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Photo by Cambria Harkey

Austin Amplified

Musician of the Month: Wade Bowen

The Texan country rocker is releasing his seventh solo studio album this month

Drawing from his experience as a Texas native, and now New Braunfels resident, Wade Bowen combines rock, country, and Southwestern musical influences on Solid Ground, out Feb. 9. While no longer an Austinite, the capital city, where Bowen lived in 2002 and 2003, gets its own specific shout out on the nostalgic “So Long 6th Street,” which laments how much the musical district has changed.

Surrounding the release of Solid Ground, Wade will hit the road for a string of dates in smaller Texas towns, as well as a stop in Austin at Mohawk on February 23. Speaking over the background noise of a bus on a highway somewhere, we caught up with Bowen by phone about his new record and the next stage of his career.


You were born in Waco, lived in Austin, and now live in New Braunfels. Can you tell me a little about the trajectory of moving slowly south along I-35 over the course of your life?
I was born and raised in Waco, and then I went to college in Lubbock. That’s where I started playing music and started my band. I played the last three years of my college life out there. I graduated and moved to Austin after that. I lived in Austin a couple of years, and then I met my future wife, and she was living in New Braunfels, so we ended up settling there. We’ve lived here for the last 13 years. I love living in New Braunfels. I love the entire Hill Country—it’s just so beautiful. It’s like I live in a movie. I love going back and forth from Austin to San Antonio and everything in between. It’s a beautiful area.

Why did making this album about Texas feel important in your career?
I think I’ve touched on it in previous records with a song here or there, but this is the first one I really attacked that sound. I think the music of Texas is so unique and cool in so many ways. It’s George Strait, but it’s also Stevie Ray Vaughan  and ZZ Top. It’s rock country and Americana and blues and Tejano all mixed up into one. I had never really made that heavily-influenced Texas album in the same way that Bruce Springsteen showed everybody about Jersey and the sound where he’s from. I kind of relate it to that.

There’s darkness in the minor keys and chord progressions of the album. Is that an element you worked to create?
It’s definitely something I focused on. I write better in that vein. I’ve never considered myself a very uplifting songwriter. [Laughs] I don’t write up-tempos and happy songs as well. I think this record has a little different swagger than I’ve ever had. It has a more rock edge; it’s a little more raw, grittier. Our live show has always been more on this sound. This represents who I am now better than any other record I’ve done. It represents the intensity we bring onstage.

Your song “Day of the Dead,” evokes the culture of the Southwest and celebrates Mexican culture with its mariachi style, accordion, and classical guitar. Can you tell me where the song came from?
That was part of me reaching into the Texas roots. My producer, Keith Gattis, wrote the song and brought it to me. It brings up Lajitas in the song. He and I had a great experience out there at this festival years ago. He brought the song to me and asked me to help him finish it. I said, “Man I appreciate the offer, but this song is done.” It’s a completely different sound than I’ve ever done. It’s the most unique song I’ve ever put on a record, and it just captures that South Texas influence I love so much. 

Who was the most fun to collaborate with on this album?
I really loved writing “Death, Dying, and Deviled Eggs” with John Randall. He and I have been buddies a long time. We wrote that song a couple of weeks after Guy Clark passed away. My producer said, “You always talk about Guy Clark, but none of your songs sound in the vein of Guy Clark.” When he passed away that really hit home for me, so we wrote this really trying to rip off Guy Clark. What’s the greatest respect you can pay to a songwriter? To try to rip him off and imitate him. [Laughs]

Is there something that you learned in the process of making this record?
Man, I could probably talk to you for an hour on what I’ve learned from this record! Keith was really an amazing producer. He pushed me to a level I’ve never been pushed. I learned that the album is never done until it’s done. He had me get there two or three hours before the band got there, and we wrote every morning and recorded the song that evening that we’d written. That’s something I’d never done before. He got me at a time when I was really lost. I didn’t realize how lost I was. I had just come out of a major label deal. You kind of have the world by the tail, and then, all of a sudden, it’s not there. How do you approach the next phase of your career? He really got me out of that thought process and into the songwriting process. I have a flood of ideas of things I want to accomplish in the next five to ten years. I feel like I’m better than I’ve ever been, and the next five to ten years are gonna be the best part of my career.

What do you see still waiting out there on the horizon?
Oh gosh, I wanna continue to push the envelope and not just make records. I’ve got some ideas in my head, but this record has really opened up the floodgates for ideas and collaboration and projects. That’s something I didn’t have two years ago when I started writing this record.