Bri Bagwell & Austin Plaine

Bri Bagwell:

Texas Female Artist of the Decade, Bri Bagwell, is a force to be reckoned with from her rousingly fun live performances to trailblazing recordings garnering her twelve #1 singles on Texas Country Radio and counting. With multiple Female Vocalist of the Year awards, Bri is making waves with her music drawing national attention. People Magazine raves, “Bagwell increasingly finds her name being mentioned amongst country music truth-tellers such as Ashley McBryde and Morgan Wade.” Her latest album, Corazón y Cabeza (Heart and Head), has already spawned three #1 singles, “Trenches,” “Free Man,” and “Hello Highway,” the latter inspiring her 2023 summer tour across 10 states and Mexico. Performing over 120 shows a year, Bri has shared the stage with a long list of esteemed artists, including Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, Robert Earl Keen, Kacey Musgraves, and Dwight Yoakam. Catch Bri Bagwell live on tour or listen to her latest podcast, ONLY VANS, at www.bribagwell.com.

Austin Plaine:

Like only the most insightful songwriters, Austin Plaine draws intense emotion from the  subtlest moments. On his sophomore album Stratford, the Minnesota-bred, Nashville based musician shapes his lyrical storytelling with both precision and pure feeling,  capturing every nuance of lost love and longing and fractured innocence. And while  Stratford is steeped in a warm nostalgia, Plaine instills each song with a quiet optimism  that speaks to bravely moving forward, even in troubled times.  

Produced by Jay Foote and mixed by Steve Vealey (M. Ward, Phoenix, Hurray for the  Riff Raff) at the legendary Electric Lady Studios, Stratford arrives as the follow-up to  Plaine’s self-titled debut—a 2015 release that earned comparisons to Bob Dylan and  Conor Oberst from Baeble Music. In a departure from that more stripped-down effort,  Plaine assembled a full-fledged band who recorded in an apartment in Brooklyn,  infusing Stratford with a homegrown feel and loose yet kinetic energy.  

Taking its title from the Flatbush street where the album came to life, Stratford offers a  classically arranged take on folk-rock that illuminates the intimacy of Plaine’s vocal work  and the graceful candor of his lyrics. From track to track, the 27-year-old singer/guitarist  reveals a refined sense of songcraft that he partly credits to moving to Nashville from  his hometown of Minneapolis in early 2017. “Being part of a whole community of  songwriters, you realize there’s a lot of different directions you can take a song,” he  says. “It’s really opened me up as a writer, and it’s also helped me to hone in on every  word of every line that I write.”  

With its abundance of indelible images—night trains and the Northern Lights, backyard  camping and drive-in romance—Stratford also bears a richness of detail that hints at the  literary and cinematic influence behind Plaine’s songwriting. “People tend to think my  songs are personal because I sing in the first person, but often it’s very observational for  me,” says Plaine, who names Alexandre Dumas and Henry Miller among his  inspirations. “I’m learning to understand new philosophies of life, love, and death”,  attributing his passion for reading has helped him attain a better sense of his  surroundings.  

Proving the emotional depth of Plaine’s artistry, Stratford opens with the wistful  reminiscence of “Something More” (a steel-guitar-laced track “like a movie I’ve seen  before / way back when / we were something more” sings Plaine in the chorus), then  slips into the bittersweet, burned-but-not-broken ache of “What Kind of Fool” (a  rollicking, country-tinged number co-written with Sixpence None the Richer’s Leigh  Nash and Stephen Wilson). Later, on “Lucky Ones”, Plaine presents a more hopeful  portrait of unconditional love, with singer/songwriter Soren Bryce lending her vocals to the  chorus’s bright and beautiful harmonies. 

While there’s no shortage of delicately rendered love songs on Stratford, Plaine also  brings social commentary to tracks like “Rise Above It” (a soulfully understated anthem  woven with intricate guitar lines, dreamy mellotron tones, and luminous organ  melodies). And on “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” Stratford closes out with a powerful  missive featuring the album’s most urgent vocal delivery (sample lyric: “I wake up every  morning and I see the reddest sun/They’re shooting guns and sending bombs in a war  that isn’t won/And through the lies I do disguise my heart inside my lungs/I live life today  as if tomorrow never comes”). “That song is me showing my frustration with this modern  world, and how we’re so consumed with social media that we tune out what’s happening  right in front of us,” says Plaine. “We get so lost on the screens of our phones instead of  seeing the world for what it is. I’m guilty. I love my iPhone” 

Born in Fargo and raised in Minnesota, Plaine had his first foray into making music upon  finding an old guitar of his grandfather’s in a family closet. By high school he’d started  writing songs, tapping into the timeless sensibilities that still inform his music today.  “My first influences were anything my dad was playing in the pickup truck when I’d go  out on rides with him,” he says. “He’d play Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison and  Neil Young, and that’s what I dug into. Then highschool came and Bright Eyes changed  my life.” During his junior year at the University of Minnesota, Plaine began dedicating  himself more fully to songwriting and playing guitar. After posting several of his songs  online, he headed down to Nashville to record a few tracks with Jordan Schmidt (a  producer/songwriter/engineer known for his work with Florida Georgia Line and Motion  City Soundtrack). A major creative turning point for Plaine, his time in Nashville led to  the making of his debut album and release of “Never Come Back Again”—a  breakthrough single that’s now amassed over 10 million streams on Spotify. 

Although Plaine notes that gaining more life experience in recent years has shifted his  songwriting perspective, his music maintains an unaffected quality that’s deeply  refreshing. “I try really hard not to force songs” he says. “But I am always songbanking  and hopefully one finds the finish line”. As a result of that instinct-driven approach,  Stratford emerges as an emotionally raw album that’s cathartic for both listener and  artist. “It will always be therapy for me,” Plaine points out. “If I get through a whole day  without singing or playing guitar, the day just feels really strange. I don’t think that will  ever change for me.”

Food & Bar: Our full food and drink menu will be available before and during the show.