On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, Grady Don Sandlin walks toward the patio of Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton, forgetting he’s due on stage with country cover band Straight Tequila Night at that exact moment. His kids, 2-year-old Rita and 7-year-old Willie, have kept him and his wife, Jessica, more than a little busy for the first part of the concert.
He talks with us on a rare day off between a month on the road and another gig the next night followed by the band’s East Coast tour the next week. Fleming’s success with Vandoliers has earned him the ability to check off some bucket list items, like opening for Flogging Molly in March and Turnpike Troubadours earlier this month. But with all the excitement of this long-awaited stardom — about seven years in the making — comes the reality that calling in sick, so to speak, isn’t an option .
But kids don’t have to live on this side of the womb to interrupt a mom’s musical ambitions. Jennifer Sturges, a 35-week pregnant music promoter and frontwoman of alt-rock band Ex-Regrets, says she’s still played the same number of shows since getting a baby bump but sits down during band practice these days. “It’s very different when you’re pregnant,” she says.
Before Raised Right Men, Sandlin, who lives in Denton, was out of town, loading up in a van and playing shows as far away as West Texas on a regular basis. “Eventually, this idea came up of, you know, maybe we should start our own thing, and we could stay in town, make money and I could sleep in my own bed. Because that just became more of a priority,” he says.
Slavens’ time with Gus these days is special because he says since his life has slowed down a bit from the early days of Ten Hands, he’s able to spend more time with him. Slavens also has an adult daughter, Maddie, who is a dental assistant. Slavens says he didn’t spend as much time with his daughter during those first years, and he apologizes often to Maddie.
Slavens says: “He’s kind of branching out, and getting into programming synthesizers and writing in pitches and chords and stuff. He works more in the realm of timbre and rhythm and pitches … [But] he’s not like me. He’s not an attention hound. He’s not a theater boy.”Keite Young, frontman for Medicine Man Revival, one of Dallas’ favorite R&B bands, is undoubtedly one of the coolest performers in the city.
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