’s performed all over Michigan.
Hill recently released an album under the pseudonym Vincente. It’s called Postcards From Mariana.
Hill wrote all 11 songs and recorded the album in his basement. He played every instrument on the record and worked whenever he could break away from parenting duties since the 2022 birth of his son, Vincent. With his cousin Brian Chojnowski, Hill designed the album’s cover art. He uses the pseudonym Vincente partly to avoid confusion with other musicians out there named Drew Hill.
The album includes him playing his 12-string guitar and an electric one for solos.
“I kind of have just a little swinging pendulum of soft ballad-y singer-songwriter kind of stuff, and then also some kind of psychedelic, heavier sounds," he explained.
Hill says the new album was “born out of necessity” during a tough time. The title, Postcards From Mariana, refers to the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean.
“A lot of these songs were written in some of the lowest parts of my life,” Hill said. “As we all know, the Mariana Trench, the lowest part on Earth type of thing. So, I just thought it was a super clever title. And, also, from a compilation kind of standpoint, too. Every song is kind of a new postcard from, I hate to say the darkest parts of my life; some are. It’s heavier, you know what I mean?”
Drew Hill, or Vincente, says the song Black and White is a good representation of his guitar and singer-songwriter roots. He thinks the song makes you feel like you’re under water.
"That one, I think, could sound like it could be recorded at any time. It’s kind of a timeless type of feel to it, and I think texturally, I’m a really big fan of that one. It’s kind of lullaby-like, too.”
The song Gun In Hand is more of a blues standard. Hill’s first instrument was the bass, and he hopes listeners will pay attention to his playing on the track.
“I went for kind of an Eric Clapton Cream-era thing on it. I love that stuff," he said. “It’s kind of paired into a little bit more modern, but not too far, right? It’s still kind of capped at the '70s thing.”
For the final song, Moon Thief, Hill’s guitar was inspired by Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground days. He wrote and recorded the album’s longest song in about three days.
“I think it has this perfect sendoff,” Hill said.
“Going back to water and the moon and magic and things that are in your control and things that aren’t, almost like memories that you wish had gone a different way, you know what I mean? Very, very proud of that one.”
With a toddler at home, Drew Hill has stepped back from live performance with The Cheetahs. He says the band is on hiatus, and he isn’t gigging as Vincente.
The Vincente album from WKAR’s Drew Hill, called Postcards From Mariana, is available on major music streaming platforms.
