When Hairball hits Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls on Jan. 29 and Caesars Windsor the following night, they’ll be hauling more than two decades of pyrotechnic excess across the Canadian border. The Minneapolis rock tribute band—equal parts concert and controlled explosion—kicks off an eight-city tour that runs through March, bringing their particular brand of arena rock chaos from Ontario to British Columbia.
Dave Moody has been making this trip for years, just under different circumstances. Before he joined Hairball six years ago, he spent a decade on the road with Billy Ray Cyrus, touring the world during the Hannah Montana phenomenon. Canada, he says, feels like familiar territory.
“I’ve been coming to Canada for years over different projects,” Moody said from Minneapolis. “I played with Billy Ray Cyrus for like 10 years. So I’ve been coming to Canada forever. But we love Canada. We love the people in Canada. We played Casino Rama last year, which was just absolutely stellar. The crowd was awesome, and we did a few other dates in Canada. But this year, we have a full-blown tour of Canada, and we’re super stoked to get there.”
The jump from country megastar’s backing band to rock tribute vocalist raised eyebrows. Moody still laughs about it.
“That was a surprise to everybody because I’m a rock guy,” he explained. “That came up, and I got the opportunity to do that. And so it was a shock to everybody, including myself. I was like, ‘Wow. Okay. Well, this would be cool. This would be a lot of fun. Let’s do it.’ And it was. It was phenomenal. And it was just such a wonderful job. To tour the world with that man was phenomenal because he’s an international superstar. He was a great boss but a better friend, and we’re still great friends to this day and love him dearly.”
Joining Hairball meant learning an entirely new skill set. Moody had never worn stage makeup, never squeezed into spandex (well, not since the ’80s), never strapped on platform boots or breathed fire. The band was already a well-oiled machine when he auditioned. They needed someone who could handle the raspy voices—Moody’s natural gravelly tone was perfect—but he had serious catching up to do.
“It was like getting on a moving train. You better know what you’re doing,” he recalled. “I’d never worn makeup. I’d never worn costumes. I’d never worn high heels. It had been a long time since I had delved into that kind of character idea, and I never did it. So whenever I joined, everybody was far and away ahead of me as far as that goes. So I had a lot of catching up to do, and I finally did.”
What Hairball does isn’t subtle. Twelve fire pots. Five video walls. Costume changes every third song. Pyrotechnics that would make a ’70s Kiss concert look restrained. Moody doesn’t do modesty when describing the show.
“We’re not a ham. We’re the whole pig,” he declared. “So we believe in giving you everything we’ve got and giving you the bang for the buck. The most important thing that we can do when you walk into the room is to impress you not only with our arsenal but also the stage show and everything that goes with it. So we believe in giving the people exactly what they paid for, and that means lining up 12 fire pots that shoot 30 feet in the air, five video walls, more pyro than a 1970s Kiss concert. That’s our job as Hairball. And we want you to come to the show. We want you to really enjoy yourself. Forget about your problems in the world. Nothing exists outside except for what’s inside for that two hours.”
The current Balls to the Wall tour splits vocal duties between Moody, Patrick Stone and Kris Vox, with Brian HBK on bass, Billy Thommes on drums and Michael “Happy” Schneider handling lead guitar. Over two hours they blast through Van Halen, Kiss, Motley Crue, Queen, Journey, Def Leppard, Aerosmith. Moody covers the gritty end of the spectrum: Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Dee Snider, Kevin Dubrow, Brian Johnson, Blackie Lawless, Lemmy Kilmister. The voices that raised him, basically.
“I wasn’t raised by Mister Rogers, Big Bird or Bert and Ernie,” he said. “I was raised by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. So those were my babysitters. It’s hard to pick who would be my favorite. They’re all so fantastic. The hits are so big. The reaction to the character is so big. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful.”
Gene Simmons is the toughest character to pull off. There’s the fire breathing, obviously. But also the tongue, the facial expressions, the very specific way Simmons moves and talks. Then there’s the costume—layers of complexity before Moody even opens his mouth.
“Gene would be the most challenging because there’s so much going on with Gene,” he explained. “He’s constantly sticking out his tongue. You’re doing facial movements, and you’ve got to get his mannerisms down. There’s a lot to Gene, especially with the blowing fire and things of that nature. So Gene’s a lot. Dee’s a lot because of the costume that he has. He looks like a Muppet. He’s like a human car wash. So it’s just a lot. There’s so much that goes into him. Alice is also a lot of fun.”
About 18 months ago, Moody got the validation every tribute artist dreams about. He met Alice Cooper. Not for the first time, but this meeting stuck.
“I met Alice Cooper for the second time, probably about a year and a half ago,” Moody recalled. “And I walked up to him and I made mention of who I was in the band that I was in, and I said, ‘You know, I’m in Hairball.’ And he looked at me and he goes, ‘That’s a great band. That’s a great band.’ And that’s the highest compliment that you can get. When the people you’re portraying give you that kind of compliment, it’s just huge.”
Hairball has shared stages with most of the legends they impersonate: Cooper, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Rob Halford, Rob Zombie, Steven Tyler, Sebastian Bach. They’ve played the Vikings-Steelers game in London, the Vikings’ New Year’s Eve halftime show. Nearly 130 events in 2025, tracking toward 175 or 200 in 2026. For Moody, who lives in Cincinnati but works out of Minneapolis, that means 230 to 240 days a year on the road. It adds up.
“We’re on the road. I live in Cincinnati, not Minneapolis. So I’m on the road 230, 240 days a year,” he said. “And we do close to—this year, we’re going to do close to 175, maybe even 200 shows this year. We’re all sacrificing because we’re away from our families. We’re away from our friends. We miss birthdays, weddings. We miss childbirths. We miss funerals. We miss all kinds of things. And yeah, so there is a definite sacrifice to that, but I’m a firm believer: if you get what you want, don’t bitch about it. I’m just grateful for all of it. I mean, anything you do in life, there’s going to be sacrifices. It might as well be for rock ‘n’ roll and taking it to the masses.”
Ask Moody what Hairball’s story is, and he doesn’t overthink it. It’s about showing up and giving people a break from reality.
“Perseverance, believing in what we do and believing in a good time and selling that to the people that we can all get together and enjoy each other’s company and just have a big time,” he said. “That’s the story of Hairball. And we’ve done it with great fanfare, and people have come from all over the country and now all over the world to see it. And we couldn’t be more grateful for it because we think it’s something that people really, really need today.”
The tour bus heads north through Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia after the Ontario shows wrap. Moody’s already thinking about the long game, about what happens when his voice gives out or the next generation comes knocking. He’s made peace with being temporary.
“One of these days, they’re going to put me out to pasture, and some young kid’s going to come in here and take my job,” he said. “And when they do, I’m going to walk away with a smile on my face, and I will be an alumni. And I’ll be able to look up and bring my nieces, great-nieces and nephews, and I’ll go, ‘I used to be in that band,’ and I’ll be rooting these guys on forever. This is timeless music. It deserves to go on. The band deserves to go on, and it’ll go on forever because it is a wonderful product that brings so much joy to people. So we’re just placeholders, and happily we can hand it off to somebody else and a younger generation, but they’re going to have to pry it from my dead cold fingers.”
The Canadian leg wraps up in Vancouver at the end of March. After more than 20 years, Hairball knows what works: show up, blow things up, make people forget their troubles for two hours. Simple formula. Hard to execute. Worth the road miles.
Hairball Balls to the Wall Canadian Tour
- January 29 | Niagara Falls, Ontario | Fallsview Casino Resort
- January 30 | Windsor, Ontario | Caesars Windsor
- March 24 | Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | TCU Place
- March 25 | Regina, Saskatchewan | Casino Regina
- March 26 | Edmonton, Alberta | River Cree Resort and Casino
- March 27 | Calgary, Alberta | Grey Eagle Resort and Casino
- March 28 | Penticton, British Columbia | Penticton
- March 29 | Coquitlam, British Columbia | Great Canadian Casino Vancouver
