Austin Meade w/ The Eastwoods & Dillon Dostál - Memphis,TN

Saturday March 18th, 2023
7:30PM DOORS/8:30PM SHOW
$15 ADV / $20 DOS
ALL AGES

Austin Meade
The Eastwoods
Dillon Dostál 

On Black Sheep, Austin Meade delivers songs andstories that, like the young singer/guitarist himself, are contradictory yetcohesive. His influences—musical and otherwise—are as varied and rich as thesmall-town Texas soil that nurtured his talent, yielding 12 stellar songs ranging from the insinuatingmulti-layered musicality and storytelling of “Déjà Vu” to the dark alt-pop of“Happier Alone,” and on further to the new-age, Sabbath-inspired “DopamineDrop.”

Thanks to his metal- and classic-rock loving dad,Meade got to see bands like Judas Priest and worshipped Whitesnake. In juniorhigh he related to the intense emo-rock of Paramore and Fall Out Boy, and thepower of songwriters like John Mayer. Yet, thanks to plainspoken but deep heartlandsongwriters like Tom Petty, and cutting his teeth touring in the Texas and Oklahoma Red Dirt scene, Meade’s music overflows with wide-open soulfulness. Hewas a drummer for years, even teaching to pay the bills, but Meade found his truevoice when he began playing guitar as a teen in his pastor-father’s church.Those experiences lend both a gravitas and rebelliousness to Meade’s songs andself.

The songs on Black Sheep, produced by TaylorKimball (Koe Wetzel, Read Southall, Kody West) are instantly memorable, but farfrom simplistic. Meade challenges the status quo, both musically and lyrically.“I like to question those standard math formulas,” he explains. “What if wejust add two more lines and make somebody feel uncomfortable here,’ because thesong itself is about being uncomfortable?” And within a song—and video—like “DéjàVu,” Meade explores the cyclical, Groundhog Day-like nature of a month—orlifetime—of Sundays.

Throughout school, “I was one of the weird kids whoactually liked writing class. I would describe ridiculous stuff, and inelementary school I was a Harry Potter nerd. I’d get lost in those books,” heremembers. Soon, though, records became his new sanctuary. “I started to hear songwriters that were tellingstories in three to five minutes; concepts and ideas that were not onlyspanning just that one song. One of my favorite lyricists is Alex Turner ofArctic Monkeys; the way he describes things, you can almost touch it or smellit.”

Likewise, on Black Sheep, Meade’s vividdescriptions are palpable and immersive. They paint a picture the listener can stepinto, like taking a journey through “two-lane highways and speed-traptowns” that Meade traverses in “Déjà Vu.” “That’s my goal,” he explains. “Tomake people feel like they're in the room with the stories in my songs; they're within that experience.”

Meade’s carefully crafted songs manage to be profoundand provocative, sonically suited for both dive bars and arenas. From the seismic guitars and painfully honest lyrics of a song like “Dopamine Drop”to the mournful, lilting nostalgia and hard reality of  “Settle Down” and on through the fantasy of“handwritten letters, candle-wax seal, Midwest American feel” in “Cave In,” itis clear Meade’s ambitions and dreams are weighty.

The songs are ably aided on Black Sheep by hisband, longtime guitarist and creative partner David Willie and drummer AaronHernandez; newest member bassist Jordan Pena isn’t on Black Sheep. Inrecording the LP with producer Kimball, Austincommitted to exploring and experimenting with new ideas. “I wanted toput more pedals and crazier sounds on Black Sheep... I want to be constantly changing and morphing as an artist,” Meade says, “making sure that I'm opening myself upto new opportunities and new tones.”

The closing song that gives the album its title isself-referential and accepting. “‘Black Sheep’ is me realizing that, ‘fuckit, I don't have to change what I'm doing, I don't need to feel like I have tofit in.’ Just because I'm playing in Texas and Oklahoma doesn’t mean I have toplay more country, or only an acoustic guitar. I own who and what I am.”

Further expounding on the record Meade notes, “Ilike to break people's hearts at the last minute, sometimes unsuspectingly: ‘Comfort is a hard drug.’” While not immuneto the appeal of a white-picket-fence future, he wants more… for himself, and others. “I want people to lookat lyrics like that and figure out if it challenges them to move or challengesthem to make themselves a better person. To do what they want to do with their lifeand achieve their dreams, rather than just letting everybody else tell themwhat life is ‘supposed to be.’”

To that end, he’s been following his muse and payingdues for most of his young years. Playingevery dimly lit restaurant stage that would help pay bills in college. (AtTexas A&M he studied for agricultural economics, which he terms “a businessdegree, just a little bit more Texan.”) Meade’s also spent the last sixyears honing his songwriting skills on two indie EPs and two albums prior tomaking Black Sheep. And his talent has not gone unnoticed, the DallasObserver writing that Meade’s “rich guitar-driven melodies and tone callback to times when Tom Petty and Jimmy Page ruled the stage. … His songwritingprowess is beyond his 26 years, with lyrics and characters acting as conduitsinto the mind of a young man trying to sort out his feelings as the state ofthe world smacks him in the face.”

Black Sheep waswritten and recorded in late 2019, and meant to be released independently--untilSnakefarm got a hold of it and immediately signed Meade. The frontman is wellaware that the hard work that’s led to this point is just the beginning. After all, he lays it out in “Black Sheep”: “Comfort isa hard drug … do you ever want to leave this town?” For Meade, placid hometowncomfort is in the rear-view—or will be once touring starts up again, as heboldly sings his statement of intent: “I am the black sheep / running til I’msix feet.” 

 

DISCOGRAPHY:

BlackSheep, LP,2021

Cave In – DopamineDrop,Singles, 2020

HappierAlone, Single, 2020

Waves,LP2019

HeartbreakComing, EP,2016

Chiefof the Sinners, LP,2014

LongWays To Go, EP,2014