They walk among you; they sit next to you in class. They work next to you and spend their days like anyone else. However, when the lights go out and the drumbeat starts, independent musicians conquer the urban areas of Dallas.
Over the past few decades, Dallas has built a formidable local music scene that often goes overlooked. Buried underneath the bright skyline of the city, music can often be heard spilling out of the doors on Greenville Avenue, rolling down Mockingbird Lane, flooding Deep Ellum and branching to all parts of the city.
From all four corners of Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton, independent musicians are on the scene waiting for their chance to make it.
Daniel Hopkins, a member of the band Radiant, is a veteran of the Dallas music scene.
“Any big city is going to have a lot of local musicians. Some cities have more of a cool factor and are pumping out cool music. Others don’t know what cool is,” he said.
Hopkins said that Dallas has a “cool snob factor and really good musicians are very critical of their music. Bands are coming out with great art, not just pop.”
The drawback to this is that, as Hopkins explained, “Music industry is not an art driven industry. Music is an art form, but things that sell big are easy-listening, accessible stuff.”
Jeff Taylor, Doug Hale and Richard Carpenter are three members from the band Air Review and they see things differently.
“Music’s not supported here as it is in other cities,” Taylor said.
He felt that Dallas is not necessarily a music scene in comparison with New York, Los Angeles or even Seattle. Hale said, with regard to Deep Ellum, that it was a chicken or the egg situation.
“Either the music stopped and the people stopped coming, or the people stopped coming and the music stopped too,” Hale said.
They all agree, however, that the music in Dallas has improved a great deal.
The goals of many local bands have changed. The desire to get signed and make it big has been replaced by a desire to just make good music.
“The best music comes when people are trying to create something good just because they have to,” Hopkins said.
For bands, one of the greatest driving forces is getting signed and making it big; seeing their names in bright lights and seeing the faces of cheering fans would be a thrill almost unequaled.
“When we started, our goal was to get signed,” Hopkins said. “Getting signed is not the end all, be all. The ultimate goal is creating something new and creating something you love, and you want to do that in the environment that suits you best.”
The members of Air Review feel that “if you want to live off your music, you have to make it big.”
According to Hale, “Our goal is to be able to support ourselves through our music.”
“In the Bible, it says that a prophet’s not listened to in his hometown,” Carpenter said, explaining that it is sometimes necessary to leave Dallas to make it big. This aptly describes the people searching for a voice amidst the screaming.
In the hustle and bustle of Dallas, the Granada stands as a bastion for independent musicians.
“For the last five years, we’ve been a proponent of the local scene by booking local bands and picking local bands to lead big names,” according to Nate Binford, a spokesman for the Granada.
“Especially recently, Dallas has grown into a haven for musicians,” he said. “There is a great history of independent musicians from Denton, Dallas and Fort Worth.”
The reason for the draw to local music, according to Binford, is, “They maintain more control over their music, and it brings it back to local support.”
The Granada’s goal is to get the local bands in front of people.
No matter what happens in the next decade or so, come recession, hell or the highest of waters, independent musicians of Dallas will still kick, scream or hammer away at the rock to chisel out their own place in this urban wasteland.