Dead fish in CdA before making their debut in Spokane is a must for Magic City Hippies

Great grub is almost as significant as solid songs for the Magic City Hippies.

The eclectic rock band has yet to play a show in Spokane, but the group has dined in the area. “We’ve stopped along the way to Seattle and stopped in and around Spokane,” vocalist-guitarist Robby Hunter said while calling from Bozeman. “I’m glad we’re finally playing Spokane. It seems like a cool place. When we’ve been in that area we’ve grabbed lunch in the city and in Coeur d’Alene. We always try to find good road food.”

The Magic City Hippies, which will perform Wednesday at the Lucky You Lounge, loved the food truck scene in Coeur d’Alene and recommend a stop at Raw Dead Fish. “That truck had the best sushi I had outside of a place in Pocatello, Idaho,” Hunter said. “The sushi was so fresh and delicious. It’s so great to be back on the road since we missed out on all of that during the pandemic.”

The Miami-based band utilized its time well during lockdown by working on tracks for its latest album, “Water Your Garden,” which came out last year.

“The pandemic theme is all over the album,” Hunter said. “So much of it is about taking care of yourself and about taking care of relationships. We’ve been touring hard for so many years and that can damage relationships. It was great to have that time to spend with loved ones and the chance to write with one another.”

During the pandemic Hunter moved to Bozeman, drummer Pat Howard relocated to Los Angeles and guitarist John Coughlin became an expatriate in Italy.

“Everything for us is still based in Miami,” Hunter said. “We start our tours out of our beloved city but we’ve all moved on. But we can’t forget where we came from.”

That’s especially so since the band is named after Miami, which is known as “The Magic City.”

“I know some cities also are called the Magic City, like Birmingham (Alabama), but Miami has always been known as ‘The Magic City’ and I understand why going back to the mobster days when the casinos were offshore,” Hunter said. “There’s no city like it.”

The latter part of the band’s moniker is courtesy of a period when the band lived in a funky downtown bungalow. “It was called the Hippie Castle,” Hunter said. “It was built by hippies during the ’70s, who went on the road with (the late novelist) Ken Kesey. It’s this wood-paneled four-bedroom and we loved it. So it made sense to call the band, the Magic City Hippies.”

The group’s sound has a laid-back vibe, veering from reggae to hip hop to funk to pop to soul.

“We make music that we want to hear,” Hunter said. “We just hope the audience likes what we do. So we’re all over the place. We don’t pay attention to the genre. What we pay attention to is the groove. There has to be some kind of groove even if it’s a slow love song.”

The common denominator is that the Magic City Hippies create upbeat, vibrant tunes. “We try to bring that bar band house party vibe,” Hunter said. “That goes back to when we played house parties and that’s something that we never lost.”

Hunter is inspired by his new surroundings in Bozeman. “It’s so different here than it is in Miami,” Hunter said. “But I met a girl and fell in love and this is where she lives. I’m writing new songs, and we’ll be playing some of the unreleased songs when we come to Spokane. We’ll be there soon. But before we arrive, we’re going to the food truck in Coeur d’Alene. We have to have our sushi before we play that show.”