Everybody has their story to tell and how it has led them to where they are today and who they have become.  Bryan Brazier is no exception.  Born into a blue-collar family in Irving, Texas, Bryan quickly learned that there are necessities in life. . .family, friends, religion, and of course, music.  Country music. 

“My first record was a 45 of Moe Bandy’s Bandy the Rodeo Clown.  I was just a young kid.  I had a little kid record player that my brother and I listened to Bible stories on, and, of course, I would play my parent’s record collection on it every chance I got.”   

When Bryan’s parents divorced at age 8 his mom quickly moved them to Marietta, Oklahoma, to be near her favorite aunt and uncle who just happened to own a honky tonk.  Bryan remembers life being lived out just like the songs of the times, and it made a lasting impression on him.  “I saw things most kids shouldn’t see.  Both of my parents were living pretty wild lives, but I also remember those times being unique.  The music was brutally honest.  I learned how to two step, shoot pool, and started playing the guitar by the time I was nine.  I couldn’t live without music and it was probably the music that pulled me through the hard times.” 

 Realizing that Oklahoma wasn’t the right place to be, Bryan’s mom moved them to Levelland, Texas, which he considers his hometown.  Needing to support her family, his mom became a welder in the early 80’s during the oil boom in the hot West Texas heat.  It was in church one day when someone heard him sing and said, “You need to use that voice!”  That was it.  It was in that moment that he realized he had something no one could take away.  Bryan would sit in his room and listen to music over and over until he had perfected it note for note.  That’s how sacred music was to him.  Music was to be respected and protected. 

 Always an adventurer, Bryan joined the U.S. Army after graduating high school and moved to California. He was stationed at Ft. Ord in Monterey.  “I had to get out and see what was out there in the world!”

 It was in California that Bryan discovered what it meant to be a Texan.  “People out there embraced me like I had never been embraced before.  I thought I was just from another small town in Texas, and I was, but looking back, I found out who I really am while living in California.  It was an awakening for myself and for my folks and friends back in Texas.” 

 Bryan fell in love with the Bakersfield sound and found some pickers who understood what he was wanting out of music and who could play country music the way he wanted to play it.  Mixing a little bit of Texas with a little bit of Bakersfield would keep ‘em dancing all night.  His first gig was in a nostalgic little honky tonk on the outskirts of the Silicon Valley.  Ironically, a waitress from New Braunfels managed it.  “It was a train wreck at first, but we ironed out the wrinkles and had a regular gig for two years.”  One of Bryan’s most memorable times in California was the rebuilding of the largest country club in San Jose, The Saddle Rack.  He was asked to be one of four bands to open up the club in April of 2003. 

 Going as far as he felt he could go with music in California, Bryan had been contemplating a move to Austin, Texas, for a few years.  During the summer of 2003, he got a call from a steel guitar player that had just moved to the Bay Area from Austin.  He was looking for some work.  “He played his first gig with us and when we took our first break he and his wife came up to me and said, ‘You’ve got to go to Austin.’  Fate had found its way to my door again.  That was all I needed.”  It took one year for Bryan to get things in order and to make the move to Austin with his wife, Nicole.  He is currently working on his first CD and is immersing himself in the Austin music scene.  He credits Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, Bob Seger, and John Mellencamp as his singer/songwriter influences.  “If one neglects to speak of the mire that they have gone through and only speaks of the sun that is shining on them now, then that person has missed what life is really about, and what music is really about.  All songwriters and singers alike, including myself, want to sing about the good, but we remember the darkness that led us to better places and those stories must be told as well.  Music is about truth in life.  The real truth.  Fictional or Non- Fictional.” 

 Bryan has carried one and only one poem in his mind since he read it in English class as an adolescent.  It is Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and it ends like this. . .Two roads diverged in a wood, and I. . .I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.