Missiles’ Small Orbit Costs Band Guitarist

Few Orange County guitarists of the 1990s have played more notes more deftly than Bob Hawkins of Missiles of October.

His lead-guitar slot with the excellent band of Laguna Beach rock veterans required him to play almost continuously for two hours each gig. The master of tonal and stylistic variety never seemed to run out of tasteful, inventive ideas.

But, after eight years in the band, Hawkins apparently has run out of patience with the Missiles’ lot as an undiscovered, undervalued local treasure. He will leave the band at year’s end, to be replaced by another veteran Orange County player, Richard Bredice.

“I always had hopes the band was going to be able to raise its profile dramatically,” Hawkins said, referring to the release in 1997 of an excellent debut CD, “Tropic of Soulfolk.”

“I thought we didn’t capitalize on everything we had going for us at the time. It seemed a missed opportunity,” said Hawkins, who wants to find a gig that will involve some touring after years of hunkering down in Laguna with the Missiles.

Hawkins said he decided to leave after a disagreement with singer-bandleader Poul Finn Pedersen over who should produce the Missiles’ follow-up album early in 2000. The band also includes drummer Frank Cotinola and bassist Jimmy Perez.

“I have great respect for their musical abilities, and I’ve considered it a privilege to work with them,” Hawkins said of the band, which from the start has relied primarily on a twice-a-week residency at the Marine Room Tavern in their hometown.

“Poul is one of the better singers you’re going to hear, and I’ve had lots of great moments with them over the years, but it’s a sad fact that we’ve had a difference of opinion on how to proceed.”

Pedersen said the Missiles plan to record again with Alex Reed and Michael Douglass, who produced the “Soulfolk” sessions.

He traces the Missiles’ inability to launch themselves on the world outside Laguna to the lack of a manager and a booking agent--neither of which the band has secured as it moves toward another album.

Bredice is a record producer and engineer who co-owns Woodland-Bredice studio in Irvine, where he mainly works with local talent. In the 1980s, he toured and recorded as a member of Jules & the Polar Bears, and went on to play on one of the solo albums by that band’s leader, Jules Shear. Bredice played several fill-in shows with the Missiles earlier this year while Hawkins was on vacation.

“We had a blast. I guess that’s why they’ve asked me to do it” on a full-time basis, Bredice said. “It’s hard to step into a band. Their audience looked at me like, ‘Who is this guy?’ ”