Fueled by the rebellious sounds of the Truckers, emblematic of the lawless nature of the Wild West, a 13-year-old Price knew he had to get his hands on a Gibson SG one day. He craved to create the same screeching strums that coursed through his veins. After trials and tribulations, a degree in geology from the University of Texas at Austin, a stint at a lumber mill, a career in environmental science, a jealousy-inducing garden, and three, soon to be four, albums, Price’s teenage dream of owning the high-price axe was fully realized.
“I remember we'd get in the very front on the rail. I just remember it was so loud. All the guitars I play are the ones that I saw at those first shows.”
Price, a San Antonio native but a Dallas transplant, is embracing the revival of Southern rock and waiting for his massive purple poppy flowers to bloom while he does it. The 32-year-old frontman of his eponymous four-person band stays true to the rock-and-roll tradition of sticking it to the man, all while maintaining a serious nine-to-five within the government.
His music and much of his personal philosophy epitomize “y'allternative,” a dumb portmanteau to describe the fusion of alternative rock and country. Price himself takes inspiration from music legends whose legacies are built upon universal acceptance and a distaste for the rules.
“The Grateful Dead and Willie [Nelson] are spiritual guidance for how to make music and be creative and just live a happy life and take care of your community,” he said.
A Renaissance Man
Price loves music. But he is also inspired by nature.
Always an outdoorsman, he was charmed by the men of UT Ausitn’s geology department, by being sold on a not-so-glamorized depiction of life as a student of rock science. “Basically, I knew that I wanted to play music and wanted to work. If I was going to work, then I wanted to do something that was outside and cool,” he said. “[The geology department representatives] were like, ‘Do you like backpacking, and getting drunk, and rock climbing and riding four-wheelers? Then you should be doing this.’ And I got to do all that. It was awesome. They weren't lying.”
While a student, Price honed his musical craft, learning through osmosis, notching up his skill by watching the complex fingerwork of his friend, Fort Worth’s Robert Ellis. After school, Price worked at a lumber mill, which coincidentally served as a collection of creative cultivation, attracting other music-makers and art aficionados.
“We were working together every day,” he said of the mill-men he still calls dear friends. “We would literally just be walking around milling wood, sweating and talking about music. When we were milling, we'd bring the wood into this other room where we had a little speaker, and we would just switch out the same records all day.”
After the mill, he landed in Dallas and now serves on the board of Elmwood Farm, an acre-sized urban farm in North Oak Cliff, and organizes the farm’s annual Passing Through Festival. The all-day festival brings the grungey sounds of Brody Price and similar bands to the soft, mushy, fertile and worm-filled Earth in the utopian corner of the neighborhood.
While full-time music is a pipedream for so many independent artists, Price generally follows the rules set by Texas artist Terry Allen and appreciates the reliability of desk work.
“One of [Allen’s] rules of songwriting is to always have a day job, even if you don't have to…. I don't think about it very much, but my goal in this season of life is to figure out how to live a happy life because it's the one consistent thing that will always be there. If I'm doing music full-time or working a job, I'm still going to be stuck being me.”
The Sound
Acoustic plucks, joined by the nasal melodic cries of Price, are interrupted by the cataclysmic crashes of electrified instrumentalists letting loose. Slow swells, rhythmic ebbs and flows, are jostled by the freedom of making abrasive noise. Price’s music is hi-fi listening, organicism that translates perfectly to the live shows he prioritizes as the pinnacle of his artistry. “We’re chasing the same sound. We know what direction we're going without ever having to [say it]. It's like we don't really know where we're going, but we're in the same car going there… [We] record the way that the band sounds and try to make it as true to what all the instruments sound like as we can and try to not touch anything. I don't think they're necessarily pretty recordings.”
Price's band has played almost every North Texas venue they can, but the band is no stranger to tour life. They take Southern hospitality from coast to coast. This summer, following the release of their third album, they'll embark on another tour hitting up the West Coast.
Price’s music is begrudgingly available on Spotify, a service he willingly admits to hating, sourcing capitalism, and streaming numbers as a “distraction” to the creation of art.
“The idea of doing anything to sell something to me is just the antithesis of making something cool.”
The artist is so opposed to streaming platforms that he doesn't even let all of his band's records be played on most of the online services.
“Spotify sucks, and I will do everything I can to destroy them. So no, they don’t get [all of] my music.”
For eager streamers, all of Price’s music is available on Bandcamp. But Price says most of the band’s fans aren’t blowing out their car speakers blaring his albums, though they certainly could. Instead, the band has a devout following that is mutually appreciative of the live experience.
“Our band is weird. A lot of people don't really care about us. We don't have a big listener base, but people come to our shows. And I think that’s what I would want. All the bands I love are bands that people love because of their shows. We make records to play shows.”
