Kevin Fowler makes music for people who like their country real, raw and rough. He could polish it like a stone until it no longer resembled the original, but why mess with a good thing, when the original is all you need? He has proven his theory in Texas, where his live concerts have taken on epic proportions. It is not an uncommon site to see clubs all over Texas packed to the rafters; girls and boys in cowboy hats and wranglers two stepping next to the mosh pit, where college boys in khakis and college girls in Juicy Couture are pressed up against the stage. They are there to sing along with Fowler originals like “Beer, Bait and Ammo,” “The Lord Loves The Drinkin’ Man” and “Speak of the Devil.” Kevin Fowler has figured it out—keep it real, and they will come, no matter who “they” are.
Since Texas can no longer contain him, Fowler is ready to bring his music to the rest of America via the Equity Music Group and his first national release, Loose, Loud & Crazy, scheduled to street August 3, 2004. The first single from the CD is a Fowler penned song called “Ain’t Drinkin’ Anymore,” a tongue in cheek anthem sure to strike a chord with beer drinkers everywhere. The CD also features a special guest appearance by Fowler’s buddy Mark Chesnutt, on the aptly titled “Political Incorrectness.”
Loose, Loud & Crazy will be Fowler’s fourth release, the first three – Beer, Bait and Ammo, High on the Hog and Live at Billy Bob’s all self-released and extremely successful in Texas. The debut CD alone sold more than 30,000 copies in Texas. Collectively he has sold in excess of 75,000 copies of his first three albums.
Explaining his appeal, Fowler modestly explains, “I make music for young working class country music fans: pickup driving, Wrangler wearing, everyday working folks like me. We also get a lot of college students and families. I’ll take ‘em all.”
Fowler is proof positive that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. He was raised in Amarillo in the heart of West Texas on a diet of hard country at home and on the radio. At 20 he headed to Los Angeles to study music at the Guitar Institute of Technology, where he discovered he had a knack for songwriting as well as guitar playing.
He returned to Texas a year later, settling in Austin. He gained his initial major league musical experience playing guitar in Dangerous Toys, a Texas hard rock band that recorded two albums for Columbia Records (one of them certified gold) and who were an MTV staple in the late 80’s and early 90’s. With a growing catalog of songs, Fowler started his own hard-edged Southern rock band—Thunderfoot – after his stint with Dangerous Toys.
But once something takes root in you, it’s hard to shake. Fowler couldn’t escape his West Texas youth. “All I was writing were country songs,” he recalls with a laugh. So in 1998, he put together a country band and landed a weekly residency on Tuesday nights on Austin’s legendary Sixth Street. Over the course of a few years, Fowler went from a handful of fans to packing the clubs and dancehalls across Texas.
“We’re just a bunch of every day Joes making music for regular folks,” says Fowler, who lives in the outskirts of Austin on his “little three acres of Texas.” He is unapologetic about his music, remaining true to the spirit of the country music he grew up on—Waylon and Willie, Merle and Billy Joe Shaver. “They wrote songs for the everyday working man, and that’s what you’ll find here.”
