Houston based band Shallowater are hitting the road this summer touring their new album God's Gonna Give You a Million Dollars. The three piece band's first stop was here at the WYSO studios to perform live on Midday Music.
Shallowater is part of a rising genre known as "dirtgaze" which fuses the reverb drenched sound of shoegaze with the earthy, rustic feel of Americana. During the pandemic, the band found their sound together in isolation.
"In West Texas, if you leave the city where we're from in Lubbock, it's six hours away from the nearest big city." said bassist Tristan Kelly. "So it's really isolated out there and if you wanna go do something, you have to drive for so long. I wanted to capture the landscape and just that feeling of like monotony almost. You kind of give into it and it becomes something beautiful."
After forming the band and pandemic restrictions lifted, Shallowater decided to move to Houston. They've all made friends in the music scene and are finding their way around, but the opportunities to perform in Houston are a little scarce says Kelley.
"I think it's just tough for bands to get a foothold out there because there's not really too many mid-level venues at all. There's the Live Nation-run giant 500 cap rooms or there's 40 cap rooms in a place you don't want to go. There's dedicated punk venues and the hardcore scene's thriving out there. But if you're doing like indie rock or country or really anything else you have to go play like millennial brewery bars that don't like you that much."
