Zac Brown Band Member Discusses ALS Battle Ahead of Denver Concert

John Driskell Hopkins, or "Hop" as he's known for short, confesses that he's having a tough morning. Afflicted with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease), the 53-year-old multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and family man, confronts an insidious reality on a daily basis. The slow-but-steady loss of his motor functions presents arduous challenges to a musician who has spent the last couple decades as an active member of the Zac Brown Band.

Hopkins and his wife, Jennifer, launched the foundation Hop on a Cure in 2022 to raise funds that aid in the search for what they hope might be an eventual cure for ALS. Meanwhile, Hop continues to tour with the ZBB and takes every day as it comes. Westword spoke with Hop to discuss his musical career and his ongoing bout with a debilitating disease before the band plays Empower Field at Mile High with Kenny Chesney on Saturday, July 27.
Westword: You've been in the Zac Brown Band for about twenty years now, right?

John Hopkins: Yeah, nineteen and a half, I think it is. I've known him for 25 years now. I met Zac when I was running an open-mic night in Buckhead, which is the uptown district in Atlanta. Buckhead used to be a hotbed for acoustic guitar-playing cover-singers, and if you hustled, you could have a gig there three or four nights a week and pay your mortgage. I hosted an open mic on Tuesday nights. I was 27 at the time and he was twenty. I was part of the shift from when he changed the name of his act from just Zac Brown to the Zac Brown Band. We wanted it to be a cohesive unit, kind of like the Dave Matthews Band. We designed it to be a group that works on its music together. We went through a few incarnations of what the name could be. We thought about calling it Zac Brown and the Grit. You end up considering a bunch of ideas when you're naming a group.

Did you and Zac grow up in the same area?

I grew up in Gainesville, GA, which is in the northern part of the state. I was born on an air force base in Texas, and then my parents moved to Georgia in 1973. Zac grew up about twenty minutes from Gainesville. I'm seven years older than he is, but we did grow up in the same area. Zac grew up in Dahlonega, which is a little more mountainous. But we had the same sort of regional influence and we always felt that kinship.

I see that you play different instruments for the band, including bass guitar?

Yeah, I haven't been on the bass since 2013, but I did start there. I played bass on the first three albums. I'm primarily a singer and now I play guitar, ukulele and a little banjo here and there.
Did you help write the song "Toes"?

I did. It was part of my assimilation into the band. Zac came by my studio and wanted to record a new idea. That idea was "Toes." I helped finish the song, and eventually I got a writing credit. It's been a big hit ever since and I'm very excited to be a part of it.

Do you and Zac still collaborate on tunes together?

We have the opportunity to write all the time. This band is very open to new ideas. Zac is the main writer and it's certainly his band, but we write with him. Several of us have our own bands outside of ZBB, but often our ideas will get used. If you contribute 10 percent of an idea for a song, you might get 10 percent of the publishing. He's always been very fair about all of that.

When did you discover you had ALS?

I was diagnosed in December of 2021. The doctor said that typical progressions are three to five years before death. That was two and a half years ago, and I'm still able to sing and play. I'm certainly slower than I should be, but I'm still here. It's really heavy when someone tells you that your body is going to slowly fail until it just won't work anymore and then expire — especially when you're accustomed to being so active. It's pretty tough. It's basically a motor neuron retraction from muscles. In May of 2022 my wife and I started a foundation called Hop on a Cure that's dedicated to funding research [for ALS]. That's what we've been doing for the past couple years and we hope to keep that going forever. It's a big community out there and we have been making strides in recent years thanks to generous people with big hearts.

How is it to play guitar and get on stage since the diagnosis?

Well, I've had to change some of my parts on the guitar, but generally the singing is the same. When I'm doing gigs where I'm the lead singer, I certainly have to adjust the timing. As a backup singer, I have opportunities to prepare in that moment between songs and catch my breath and be ready to jump on the note. We're out performing along with Kenny Chesney until the end of August, when we will finish the tour in Boston. It's been really great so far. Kenny only plays on Saturdays, which is a little different dynamic in terms of touring. So we all fly in and a bus meets us there.

What helps assist you when you're having a tough day?

Rest helps, but I hate that. I'm in the studio right now trying to create new songs and make my mark on the musical world.

Does your family join you when you tour?

They do when they can. My family is coming to Denver, which is exciting. We're going to spend a few days at a friend's house out on a ranch after the show. Our girls are excited about that. We hope to get some horseback riding in and do the whole Western experience.

Are you raising funds for Hop on a Cure while you're in Colorado?

Yeah, we have a private fundraising event in Boulder. It makes sense to do these events when we can, and we do them in different parts of the country when we can combine them with a Zac Brown show. This one will feature some of the guys from the band playing some songs, kind of like a songwriters-in-the-round thing. It's always entertaining. We tell stories in between the tunes, and we have great food and fellowship and we try to raise some big money. It's a great way to raise funds and awareness.

Can anyone donate to your foundation?

Yes. We need everyone who is willing to support us to be a part of the movement. You can go to hoponacure.org and donate or share the link on social media. We believe that ALS is underfunded and we need this disease to go the way of HIV and polio and become livable. We can beat it. We're making strides in the medical community and we're working towards solutions. The progress we make also means progress for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's  and dementia-related illnesses — all the motor neuron diseases. I meet people all the time who have family members who have been afflicted with this issue. It's marginally ignored because people think it's a very rare disease and it's not. The numbers are rising, so please jump in and help us out if you can.

What can fans expect at the Denver ZBB show?

We have a great set ready for Denver. It's a 90-minute show for us. Normally we play for two-and-a-half-hours, so we've had to condense a bit, but we're gonna play a lot of people's favorite songs and it's gonna be a great time. As long as I'm still singing it, I'm bringing it.

Zac Brown Band with Kenny Chesney, 5 p.m. Saturday, July 27, Empower Field at Mile High, 1701 Bryant Street. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.