When it first began to dominate radio in the mid 1990s, the sweet, rootsy sound of Hootie & the Blowfish was an obvious antidote to the gnarlier guitar-rock vibe of that grunge-soaked decade. The group's 1994 album, Cracked Rear View, went on to become one of the biggest-selling debuts of all time, moving more than 20 million units, a feat that took the band by surprise. The after effects still resonate for them 30 years later.
“It was an amazing thing to have happen and far surpassed what we could have guessed or even hoped for,” Mark Bryan, the group’s lead guitarist, says today. “It happened so early in our career that I don't know that we even knew what to do with it. If we had only sold 200,000 of that first record, we would have been happy, but it was astounding for us, and also made us be like, ‘Hey, let's just keep on track and keep doing what got us here.’”
That success was largely thanks to the album's trio of top-10 singles. The first two were “Hold My Hand,” which reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and “Let Her Cry,” which peaked at nine. Then came “Only Wanna Be With You.” Issued 12 months after the album’s release, it reached number six and secured the group its highest U.S. charting single.
But this wasn’t the song’s first go round. The band previously recorded “Only Wanna Be With You” for their self-released 1993 EP, Kootchypop. As it happens, the tune’s jangling guitar sounds were inspired by another band they’d shared the touring circuit with.
“In the early ’90s, we were touring a lot with a band called Dillon Fence out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina,” Bryan explains. “They were using capos a lot, and I thought it sounded cool. It made the guitars chime in such a wonderful way.
"So I thought, I'm going to start messing around with a capo. And one of the first things I did was throw a capo on the 2nd fret and come up with different chord patterns. And that turned into 'Only Wanna Be With You' and gave us that huge hit.”
It was left to singer/guitarist Darius Rucker to write the lyrics. He quickly saw Bryan’s influence for the tune and decided to give Dillon Fence a shout-out.
“Darius said, ‘Man, this could be like a Dillon Fence song,’ " Bryan recalls. “So where he sings ‘Put on a little Dylan, sittin’ on a fence,’ he’s really giving them a nod.”
While Rucker paid homage to his touring friends, he also made direct lyrical reference to his musical hero Bob Dylan, quoting several lines from Dylan’s 1975 song “Idiot Wind” while name-checking his song “Tangled Up in Blue.” This tribute would later embroil the group in a lawsuit.
“When we recorded it for our first EP, we got clearance to use the Bob Dylan lyrics in the song,” Bryan says. “But when we re-recorded it for Cracked Rear View, we didn't clear it for the new version — we assumed it was already cleared.” Dylan’s publisher sued, and the band settled out of court.
Bryan believes a large part of why the song connected with a mass audience was due to its unique blend of country, rock and pop elements, underscored by its sprightly and uncluttered arrangement.
“Each member of the band came from different musical backgrounds,” he explains. “Both [bassist] Dean Felber and I came from a classic-rock background, so we were able to inject a lot of that energy into the sound. I always thought of Dean and I as sort of a Pete Townshend and John Entwistle combo, because I love power chords and how they can make a song sound bigger. And with a singer like Darius, you're not trying to do too much behind it, so it was easy for me to come up with complimentary parts.”
As a huge fan of Townshend's rhythm guitar style, Bryan injected some of the guitarist’s energy into his own approach. “If you listen to what my right hand is playing, you’ll hear me strumming a rhythm that’s in double time, like in ‘Pinball Wizard,’ ” he says. “I remember very intentionally wanting to have that same energy in the song.”
To capture that in the studio, Bryan played a combination of acoustic and electric guitars. He used producer Don Gehman's Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar capoed at the 2nd fret and doubled it with a 1969 Gibson ES-335 electric guitar. “Then there's a mandolin doing that little ‘ding-dinging’ thing on top, which was Don Gehman’s idea, which we didn't do on the original EP recording,” he says.
“Amp-wise, I plugged into an early ’90s 50-watt Mesa/Boogie Caliber, which sounded like gold through one of Don’s Marshall cabinets. When it came to the lead guitar licks and the lead solo, they were played with my 1973 Gibson Les Paul through the same amp, but I switched to the lead channel on the Caliber head. I would use the clean channel, then just switch over to the lead channel for the leads. Then Dean went in and doubled those big hooky licks that happen throughout the song with a piano.”
Bryan is proud of how “Only Wanna Be With You” has weathered the test of time, going on to become a staple in many bar bands’ sets. He’s particularly fond of the cover recorded by American rapper Post Malone, released in 2021 for the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise.
“What an honor to have him do that” he exclaims. “That was just super cool. And because you don’t necessarily see something like that ever coming, it absolutely blew our minds as it was really good. He did it justice. He obviously was a fan of the song too, as you can tell by the way he sings it. It just made me feel really good.”
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