Brandon Michael will perform at this year’s Freedom Fiesta at Central Park in Seguin on Saturday, June, 29th. Michael is a 2015 graduate of Seguin High School. He currently lives in Magnolia with his wife Bailey, his daughter Whitley, who is turning three next month, and his son Jaxon, who turned one in April. We recently caught up with Brandon and talked about his career, his family and his upcoming concert at Freedom Fiesta.
Q: What’s your schedule like right now? Are you playing a lot of gigs?
A: Yeah, we’ve been all over the place. I’ve been playing at Cowboys Dancehall there in San Antonio off and on about every other week. I’ve also had some shows in College Station, League City, here in Magnolia where I currently live. We’ve played The Rustic up in Dallas and the Fort Worth Stockyards.
Q: Talk about your musical background. What are your music tastes? What and who do you like to listen to when you’re not performing?
A: When I’m not performing, Cody Johnson. Cody Johnson, Randall King, Mike Ryan, Josh Ward and then you have your obvious ones like George Strait, Keith Whitley and all that stuff. I like some of the new guys, but if I only had three artists to listen to for the rest of my life, it’s Mike Ryan, Randall King and Cody Johnson in no particular order.
Q: When you’re up on stage at Freedom Fiesta or any stage for that matter, how do you connect with the audience when you’re performing and what do you hope they take away from your show?
A: Whenever I’m on stage, I try to connect to everybody. It doesn’t matter if they’re little babies or 80 years old. I try to make sure that everyone feels connected to the music or at least engaged with me because I’ve got little babies. If there’s little kids, sometimes I’ll play “Baby Shark” at my show, you never know. But I’ll always try and make sure that everyone’s engaged and that I talk to everybody. And whenever I take a break or the show’s over, I always try to walk around and shake hands and make sure everybody’s enjoying the show because if it weren’t for the fans and everybody out in the crowd, I wouldn’t have a job.
Q: You talked about Cody Johnson, Mike Ryan and Randall King, those guys have made a name for themselves in recent years. When you were growing up in Seguin, who were the artists who made you want to be a musician and how did they shape your sound?
A.: So the first song that I ever sang in front of anybody ever was in Kingsbury at a firefighters benefit with a guy named Clint Taft and the Buck Wild Band. I’m sure you all know who Clint Taft is, And the first song I ever sang was “Neon” by Chris Young. And I was like, 16 at the time, and that was my first time ever singing in front of people. I was so nervous at the time. You could’ve blinked at me and I would’ve fallen over. That was long before my official career started, but yeah Chris Young, George Strait, Sawyer Brown, Keith Whitley, Conway Twitty, that’s the stuff that I grew up listening to, Clay Walker. That’s what I remember as a kid.
Q: Talk about your band. When they’re up on stage with you, what do they bring to the show?
A. I try to make sure that my band is as active as I am in the best way that I can possibly get them to be (laughs). I understand my band’s job is a lot harder than mine is down to my drummer, my lead guitar player, my sound engineer. Their jobs are so technical. As much as I try to get them to jump around and have fun, I also want to make sure they’re being as meticulous as possible. And that’s always good and bad because everyone wants fun, entertaining bands complete with gimmicks that are unique. But one thing that I try to make sure is that if you’re gonna hear something on stage, it’s gonna be as perfect as possible. And we still have a lot of growing to do as does everybody.
Q: Talk to us about your family and the support they give you in your music career.
A. For my immediate family in terms of my babies and my wife, I get all the support. (Michael asks his daughter Whitley, “Do you love when Daddy sings?” Whitley says “Yes.”) So obviously, my oldest, she’s named after the late, great Keith Whitley, she supports me and will sing on stage with me when I can bring her. And then my sisters and their husbands support my music. And it took a long time for the rest of my family to kinda really support me, but yeah, we’re working on that one. And just like anything else, your family doesn’t understand it’s a full-time job until they see you doing it on your own.
Q: Do you have any upcoming projects or collaborations in the works?
A. I have a song that I’m finishing up right now that nobody’s involved in in terms of co-writing, but it is a song basically for my family. I don’t have a name for it yet, but I will figure something out. It’s a song about how I’ve got to leave all the time to go play shows. And no matter what I gotta do, I’m gonna make sure that I miss my family. It’s a ballad type song. And I’ve got an entire album’s worth of music that hasn’t been released yet. We had a project we were working on before COVID that didn’t pan out the way I wanted it to. So, I’m just looking for the backing to get the album put out and done properly. And I’ve got songs that were written with one of my best friends Luke Prather. He’s from La Vernia. I’m excited to put out a song he wrote. But it’s a full-time job. A lot of people like to think that all your job consists of is hopping on stage, jumping around and singing a few songs. It’s a full-time job and a half. So, we’re constantly working.
Q: You say you have a full-time job in music. What were you doing before you stepped into music full-time and what made you decide to take that step?
A: Well, I actually have never had a real job in my life. That’s what my parents would say (laughs). Back when I was in high school I worked at Freiheit Country Store for two weeks over in New Braunfels. In Seguin, I worked for Brian Underwood at his ranch down the road from my house in high school. When I graduated in 2015, I decided to go to Texas State for about half a year and then I decided I could already make money doing something I love. It’s not about the money, but every business has to make something somehow. So, I was in college and decided it’s not for me and decided to go straight into music and it grew from there.
Q: Do you have any advice for anyone who is looking to do what you do?
A: My advice would be, be firm but be honest and love what you do. Because if you don’t love what you do then you have no point in doing it. And definitely don’t lie. Do not try and burn bridges. Sometimes it’s unavoidable because you can’t make everybody happy, but be as honest as you possibly can, always. And always talk to your crowd. Always, always, always. It doesn’t matter if there’s five, 5000 or 5-hundred thousand, if you can walk around and shake hands, do it.
Q: How excited are you to be playing Freedom Fiesta?
A: Really excited, actually. I grew up in Seguin. I graduated (from Seguin High School). So, Seguin’s my hometown. It’ll be fun to finally play right down from where everything started, where I first picked up the guitar. It will be good to finally play for everybody that was there in the beginning. •