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Arts & Entertainment

Korin and Augie Put Hard Lessons on Hold for Baby

Band plays one last show before going on hiatus to care for baby Santino, due in late July.

The Hard Lessons usually perform as a trio, but Saturday night at the , Augie and Korin (née Cox) Visocchi played without a drummer. Yet they still had a third member on stage with them: their baby boy Santino, still safe and sound inside mommy’s tummy, waiting for his big debut in late July.

Storybook tale

Augie and Korin began dating in 2000 when they were students at Michigan State University. The band came next, in 2003, quickly going from dorm room noodling to sell-out shows, nonstop touring and songs on prime-time network TV.

It’s easy to see why they got so popular so fast. Augie’s garagey guitar licks and high-energy stage antics have always dovetailed perfectly with the poppy keyboard sounds and soulful vocals of his partner in crime, “Koko Louise.” Then, of course, there are those knowing looks they give each other on stage, as if there’s a secret joke only the two of them get.

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In 2008, to no one’s surprise, Augie and Korin got married. Now, after years of touring and promoting, they’re ready to start a family.

“I knew from the very beginning that we were going to get married and have a family,” Korin said before Saturday’s show. “He may not have known,” she said gesturing to Augie, ''but I totally knew."

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“I actually think we would’ve had kids a lot sooner if we weren’t working so hard on the band,” Augie said.

“Yeah,” Korin went on. “We took every opportunity that came our way. We toured virtually nonstop for four years straight. But we finally just said, ‘You know what? We don’t have to play every Tuesday in Iowa City.’”

So the Visocchis bought a house just minutes from Augie’s parents and they settled in.

“When you become homebodies, you kind of go, ‘Hmm, we’re home …’ ” Korin said, raising her eyebrows suggestively, “and, well, now we’re pregnant.”

A little 'lesson'

Anyone who sees Korin, now 6½ months pregnant, knows she was born to be a mom. She’s seems so comfortable with little Santino on board, and hey, she’s been screen-printing and selling Michigan-themed onesies for years.

So, yeah, these two members of the Hard Lessons are beyond ready to be parents.

“This actually feels like our second kid,” Augie said. “Our band is our first kid. It’s been nurtured and we’ve made sacrifices for it over the years.”

“So we’ve already done all the things people tell you to worry about when you have a baby,” Korin said. “We’ve done the long nights with no sleep.”

Despite their familiarity with sleep deprivation, “I would never want to be touring while pregnant,” Korin said. So the band is going on hiatus – at least from touring.

“We can still do a new record from home,” Korin said. “Record it in Ferndale, maybe with Feeny (Dave Feeny of on Hilton Road). And hey, now we’ll have new stuff to write about.”

“You don’t do something as long and hard as we did and just let it go,” Augie said, promising that you can take the Hard Lessons off the road, but you could never take the road out of the Hard Lessons. “It might be more difficult now, but we have such a great support system. Our parents will be more than happy to baby-sit.”

Indeed, Korin’s mom, Carol Cox, was in the audience Saturday. Lovingly eyeing her daughter’s belly, she sighed, “That’s my grandbaby up there!”

She confirmed that all four grandparents will be more than willing to spend time with the wee one. “We’re all so excited,” she said, “because he’ll be the first grandchild on both sides.”

A (friends and) family affair

Saturday’s show was doubly special because it was Augie’s birthday (“I had him 30 years ago today!” his mom, Angela Visocchi, exclaimed when she arrived at the Loving Touch). Friends, family – even some of Augie’s students from the Rochester School of Rock – offered cheers of “happy birthday” and “congratulations.”

Korin and Augie always have smiles and hugs for everyone they see. Anyone around here would tell you that they love them back, fiercely. Detroit rock 'n' roll certainly has its share of gritty characters – sleazy lead singers, alcoholic drummers and the rest – but the Hard Lessons have always been a bright spot of sunshine poking through the clouds.

Longtime Ferndale resident and rock lover Jacquie Trost has been following the Hard Lessons from the get-go.

“I saw them when they first started playing,” Trost said. “I’ve seen them many times over the years, and it’s great to see how they’ve evolved.”

Chris Plum, singer and guitarist for the Mood Elevator, is a longtime friend of the Visocchis, and with two children of his own, he knows what they’re in for as rock 'n' roll parents.

“These are two very special people to me,” Plum said. “They’ve worked so long and so hard on this band. And now they’re about to enter another dimension of work – having a baby – which will also be long and hard. So this is a very special event.”

Always ready with a light-hearted quip, Korin put their coming adventure this way: “Augie and I met as teenagers, and I just knew he was the one. And now, it’s like, ‘I’ve been in a dirty van with you for five years. I’ve been dating you for 11. I’m pretty sure you can be my baby daddy.' "

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