Girl With A Hawk – The Fighter
Every rock and roll record, no matter how raucous and unhinged, or how jovial and free-spirited, usually has a moment or two that presses pause on the party, if only temporarily, and forces some internal reflection, passed down from the artist to the listener with newfound clarity and objective focus.
Across Girl with a Hawk’s debut album Regenesis, released this past summer on digital, CD and vinyl via Rum Bar Records and nominated for Album of the Year in the 2026 New England Music Awards, there is no shortage of lyrical poignancy. Across its nine fervent tracks, vocalist, guitarist, and Boston music scene stalwart Linda Viens surveys her life in rock and roll and the roller coaster ride that’s taken place since it all began.
Midway through the record, an unlikely composition emerges from the depths of Viens’ difficult childhood, and one that would take on new meaning as oppression and misogyny run rampant in our modern lives all these years later. Channeling a spirit of defiance and forgiveness, that song, a yearning, slow-burn folk-infused Heartland rocker called “The Fighter,” now emerges as the latest single from Regenesis, and gets the official video treatment on Monday, November 2.
The evocative new visual arrives around a flurry of Girl with a Hawk live shows to close out the year, including the Pumpkinpalooza fundraiser at The Fallout Shelter in Norwood on Halloween night with Crow Follow; and a November 14 appearance at Underbones for a Bootleg Dan show alongside Glowbox, The Black Souls, and Annie Husick & Interstate Johnson.
But the premiere date for the video, the day before our country’s midterm elections, is also by design. And it’s a move not unlike in 2024, when the band aimed to galvanize voters with “#VOTE (Rock the Boat) and “Share It All” leading up to the Presidential Election.
“The song began as a reminiscence on my childhood of growing up as the eldest of four in a family that was continually on the move in America, and in a dynamic where the children often paid the price for my dad’s frustrations, anger, and ambitions,” Viens reveals.
Viens’ father would regularly beat her and her siblings, and that volatile upbringing would quickly forge her worldview of knowing there were different paths than aggression and punishment, and toughen her skin – both literally and figuratively.
“I had something defiant in me from the start that let me know I would survive intact,” she adds. “I also had to be strong to protect my siblings to the best of my ability. I never got to talk to my Dad before he died about what our childhood was like; or the fear and pain he inflicted or about the interior scars we bore. But as the song developed, I realized it was about something much, MUCH bigger. It was about The Patriarchy, and my/our absolute cultural, societal, and emotional exhaustion with it, writ large.”
An extended and atmospheric ballad that expands Girl with a Hawk’s loose, gold-standard rock and roll sound, “The Fighter” channels Viens’ vulnerability and provides catharsis for her personal relationship with her father, using the chorus as a means to offer forgiveness.
Understanding that generational trauma, passed down in her family’s lineage, was as much to blame for his behavior than anything he did on his own, she eventually found the good in him.
But then modern-day parallels started to reveal themselves.
“As the song developed, and deeper meanings emerged from my subconscious,” she admits, “I realized I was actually also talking about the ‘political other’ — the thousands of lost, damaged and lonely men in our country who fell under the MAGA spell but who are at heart NOT bad people, but who can’t see another way besides hating those who are different or wanting to drive out and chase down those who appear threatening.”
Those behaviors are at the root cause of what is failing society as we head back to the polls for the most important midterm elections of our lifetime. We’re faced with division, hostility, violence, and ostracization – all things Viens first experienced growing up.
“And aren’t we tired, so very, very tired of this behavior?” she asks. “Towards other men, but also towards innocent children, to mothers, to women?? When we were working on the arrangement for recording ‘The Fighter’, we used the chaotic, desperate ending to express our sense of the unnecessary waste, death, and despair of these continued, ancient behaviors.”
Noting its heavier theme than the other tracks on Regenesis, Girl with a Hawk held it back as a single until after some of the more lighter, brighter, and more party-centric tracks hit the scene. The album harnesses the band’s classic rock, power-pop, and Americana sound, bridging the gap between that cool ‘70s rock vibe and the chaos and concern of the modern day – all with a mindful eye of just what life is currently like in 2026.
After forming during the pandemic, Girl with a Hawk have made their mark on the Boston scene in a big way in a relatively short period of time, with Viens (lead vocal, guitars, backing vocals) rounded out in the band by Richard Lamphear (keyboards); Daniel Coughlin (guitars, backing vocals); Daniel George Bernfeld (bass, backing vocals); and Nancy Delaney (drums, percussion, backing vocals). “The Fighter” also features Boston musician Stud Green on violin.
The record’s title, Regenesis, underscores the sentiment of a new beginning, renewal, or rebirth. Viens, who was inducted into the New England Music Hall of Fame last year, began playing around Boston back in the ‘80s, first linking up with Coughlin in Children of Paradise and Witch Doctor and then in the previous decade with Lamphear in Kingdom of Love.
After raising her daughter and being away from the stage, the rock and roll life called her back. And in Girl with a Hawk, the rebirth was complete, all in the traditional cycle of a new band arriving on the scene – though this time with a rich, and deep pedigree.
“Being older by decades than when we first started, putting together a new rock band felt like a bold move,” she adds. “It felt like a complete rebirth, and it felt fated. I suppose the message is ‘we can’t turn back time, and we may no longer be young, but it’s never too late to repair a friendship and/or make amends, never too late to reinvent yourself, or be the person you always wanted to be.’”
The follow-up to 2023 EP keep ‘er lit, Girl with a Hawk’s inaugural long-player flexes the band’s songwriting acumen and ability to convey the various elements of the complex human connection. A series of singles showcases their yearning, folk-fueled rock and roll, from the endearing “Way With Words” (July 2024) to the ebullient “Share It All” (October 2024); their 2025 releases included a tribute to the late Taylor Hawkins in “No One Like You” (March), the comforting ballad “It’s The Way” (July), and the bouncy “I’m In Love With My Friends” (November), an infectious power-pop bop about our chosen family, brought to new glistening heights by a Lamphear’s rippin’ display of Hammond and Farfisa organ.
The swagger-filled “Wasn’t It Just Yesterday,” a buoyant classic rock cruiser about both aging in rock and roll and being ageless in rock and roll, arrived in tandem with the album in June. And new songs like “The Fighter,” punchy ‘70s rock number “Full Moon,” and heartfelt ballad “Beautiful Today” give Regenesis its sonic breadth without ever not sounding like Girl with a Hawk. It’s a testament to the creative chemistry Viens shares with her bandmates, as well as her music community.
“There’s some variety in the new ones,” Viens reveals. “Pathos and forgiveness in ‘The Fighter’; finally letting go of someone I loved for a long time in ‘Full Moon’, and the wistfulness of young, unsure love in ‘Beautiful Today’. Richard and I spent a lot of time thinking about the sequence of the songs on the album, and feel happy that the record works as a whole, and reflects our musical journey as a band up to this moment in time.”
Produced and engineered by Pete Weiss and mixed and mastered by Weiss at Jade Cow Music in Somerville, Massachusetts, the songs on Regenesis were recorded at Mad Oak Studio in Boston and Panoramic House Studio in Stinson Beach, California. Carissa Johnson crafted the eye-catching artwork, with additional design by Coughlin and Viens, and the physical release features photographs by Wayne Viens, Nicole Tammaro, and Kelly Davidson.
With an army around her, in her band, in her network, and in the Boston music scene, Veins feels blessed to simply make it to the next stop in her lifelong journey. Even if it means taking a hard look back at the early days that eventually led her to the right here and right now. “The Fighter” is her own personal anecdote, but it’s one she feels can resonate with many, especially at a time when cruelty is celebrated and hostility is rampant.
“‘The Fighter’ feels appropriate as a song that might help us to examine our collective conscience and grasp what is at stake for our country with the upcoming mid-terms, and of course the next Presidential Election,” she notes. “All that said, I’m also hoping people will also be inspired by ‘The Fighter’ to recognize that those who vote and think differently from us are not to be vilified, but to be listened to, and dialogued with whenever an opportunity presents itself.”
“The Fighter” helped Viens understand and reckon with her volatile upbringing. Now she hopes it has a more widespread effect, and can be used as a conduit to understand, for many of us, a larger issue at play. It helped her understand, and forgive, her father; and now she extends it to those who currently wish us harm.
“We encounter the ‘other’ every day, whether we realize it or not, and staying open-minded (and hearted) will bring a whole lot more positive change than remaining closed to conversation and automatically judging,” she concludes. “We can’t create positive social change in a social vacuum. I’m REALLY hoping that people will be galvanized by what they have been witnessing to take action and vote their values on November 3.”
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