There was a time when having three sisters didn’t work, courtesy of Neil Thomas Jacobin. implemented. “It’s going to be ‘Hey Neil, time’s up, stop,'” he said.
A girl-dominated childhood privilege is now clear to Mr. Jacobin. A bathroom counter strewn with cosmetics doesn’t bother him at all, he said.
Instead, he said, “I always think, how do I make sense of this from your perspective?” That’s one reason why he has such a good relationship with Lauren Alexis Hobbs. Knowing she appreciated his drums worked well for the couple as well.
Jacobin and Hobbes, both 30, currently live in Nashville and are professional musicians.Hobbes is half of a country duo hobbes sisters With identical twin Hannah Hobbs. Mr. Jacobin is the drummer for Nashville Artists. Nate SmithThey met in February 2019. At that time, the Hobbes Sisters, who use a rotating cast of musicians, were looking for a drummer.
Joey Kataneo, the duo’s guitarist, recommended Mr. Jacobin for a summer tour of the sisters’ fairs and festivals in cities such as Sydney, Ohio and Laurelton, Pennsylvania. The band fell on Lauren Hobbs’ half of the duo’s to-do list. When he said it was a game, she sent him 20 Hobbes Sisters songs and asked him to meet at the next rehearsal at Audible Images Studios in Pittsburgh the next month.
A multidisciplinary performer, Jakopin hadn’t been taught many country songs before. He started playing drums when he was eight years old in Cincinnati, where his family lived, and moved to Washington, Pennsylvania when he was fifteen.
His father was a part-time drummer. “My father would put on old Rolling Stones records and we would play together,” he said. I thought, “This is cool.” By middle school, he was behind his father’s drum kit every day, hoping to impress the girls by winning the school’s talent show, but that didn’t happen. We threw up in the auditorium for three minutes, and it was going well.”
He was playing drums in a local band as a side job when Mr. Hobbes called him. After graduating from Waynesburg University with a BA in Business Administration in 2015, he followed in his parents’ footsteps into the insurance industry. His father, Thomas Jacobin, is a broker for West Penn Life and Health. His mother, Lynn Berry, is the owner of Bridge Insurance Group. Mr. Jacobin liked the steady, steady salary he earned as an independent broker. “But there was something underlying that I felt that if I put my heart into this music, I could make it work,” he said.
The Hobbs Sisters song had an immediate appeal. “They were catchy, engrossing, and easy to learn,” he said.
The twins worked since high school in Venice, Pennsylvania to make songs growing up with their sister Rachel Hobbs and parents Philip and Nancy Hobbs. Mr. Hobbs runs his Burgh, a property management company. Mrs. Hobbs is her third grade teacher. “Music has always been something we were drawn to,” said Hobbes, especially modern country hits, which Mr. Hobbes played around her house. In high school, the twins sang in a barbershop quartet. In college, each graduated with her BA in Communications in 2014 from Wake Forest University and sang in an a cappella group.
Before the twins moved to Nashville in 2017, Mr. Hobbs regularly drove them out of Pennsylvania for songwriting workshops. “I bought a cup of coffee and found it to be a very friendly and welcoming town with people who would spend 20 minutes scratching their heads,” Hobbes said. Uprooting himself to move there felt like the first step on the country’s ascent to stardom, releasing his debut album, Turn It Up, last year. Next year they will put out a sophomore release.
In March 2019, at the first rehearsal with the band, Yakopin fell in love with Hobbes at first sight. “She’s cute, she sings well, and I thought she was a very nice person,” he said. “But she was my boss. She didn’t want to make any weird moves.”
By October, the Hobbes Sisters were playing for festival-goers in several states, ignoring the attraction felt by both parties. “We were drawn to each other,” Hobbes said. “If there was a soundcheck, Neil and I would be standing next to each other. If we went out to lunch somewhere, picnic he would sit on the same bench at the table.” I was ready for attention. He asked her out on a date and she agreed.
On Thanksgiving Day, when she was home with her family in Pennsylvania, he picked her up at her parents’ house after dinner and took her to the only open bar around. They each had a drink and talked for hours and both left the same impression. “I thought, what do you know? This feels right,” Ms. Hobbes said. “Let’s see where it leads.”
A few days later, the second date ended with a kiss. By the holidays, they had a tacit understanding: they were a couple.
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Hannah Hobbes may have known they were in love before they fell in love. there was,” she said. “And he was exactly the kind of talented, fun guy I imagined being with his sister.”
Hobbes and Jacobin were just beginning to learn the ins and outs of a long-distance relationship. COVID It came. In February 2020, Mr. Jacobin flew to Nashville to visit Mr. Hobbes. A few weeks later, he had to cancel his plans to return to Nashville. But “it strengthened our relationship in a way,” Hobbes said. ”
One of Jacobin’s recent dreams was to move to Nashville and play music full time with Hobbes. That summer he did it well. “I thought I was going to make it work,” he said. . Both factored in the coronavirus and the collapse of Nashville’s live music scene, but they survived. Mr. Jacobin sold insurance remotely and drove Uber and his DoorDash. Ms. Hobbes, who supplemented her music career as a substitute teacher before the closure, amassed unemployment.
In 2021, when live gigs trickled in, indicating that the city’s recovery was imminent, Mr. Jacobin’s star began to rise on the drum circuit. Before Nate Smith tapped him to join his band in May 2022, they were performing together at venues like Webster Hall and the Ryman Auditorium. Drew GreenHe still played with the Hobbes Sisters from time to time. “He’s the best drummer I’ve ever worked with.”
The two were in Pennsylvania for a family vacation in 2021 when Mr. Jacobin proposed. Their first kiss took place in the Hobbes family driveway. On Christmas Eve, he got down on one knee and presented Mr. Hobbes with a diamond engagement ring on the same asphalt.
“He was trying to get me to say, ‘Lauren, would you marry me?’ When the words finally came out, she felt it was spoken in just the right place. ”
Hobbs and Jacobin married in front of 120 guests on December 17 at Mint Springs Farm in Norensville, Tennessee. Hannah and Rachel Her Hobbes wore floor-length black velvet dresses and were both maids of honor. Mr. Hobbes asked the Reverend Mark A. Stewart, a retired Methodist minister whom the Hobbes sisters have known since childhood, to take her daughter down her candlelit, flower-lined aisle. I was.
Hobbes, in a full-skirted, strapless wedding dress with a train, and Jacobin, in a black tuxedo, wrote their vows and exchanged them by ear before the traditional ceremony. , we are both private persons,” said Mr. Hobbes.
Before Reverend Stewart announced the marriage, Mr. Jacobin’s sisters performed a wedding serenade with the contemporary Christian hit “In Christ Alone.” Like the couple they were singing, their harmonies came together effortlessly.
This day
when December 17, 2022
where Mint Springs Farm in Norensville, Tennessee.
off-duty The couple took a break from entertaining at their post-wedding reception. Their first dance was to Matt Stell’s “I prayed for you.”
still close The day after the wedding, Hobbs moved out of the Nashville house he shared with his sisters (Rachel Hobbs moved to Nashville shortly after the twins) and moved into the house Jacobin began renting in 2020. rice field.
the climb Milestones in the Hobbs Sisters’ journey to becoming country hitmakers include opening Charlie Daniels and Lady A.