They don’t take things too seriously, perform once a week at the Hillsboro Brewing Company and simply like to play music together – for the fun of it.
Hillsboro native Dan Kouba and the Journeymen will release their first CD, Open Heart, on Saturday April 28, at a special 6:30p.m. event at the Hillsboro Fireman’s Community Center.
The whole thing came about when Kouba had an eye opening “change in life” on April 28, 2015, undergoing triple-by-pass open-heart surgery at the St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, his second heart procedure in seven years. Managing 82 employees and a fast-growing Hillsboro well drilling business, Kouba figured out the stress of business ownership was driving him to an early grave.
“My doctor put his arm around me and told me, ‘you gotta change’” Kouba said. Besides selling the business, he needed to find something to relieve his stress.
He found it in his family’s musical roots. His mother, Lois, had taught voice and piano lessons in Hillsboro since 1950 and is still the organist at St. Aloysius Catholic Parish in Hillsboro. A brother Bob sings solo, a sister Jane Koehler is a piano player and another sister, Nancy Kronn, is a music instructor at Holmen.
So, Kouba, who hadn’t sung a song since he was 13, decided at the age of 64 to find a music career. “It turned out to be an incredible stress reliever,” Kouba said of writing and performing about 12 songs, including six they’ve burned to a CD, along with other songs they’ve rerecorded.
Kouba said on June 3, 2013, he took up guitar lessons, playing a nylon string guitar and being coached by Hillsboro musician Joe Havlik. The pair have developed a friendship that is brother-like and the two are creating songs and performing on a regular basis locally.
“This stuff is just amazing,” said Kouba, noting the first song he wrote was titled “Open Heart”. He says the songs “sets the tone for everything on how it’s changed my life.” Other songs on the CD written and performed by Kouba and his band include “The Bigamist,” “Thank you Mom,” “Ode to a Rabbit,” “Tribute to AA,” and “Yellow Table.”
But he says his wife of 43 years, Maureen, a nurse, is the main reason he’s alive, noting when doctors seemed to have tested for all types of things after he had trouble breathing in returning from a trip to Aruba, she insisted it was a heart problem and with a little more testing, they found 90 percent of his heart valves had blockage despite the four stints that had been put into those valves years earlier.
Kouba said he wasn’t a happy man in his business life and said he hopes those days are behind him. “Since that day, I can still be a tyrant SOB, but I like to believe those days are gone,” he said.
He said another major change in life took place in 2002. He said when his dad, Lawrence, died. He said standing next to his casket was life changing, noting his father was his “mentor, boss, best friend and dad.”
“Dan’s a mere novice at this,” said the talented Havlik, a former drummer turned guitar player and vocalist who points out the Journeymen are simply a group of seasoned local musicians – sometimes as few as three or as many as six others in the band.
Kouba has written songs about his grandchildren, a blues tune for Cesky Den, a song featuring his mother, a song about a table and a lamp in his office, country and even a song about sobering up 33 years ago on May 25. “I like to write stuff that’s been a part of my life,” he said.
“My alcoholism was a serious problem.” Kouba admits, the experience making for a good song and a way of guiding his mental state to a better avenue. “I simply had to change my friends 33 years ago,” he said.
Kouba said 1985 was the year he was arrested by Vernon County Sheriff Geoff Banta and said with the help of a good friend and mentor, Dick Sobronic, he turned sober. “The sheriff told me he was going to let me go, but I had to promise it would never happen again and I would seek help. If I were caught again, he would throw the book at me. He was Andy Griffith. Today, that would never happen. I was extremely fortunate,” Kouba said, noting the incident took place in his own driveway, his family watching from the window.
He said entering his house that evening wasn’t easy. “Even my little guy wouldn’t talk to me,” he said. Instead, he became a workaholic – but that nearly took his life as well.
Kouba says he’s had to take voice lessons from his mother, calling himself “one of her poor students,” but said the whole career move has “morphed into more than I ever imagined.”
“I unleashed a monster,” said Havlik giving Kouba 20 guitar lessons and coaching him vocally. “He stopped paying for the lessons, so I stopped teaching,” he said.
The two have known each other forever, calling themselves “distant cousins,” but Havlik has a lot more professional experience, performing on stage for 55 years, including a bit on the Johnny Carson show, playing in the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas and on contract with NOVA Music for two years.
Although raised in Hillsboro, he ended up in San Diego for 30-plus years before moving back to the area in 1993 when he came back to Hillsboro for his 30th class reunion. “I figured family was more important than putting up with 75-degree weather every day,” Havlik joked.
The Journeymen include Brett Huss of La Crosses, who is a keyboard player and also plays guitar and sings. Playing the flute, trombone and singing vocals is Mary Siefert, a Hillsboro vocal music teacher, as well as drummer Elliott Rittenberry, the Hillsboro instrumental music teacher.
The band has performed at public and social events in the area and are always looking for venues.
Havlik said over 1,000 CD’s were made and the pair are excited about hosting the release party, noting they’ve sent out over 300 invitations to out of town guests and are expecting visitors from as far away as Texas and Maryland. They plan to perform 11 songs during the event and said anyone is welcome to attend, noting all members of the band have a lot of friends in the area.
Kouba says none of his songs are alike, calling himself a “story teller,” but notes the experience has given him a second chance in life. “This is why I no longer need medication,” Kouba said.
The party will be for Kouba whether it’s a success or not – it’s set to the exact three-year anniversary day of his open-heart surgery.
Published in the Hillsboro Sentry Enterprise on April 11, 2018