The polarising musician who can’t stand Tom Hanks for one reason: “Fuck Tom Hanks!”
It’s as close to a universally accepted truth as you’re likely to find in Hollywood that everyone loves Tom Hanks. Actors? They love Tom Hanks. Directors? They love Tom Hanks? Audiences? Funnily enough, they love Tom Hanks, too. He’s ‘America’s Dad’, for fuck sake.
Over 40 years into his career, and you’d have to search far, wide, high, and low to find anyone with a bad word to say about the two-time Academy Award winner. He’s one of those good eggs who deserves to be placed up on the pedestal of wholesomeness, but there are still some people who hate his guts.
Or one, to be specific. Whether he’s starring in movies, directing them, writing them, producing them, voicing animated characters, narrating documentaries or docuseries, popping up on Saturday Night Live, or doing the rest of his Hanks-adjacent activities, he hasn’t let any bad bones poke out of his body.
Even his Razzie-winning performance in Elvis, which was hammier than a Christmas hamper and deservedly won him some of the worst notices of his professional life, couldn’t derail the train of enthusiasm that follows him everywhere he goes, and neither have most of his recent films, which haven’t been anywhere near on a par with his best work.
Obviously, that begs the question of which musician has an axe to grind with Tom Hanks. The answer, not so obviously, it should be said, is Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker. The singer, songwriter, and erstwhile focal point of the band everyone loved to hate when they became a mainstream concern in the 1990s, didn’t take too kindly to being overlooked in a doc about his peak years.
In the summer of 2017, the docuseries The Nineties premiered on CNN. As you’d imagine from the title, it was a follow-up to The Sixties, The Seventies, and The Eighties, all of which were produced by Hanks’ Playtone company, and listed the beloved star as an executive producer in the credits.
The remit of each season was to dive deep into the decade’s popular culture, and with the seventh episode examining the definitive musical acts and experiences of the 1990s, which included Nirvana, grunge, Garth Brooks, Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, gangsta rap, electronica, girl and boy bands, and much more, Rucker was furious that his breakthrough moment didn’t get a mention.
“How the fuck can you do a show about ’90s music and not mention Cracked?” he raged. “Fuck Tom Hanks!” In his defence, Hootie & the Blowfish’s debut album, Cracked Rear View, was a pretty big deal at the time, propelling the group to fame, selling over 20million copies worldwide, and putting them on the map in a major way.
Still, it’s Hootie & the Blowfish. Hanks wasn’t even the main creative driving force behind The Nineties, either, despite his heavy involvement as a producer, so the whole thing smacks of sour grapes more than anything. If you had a thousand guesses at naming the musician who can’t stand him, though, there’s no chance you’d guess it’s the Hootie & the Blowfish guy.
