Mass masters Guitarist Gary Hoey and songwriter Tom Hambridge BY TED DROZDOWSKI

Gary Hoey launched his career with " Hocus Pocus. " Not sleight of hand, though his fiery instrumental technique has its own distinct magic, but the 1973 Top 10 hit by the Dutch group Focus. The Lawrence-raised guitarist covered the tune on his 1993 debut, Animal Instinct (Warner/Reprise), and it made the radio charts, transforming Hoey, a then-struggling player on LA’s metal scene, into a cult hero.

Hoey has maintained that status with a series of blood-boiling albums that are heavy on riffage while upholding the basic rock-and-roll values of melodies, hooks, and heart. He’s also diversified, creating soundtrack music for films and TV and cutting his popular Ho! Ho! Hoey series of Christmas CDs.

" I’ve been blessed with living my dream, " he says. " I’ve played in front of 30,000 people. I’ve traded licks on stage with Brian May from Queen and Joe Satriani and Peter Frampton. It’s been great and my career is thriving, but I felt like it was time to come back home. "

In September, Hoey left LA to return to New England with his family. He’s relocated to within a short drive of the Lawrence, Mass. area, near his sisters and other relatives in Pelham, New Hampshire. He’s also built a studio in his basement, and he’s working on his next solo album and — drummers and bassists, polish your résumés — looking to form a new, locally based band.

" LA is getting crazier by the day, " he explains. " I wanted my kids to have everything I had when I was a kid. I have a three-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. I wanted them to be surrounded by family and to get to build snowmen. I wanted them to go to a good school. I love being back because the people in New England are awesome. You pull up to a red light and people are driving pick-up trucks and vans and they smile at you. In LA, you pull up to a light and there’s a kid half my age driving a $90,000 car. Here, there’s no attitude. "

Hoey moved to Los Angeles in 1987, after he came this close to filling the guitar spot in Ozzy Osbourne’s band. Until then, he had been working 24/7 to develop his craft. He dropped out of high school to devote himself to the guitar, taking lessons, practicing, and playing in local groups until Ozzy showed up in Boston looking for a guitarist. Osborne liked Hoey’s tape enough to fly him to LA for an audition, and afterward, Hoey knew he had to go back.

" That was a very exciting time to be in LA. I got to live some of the glory days out there. Guns N’ Roses was just starting to break. I was right smack in the middle of Hollywood, living across the street from the lead singer of Ratt. I’d go to the clubs and there would be Slash and Axl, and in walks Gene Simmons or Lemmy from Motörhead. You don’t see that out there anymore. I was in my dream. I had the huge hair and was dressed head-to-toe in leather. I’d be in a strip bar and Axl would give me change for a five. "

Hoey thought his time had come when the metal band he played in were signed to Warner Bros. " They spent $400,000 on the record. We were going to be the next Van Halen. " But Nirvana came along. Metal was out, grunge came in. Fortunately, Hoey’s A&R woman at the label was enamored of his talent and got him a $30,000 budget for a solo instrumental album. " The food budget was more than $30,000 on the band’s record, " he says, laughing. But thanks to " Hocus Pocus, " Animal Instinct and Hoey’s career grew wings. He followed with the soundtrack to the surf saga Endless Summer II (Warner/Reprise, now on Surfdog), which cemented his status as a demi-god among Southern California surfers. Even Dick Dale, the Quincy-born surf-guitar king, gave Hoey his blessing, proclaiming him his favorite guitarist.

Today, Hoey has 15 albums listed on his garyhoey.com Web site, but the best way to get a quick taste of his musical career is the recently issued The Best of Gary Hoey (Surfdog), which ranges from his singing-toned " Hocus Pocus " to the sweet, airy " Peace Pipe " to a dirty rocking version of Dale’s classic " Miserlou " to the big-bottomed " Blast " to the reggae-inspired " Goin’ Surfin’. " That’s a lot of territory to cover, and his guitar always maintains a human, voice-like quality that’s the mark of a great player.

Since moving his family back East, Hoey has had time to squeeze in a few local charity gigs, but he’s got plenty of projects under way. He’s recording a new disc of classic surf instrumentals in his basement studio that’s due out in June. He also writing and recording new music for Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster, composing tunes for ESPN, and doing the soundtrack for a new NASCAR TV show called Behind the Garage Door. " I love that name, because I started behind the garage door when I was playing with my first bands, " he says. And now he’s aiming to get out of the basement. " I’m trying to get this record done and then find some local guys and get out to play. " Interested? Send Gary a demo at Box 954, Pelham, New Hampshire 03076.

OVER THE PAST DECADE, the original Music City USA, Nashville, has drawn some of Boston’s finest players. At times, guitarist Duke Levine and drummer Billy Beard have all but held dual residency in that city and ours. Among those who have outright relocated are singer/songwriter/producer Angelo Petraglia, singer/songwriter Jamie Rubin, and singer/songwriter/producer Tom Hambridge.

Hambridge may be the busiest. The former leader of the Boston band T.H. & the Wreckage was in Seattle last week when we spoke by phone, producing an album for a Romanian blues artist called Attila. Hambridge is perhaps best known today for producing Susan Tedeschi’s national debut, Just Won’t Burn (Tone-Cool), and writing its most radio-friendly songs, including " Rock Me Right. " But that’ll change if he keeps up his current pace. Lately he’s written or co-written tunes for Charlie Daniels, Shemekiah Copeland, Keith Anderson, Delbert McClinton, George Thorogood, Jimmy Thackery, and NRBQ. Lynyrd Skynyrd played his " Sweet Mama " during the band’s pre–Super Bowl show. " I just got a call from them saying it’s time to get together and write some tunes for their next album. " And Johnny Winter’s I’m a Bluesman, which he produced, got a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album, losing out to Keb’ Mo’.

Hambridge jokes that Attila, who hails from Transylvania, is six-foot-six and speaks like Dracula, but I’ll bet it’s Hambridge who never sleeps. And why should he when, like Hoey, he’s living his dream? " When I hear a band do one of my songs or hear one of my records on the radio, I get that tingle every time. "

Lately, Hambridge has been hearing his own voice on the airwaves. Adult-radio programmers have been taking to " Milk and Honey, " a tune he wrote with another Bostonian, Bleu, from Hambridge’s new, second solo album, Bang n’ Roll (Under the Radar). The disc ups the ante on his solo debut, 2000’s Balderdash (Artemis), by widening the same rootsy roads. Its 13 songs fuse rock, country, and blues in an appealing way that brings Hambridge’s voice — sweet on the largely acoustic Celtic-influenced radio favorite that’s an exploration of America’s obscured ideals, raspy on the dirty, booze-soaked rant " Cut Way Back " — to the fore.

" What I’ve discovered since moving to Nashville in 1999, " he says, " is that it’s really all about the song, and the more I write, the more I exercise those muscles and the quicker and easier they work. The beautiful thing about writing with other people is that you write more than you would on your own and you learn something from everybody. The way somebody else turns a phrase or thinks rhythmically can really open you up to new ideas.

" When it came time to record Bang n’ Roll, I not only had my own songs but a lot of tunes I’d co-written to choose from, which was great. I could really choose the best of everything. " Numbers like " Milk and Honey, " with its delicate singing, hand claps, and strings, also show a new-found sonic temperance. " A lot of Balderdash was stomping and hard, but now I’m not afraid to take the music somewhere that’s airy and delicate and articulate ideas that are outside the realm of relationships, about bigger things than just our own lives.

" I feel like I’m in the next phase of my journey, going from Balderdash to this record. When I’m producing somebody else’s record, I feel like I need to keep them focused on a theme or a sound. But now, with my own album, I’ve realized I can be free to take it anywhere and still be able to make every song stand on its own merits, regardless of the approach. Some of my favorite records, like Exile on Main Street and Sgt. Pepper’s, are like that. "

These days, when he’s not in the studio or co-writing, the multi-instrumentalist can be found on the road, touring behind Bang n’ Roll. Hambridge and his band will open a string of dates for Buddy Guy in March, including stops at the Capitol Center in Concord, New Hampshire, on March 24 and the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, on March 26.