Rocky Randall

I have always considered myself to be a guitarist first, but I also do lead and harmony vocals. Through the years I have experimented with other instruments as a way to "broaden my musical horizons". I switched to bass for a while and have learned a little harmonica, keyboards, and currently I am working on banjo. It's a lot of fun to play around with other instruments but my main focus will always be guitar.

I wrote my first song back around 1970. It's a little rock and roll shuffle called "Sugar and Spice".  We still play the song from time to time and may include it on a future CD. After that I wrote a few other tunes but until Garry Spradlin, Jack Stephenson and I formed SRS during the 80's, I never really concentrated on just the song writing aspect of my music.

During my high school years I played guitar in the stage band and choir. I also formed a rock band called Third Spectrum with a couple of my buddies. We played at parties and weekend dances around Jacksboro and the North Texas area.  After high school I attended Weatherford College. I signed up for stage band and choir.  It was at this time that I met L.E. Scott. It seems that we both had signed up for stage band so we wound up sharing the guitar playing duties. It wasn’t long before we were getting together with Jack Stephenson and Earl Musick for some “river bottom” jam sessions.  I also met Garry Spradlin and Holley Warren at this time and Garry and I wrote a couple of songs together. 

After a year at Weatherford I ended up back in Jacksboro. I met a bassist and drummer from a neighboring town and we formed a band called Foxhall. We played at parties and clubs from Fort Worth to Ranger but mostly around the Mineral Wells and Possum Kingdom Lake areas. After the break-up of Foxhall, I moved back to Weatherford and Garry Spradlin and I formed a band called Clear Fork. For the usual assortment of reasons this band was short-lived and after this band dissolved I just “went solo” until the formation of SRS (and eventually The Brazos Brothers).

After the completion of the Harmony Road CD, I think we (The Brazos Brothers) will probably
start doing some live performances in order to support and promote the CD. We still have enough material for at least two more CD’s and that’s in addition to about a dozen tunes that we recorded analog at Rockhouse Studio before the upgrade to digital format. I think that we can add some additional tracks and do some re-mixing and have another CD ready for release in a short period of time.

I never set out to be a songwriter. It just seems that when I sit down to play or practice, inevitably some new lick or riff just “pops out”. Sometimes I just file it away in the memory banks and sometimes I will take bits and pieces and try and fit them together.  With me it’s almost always the music that happens first. I know that’s a bit backward for proper song writing technique so that explains why I am far more productive as a writer when collaborating with someone that is a little more lyrically oriented. I think that I got into song writing because I just hated trying to learn copy tunes “note-for-note”. I describe this as “playing from the heart instead of the head”. When we work up a newly written original tune, each member of the group is free to interpret and develop his part without bounds or limits. I think this approach keeps the music fun and exciting.  Although I have done lots of live performances with previous bands, with the formation of SRS the focus of the music became the  writing more than the performance of the music. We still played at parties and local festivals on occasion, even did a live local radio spot, but our focus remained the writing. After Garry Spradlin left SRS to pursue other interests, L.E. Scott joined Jack Stephenson and I and we evolved into The Brazos Brothers.

We added additional vocal support in the person of Holley Warren. I think that this really helped our sound as it allowed us to have a much fuller sound. We all knew that after we finished the Harmony Road CD, we would have to do some live performances. 

Because the drum tracks on the CD were computer generated, we now found ourselves in need of
a drummer. We brought in Mason Wallis who had played with Jack and L.E. in the “Second Nature Band”.  We are currently rehearsing with Mason on drums and will soon be able to fulfill the live performance need. Both Holley and Mason are very talented individuals and we hope to increase the amount of their contribution on future CD projects.

My musical influences reach way back to the early days of rock and roll and the list just keeps growing.  My earliest  influence would have to be Buddy Holly. I remember as a kid singing along with my sisters’ copy of “Peggy Sue” and how sad it was when he died. I think that I connected with Buddy partly because of the music he played and partly because I learned that we had the same birthday (Sept 7).  Without a doubt The Beatles were my main influence as far as wanting to play in a band.  I was also heavily influenced by many of the bands of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Among my favorites were Moby Grape, The Byrds, Steppenwolf, and of course Hendrix. I was a big fan of Led Zepplin, Cream, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. 

I think more than the bands as a whole, I was  influenced more by the guitar players. Because of my varied musical background, I have several favorite guitar players all with their own individual style. My all-time favorite guitarist is Eric Clapton, no explanation necessary. I was also influenced by Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, Johnny Winter, and Billy Gibbons. I am also a big fan of Mark Knopfler, Leo Kottke and some of the younger guys like Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Eric Johnson.  As for listening to music, I can (and do) listen to just about any kind of music as long as it is good. I still listen to the “old stuff” from my LP collection as well as newer groups like Fastball, Spin Doctors, and Hootie and the Blowfish. I also listen to a lot of the newer country artists like Garth Brooks,Rodney Crowell, Travis Tritt, Marty Stuart, and Brooks and Dunn. I would kill (figuratively speaking) to be able to sing tenor like Vince Gill.

The weirdest experience that I can recall while performing on stage was when SRS played at a General Granbury Day a few years back. Somehow the schedule got a bit off so we were delayed about an hour and a half past our scheduled appearance time. We  took the stage and got started on our set and had gotten about half way through when we heard a huge commotion. We looked up  to find outhouses on wheels racing by in front of the stage.  It seems that the outhouse race just couldn’t wait until we finished our set. I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go !  We just finished the song that we were playing, said goodnight, and packed it in.

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