Darius Rucker Remembers Early Club Days

Darius Rucker's love affair with music goes way back, so it's no surprise to hear that he has been thrown out of some of the best clubs in his hometown of Charleston, S.C. The singer wasn't shown the door because he was rowdy or causing a scene, but because he would sneak in when he wasn't legally old enough to be there, just to see the band!

"When I was 16 or 17 and the drinking age was 18, there would be a band I'd want to see, and I figured out pretty quick how to get into a club. I'd be there by the side door, and when someone went in, I'd just follow them in real quick," Darius tells The Boot. "I've done that a million times."

So did the star-to-be ever get caught?

"Sure," Darius says without hesitation. "I remember one time a cop came in and saw me. He just happened to have been my Little League football coach and he came up to me and said, 'Darius, I know you're not 18, I coached you three years ago. You've got to go.'"

Darius says there was a cover band called the Jumper Cables that he loved when he was just getting into music. "I still want to be in a cover band, because they were such an amazing cover band," he explains. "They were so great. I went to see them all the time, and I wanted to be in the Jumper Cables and play in front of 400 people at the Windjammer."

The Windjammer was just one of the clubs Darius frequented when he went out to hear music in Charleston.

"It was a huge club, and I saw so many bands there that made me want to be in a band," the 'I Got Nothin'' singer remembers. "I also went to the Music Farm and Miskins, these little clubs around Charleston that had great bands. We'd be high school kids sneaking in. It was great."

It was also a wonderful place for a young man with a new band called Hootie & the Blowfish to find places to play early in their career.

"When we were starting to play, there was a great music scene along the coastal area, from New York down to Florida. There was a club in every town, and we would just play those clubs every six weeks or so. When we got our record deal, we didn't even think about it. The year we got our record deal, we each made like $50 grand, just touring clubs, so it was a great scene. It was a great way to make a living."

Darius is off the road until mid-January, so you might just find him at one of those favorite haunts, though today he won't be asked to leave! The Windjammer and the Music Farm are still offering music fans a schedule of great live music several nights a week.