Bobby G Rice and Dan
Still from the We The People shoot
Tony Nichols, Diane Berry, and Dan
Angela Primm and Dan
A conversation with Dan Kouba
A conversation with Dan Kouba
Written and Published on DriftlessNow.com January 13, 2020
When Dan Kouba writes a song it always comes from his heart. His latest single, “Hey There Mister Rodgers” is no exception.
“Aaron Rodgers is without a doubt the face of the franchise of the Green Bay Packers,” Kouba says, adding with a chuckle. “Yes, I do have two shares of stock in Green Bay Packers … that gives you the right to go to the annual meeting. I don’t drink anymore so I don’t go.”
Kouba says he would love for Rodgers to hear the song. “I don’t know how to get it to him. I’d really like to shake the man’s hand. When I was putting the CD together, I couldn’t put Aaron on the cover because that was gonna cost me some bucks. So we did everything we could to make sure they knew it was Aaron Rodgers we were singing about. The football has a 12 on it, and we have goal posts but not from Lambeau Field. We tried to give folks a way to figure out it was about football. When I play it on stage here in Wisconsin, the crowd loves it.”
“Hey There Mister Rodgers” was premiered by The Josie Network and Nashville.com and is available to download and stream on all digital platforms.
The former well driller is a recovering alcoholic and didn’t play music until he had his second heart surgery in 2015. His doctor gave him a book that was about music as a stress relief, so Kouba sold his companies and called a friend and asked if he could teach him to play guitar. “He asked how old I was and I said 64. He said ‘That’s a tall order but we’ll try’.”
Kouba’s goal after learning to play guitar was to play Johnny Cash’s song, “Wayfaring Stranger,” for his grandchildren at Thanksgiving. “I didn’t think I’d make it ‘til Christmas,” he admits. “Now my stress is gone and I feel 20 years younger.”
Although the singer-songwriter listened to music for years, he never really took the time to get more involved in it. “All I ever wanted to do was make a buck, but I’ve found that there is a hell of a lot more to life than that. Now I’ve written 90 songs since 2016. I’ve had 41 published, I’ve had several recorded and I get airplay on radio stations across the country.”
The first song Kouba wrote was in 2016. Titled “Ode To A Rabbit.” It lays out the reason he didn’t have to go to Vietnam. Never the less, the entertainer has empathy for Vietnam Vets.
“When I write about something, I’m either proud of or upset about it,” Kouba says of his work on an album that was inspired by the upcoming documentary Apache Blues. “The purpose of the Apache Blues documentary is to mentor the guys who are coming home today with PTSD. We’ve been there, done that, listen to us, listen to what we do. You need to talk about it, share, you cannot hold it in you. I’ve got so many friends who are Vietnam vets, and so many that are gone. I’m 70, my brother is a Vietnam vet, I feel for those guys.”
Kouba has written several songs inspired by the documentary, including “Mail Call” and “Name Tag.” He explains the movie is the story of the search and rescue boys from Vietnam. “They were the most decorated bunch in Vietnam,” he says. “One of the guys I write about in one of my songs, I never knew, and his sister didn’t know, that he had two purple hearts, two bronze stars and a silver star. ‘Name Tag’ came out and was on the charts for 26 weeks. It’s a true story about two guys getting together at their 50th class reunion. The last time they saw each other, one was carrying the other one out of a rice paddy with four holes in his back.”
It was after he wrote “Name Tag” that he received a call from the director of Apache Blues asking if they could use the song to play under the credits in the movie. “I told him sure, and then asked what other music he had to use in the movie. He asked what I had in mind and I wrote him seven more songs. I do know I’ll definitely have music in the movie. The people involved with the movie decided my music was healing people instead of harming people.”
Kouba has an album that is available to buy with some of those songs in it. Parts of some of the songs are in the movie and were inspired by the movie.
Another song that is special to Kouba is “Thank You Mom,” which he wrote for his mother for Christmas in 2016. “My mom was a music teacher, so every time I wanted to watch the TV the damn piano had to be played. Probably why I rebelled against music! So after I learned to play guitar I wrote her that song. When I played it for her she asked, ‘When did you learn to play guitar?’ Then she told me I had a good baritone voice but my breathing was terrible. So at 65 years of age I started taking lessons from my mom and did so for two years, until she died. I sang ‘Thank You Mom’ at her funeral with my youngest sister and my brother. That is the hardest song for me to sing.”
Kouba was still just playing mostly for himself and friends when, in 2018, his best friend died. He asked if he could sing at his funeral, and he sang “Wayfaring Stranger.” “I was so scared because I didn’t play out for people. After I sang at Leonard’s funeral a friend of mine came up and told me I should be onstage, and that’s when it happened. I formed a band in Wisconsin and started playing clubs and other venues around the state of Wisconsin.”
Among Kouba’s success stories is a song he wrote for Bobby G Rice, “Hold Me,” that he took to number one on the “Country Airplay” chart. Another song that did well for him was “Ginger,” about an 18-year-old girl he met in a halfway house in Elroy, Wisconsin. “She came in to a meeting and said, ‘My name is Ginger, I’m 18 years old, I’m a recovered addict and recovering alcoholic. I’m pregnant, I don’t know who the father is, and I have AIDS.’ Six months later she was dead. She had been raped by her mother’s boyfriend, so her mother gave her $50 and told her to hit the road. She met this guy who turned her into a hooker. I didn’t see how someone could do this to a little girl.”
“So I wrote a song, ‘Ginger,’ and I knew a woman had to sing it. Nickie Nelson, who was with Highway 101, recorded it and it went to number one on the Indie chart.”
One of the things that sets Kouba apart is when he sings a song that he has written, he draws from the emotion of the story he wrote and gives it all that emotion when he performs it. “I’m not just going through the motion, the emotion is real,” he says. “I think you can hear that in the way I sing the song.”
Kouba believes that the guitar saved his life. “That’s not taken lightly, I really believe that. As a recovering alcoholic I draw inspiration from my journey in that recovery and it is definitely a therapy for me when I write songs.”