Rob Baird’s face has two basic expressions: one, like the cover of his CD sampler, has blue eyes pointed down, head turned away from the camera and dusty-colored hair falling from its place above his forehead. The other, seen often in person, has eyes lighted with laughter, a cowboy grin and either arms cradling a guitar or fingers gripping a scotch. But when we first met, his boyish good looks shined off a fresh face unfamiliar to shyness or scotch. Now, the scruff has matured, along with the music.
Joining the hoards of independent musicians, all reaching for a shot at stardom in dusky all-night dives, Rob moved from Fort Worth’s horned frog nation to Austin’s city limits in May 2009.
Scene and Heard
The music scene in Austin is built for underground, independent, eclectic types. There are nearly 200 live music venues in the city, ranging from big ticket stadiums to hole in the walls where local bands and solo unknowns shine.
The nightlife and the daily culture of Austin are made for music. A simple Google search of “Austin music scene” yields three official pages dedicated to the local melody. “We’re a Musician’s Town” the city’s website reads.
And a music lover’s, too. Any night of the week, you can’t walk five minutes without stumbling upon a live show. One such venue is Saxon’s Pub—a place where Rob often finds himself, citing the “good vibe” as a reason he keeps coming back. The good vibes in other places he performs keep him coming back, too: “One of my favorite performances recently was opening for the Eli Young Band. It was great to be back in Memphis.” Not only that, but he was performing inches away from a band he used to dream of becoming, waiting around after shows as a youth in hopes of placing a demo in someone important’s hands. “I was handing them a CD when I was 18,” he said, “and now I got to open for them in my hometown.”
. . .Kiss Your Mama Goodbye
Before making the move from Fort Worth to Austin, Rob was faced with the challenge of leaving his home of Memphis, Tennessee—born and raised. Rob arrived in Fort Worth to attend Texas Christian University for ranch management because “I’d grown up around ranches all my life.” Even with the previous exposure to cowboy culture, adjusting to life in Texas wasn’t without its shocks: “Memphis is old-school southern. Texas is big, bold southern.” He cited the infamous Don’t Mess with Texas bumper stickers as part of that new attitude.
Texas worked its wonders on him eventually, becoming the home of his first band. Rob started playing instruments at eight years old when his dad bought him a starter guitar. “I used to mess around with the neighborhood kids,” he recalled. They played blues, jam band stuff and pretty much anything they could think to strum or pump their fingers to. Rob emphasized in his humble manner “We had no idea what we were doing.” The real exposure began at TCU where he garnered a local following for his college band.
Whiskey and Riches
The idea for an ensemble started in the winter of 2006. “I played alone at The Aardvark and made a ridiculous amount of money,” he said and he remembered thinking this could go somewhere. “I came back two weeks later with a full band,” a band that would come to be known as Rob Baird and the Whiskey Reunion. Again, Rob humbly admits: “We had no idea what we were doing,” said almost like an underhanded self-compliment. “We made a record. Somehow we got it on iTunes, which was amazing, and we booked shows and we toured around,” but everyone had different goals and no one seemed as serious as Rob.
“I wanted to be a musician from day one.”
Star of the Show
Before his move to Austin, Rob’s music career was more casual and only as intense as the college scene could muster. “Cooking definitely would have been a more stable job,” he reflected when asked about his other career options. But when the stars align and someone asked him to play music for the big man, he didn’t look back.
After returning home from study abroad in Scotland in the summer of 2008, Rob spent the rest of his vacation in Memphis, all the while knowing his college band couldn’t be relied upon as a serious venture. Through a friend he was introduced to the man who eventually became his boss: Travis Hill. Travis asked Rob to drive up to Nashville and share some songs. As a successful songwriter and co-owner of Carnival Records, Travis was no doubt a busy man. “I’m so grateful he took interest in a young guy,” Rob said.
Carnival is no small name for the country genre. In October 2009, they celebrated their ninth number one hit with Billy Currington’s “People are Crazy.” The company’s music has appeared on the CW show One Tree Hill and artists like Kenny Chesney, the Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill have recorded songs by Carnival writers.
Rob and Travis kept in touch that summer. By October, Travis’s pace had slowed enough to ask the aspiring musician to come to Nashville and write music with him. When school let out for fall break, Rob accepted Travis’s invitation. Along with music, he walked away with a career plan tight enough to fit in his back pocket.
Sip of Sweet Liquor
Of his music writing process, Rob says there’s really no method to the madness. “I try to keep my mind open. When you write with new people you try to learn something new from them.” As is true with most artists, when there’s a formula, they run the risk of not being able to produce anything new. That’s definitely not where any artist wants to find themselves, but that doesn’t keep them from citing influences.
“I’m a huge Tom Petty fan,” Rob said. “His deeper stuff, too. Not just the hits.” In performance, Rob looks to Bruce Springsteen. Another is Whiskeytown, Grammy-winner Ryan Adams’ first band and one of Rob’s favorites. In style and in taste, he always “[goes] back to that kind of stuff.”
The setting for songwriting varies with the situation. The new self-titled record was written on a three-month stint in Lockhart, Texas. “The barbeque capital,” Rob said out of habit. Then, “No. Wait—what am I saying? I’m from Memphis!” But the mix-up is understandable considering Lockhart touts itself as the Barbeque Capital of Texas. Still, Rob’s all-time favorite barbeque joint is back in the city of blues: Central BBQ. And one in Texas? The Salt Lick in Dripping Springs.
On other occasions, particularly as a staff songwriter for Carnival, Rob finds himself in the sterile writing studios of Nashville. Or in the “office slash studio thing” attached to his house. “I write a lot of stuff that ends up in the trash—at least 80%.” The moments of greatest inspiration seem to come from the most peculiar location: “It’s weird, but I write a lot of stuff in the kitchen. . . Close to the refrigerator where the booze is.” Coincidence? Maybe. But anyone could understand how a sip of sweet liquor couldn’t hurt to get the blood flowing and the heart ready.
. . . Just Enough Money to Get the Job Done
In effort to commit to music, Rob changed his major from ranch management to entrepreneurial management. “After making good money doing music I thought it would be better to learn business to manage my career.” The skills and knowledge he gained from his degree have kept Rob from being a sitting duck, every day waiting for financial ruin—the typical path of unseasoned musicians. “A lot of people throw a record out there and hope it gets discovered, but we’ve spent a lot of time developing a marketing plan and a tour schedule.”
Currently, Rob’s schedule takes him across Texas from Lubbock to Amarillo to New Braunfels—satisfying old fans, serenading new ones, and promoting the upcoming record, which releases May 4. “The first single pushes to Texas radio January 11,” he says like clockwork, the scam of a shameless self-starter. And the show always goes on, whether he doesn’t feels well, a crazy driver cuts him off on the way, or his neighbor’s dog is trying to break into his house on a rainy Tuesday night.
. . . Can’t Stay Here If I Want to Stay Sane
With plan in pocket, Rob took the first step to realizing the dream: recording a record. He knew that any future record deal was contingent upon company executives liking a finished product so he set out to produce it. Rob and six other guys spent three months, on and off, in a rental house, living together, cooking together, and writing together. By March, eleven songs were ready to show off and once Carnival heard them, the deal was his.
Rob’s move to the music capital of Texas was dominated by the record deal. “It’s a lot easier to play and tour in Texas. Nashville’s not a bad place, but in Texas there are so many venues, a huge radio market and lots of audiences. It makes more sense to be here and start off here.” About once a month, Rob is in Nashville anyway, whether dealing with record business or writing one of the 12 songs per year his contract requires.
Comparatively, Nashville’s consumer scene is more pure country. Rob describes his style as classic, alternative country at best and Texas Country at worst. “I wouldn’t describe my music as Texas Country—we got labeled that way.” True to his nonchalantly humble style, Rob adds: “I don’t care as long as people like the music.” As compared with Fort Worth, Austin has a buzz. “It’s more trafficky. A different scene.” According to Rob, Fort Worth has a small town feel, something Austin doesn’t have at all. And that might be why Rob misses it—enough to admit he sees himself back here one day. In Fort Worth, people know people. “You go to a restaurant and you know the waiter,” he says. You walk on the street and you recognize a friend.
It’s that same social comfort that’s helped Rob adjust to life in Austin: “People have been what’s helped. I’ve made good friends and hooked up with the music scene. My sister helps keep me grounded and not only thinking about music.”
More than any disparities the cities could offer, it’s Rob’s attitude that’s different this time around. “Music is pretty much all I do. And I feed myself. And I do daily chores,” but 85% of time is spent on music. In Fort Worth, Rob was a student, where he had to be self-motivated, with school, work, socializing. But pursuing a music career is “self-motivation to a whole other degree.”
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In his nostalgic tune “Fade Away,” (download) Rob sings of escaping the expected, chasing the big city lights and struggling not to rust up and crumble to pieces. As the pump organ, circa 1920, cradles the melody and the drum beat picks up, Rob strains to tell us—and the token trapped girl of every country song—how badly we need to get out. And it works.
I see myself in a two-door with the top down, all the belongings I care to keep thrown in the back, and my problems behind me. They sit like an old book I threw out the window, pages left to flap wildly in the strong wind that is my dust. For listeners, the important part of the song is the past we leave behind. For Rob, the important part is the future that lies ahead.
Frank Liddell, music producer and owner of Carnival Music, acknowledges the buzz brewing over Rob. “We spoke with him for five minutes and knew he was special. Then I listened to the music.” After that, he knew: “this is gonna be a long ride.”
