Photo via The Waco Brothers - wacobrothers.net
The Waco Brothers
The Waco Brothers
Nearly three years ago, the Waco Brothers’ Dean Schlabowske left Milwaukee for Lafayette, Louisiana. The Muskego native and his long-running alt-country band return to the city this Friday for their first performance at the Vivarium.
Schlabowske says he and his Texas-born wife, Jo Waltson, formerly of the Meat Purveyors, had moved from Austin, Texas, to Milwaukee to fulfill several purposes, but they always planned to get back South. Lafayette turned out to be a perfect fit for them.
A New Town
“Lafayette had the unique combination of being incredibly cheap real estate and an incredibly vibrant music and arts community, so it seemed like a natural choice for us,” Schlabowske says. “The remodeling of the rundown shack we bought will probably be a 10-year project because it’s just me doing all the work. But we’ve really been thrilled by how we have been accepted by the music community here. It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful place to live.”
They have especially enjoyed becoming part of a music scene as lively as Lafayette, which Schlabowske calls a “hotbed of world-class music.” He estimates 75 to 100 music venues within his parish, with shows, primarily Cajun and zydeco, frequently every day of the week.
“It’s a pretty amazing little community,” Schlabowske says. “It’s one of the few areas of the country where this kind of long music tradition has been maintained, and it’s still a huge part of everyone’s social life. Everyone goes out to dance here.”
As a duo, Schlabowske and Waltson delivered an ace self-titled debut last year as Deano & Jo. He says living in Lafayette most definitely influenced the direction, especially the danceability, of the album. “It was basically, well, if we didn’t do something that people could two-step or waltz to, we’d maybe get three, four gigs a year,” he says. “You kind of have to play stuff that people can dance to, to play more often than that. You can form your arty band and do weirdo music like I’ve done my whole life, but you’re just not going to get those real regular opportunities to play.”
Two New Albums
In addition to the Deano & Jo album, the Waco Brothers also released a new album in 2023, the fierce The Men That God Forgot. Both releases came out on the Wacos’ newly formed Plenty Tuff Records. It was their first full-length album for a label other than Bloodshot Records, which the Chicago-born band called home for more than 20 years.
Starting in 2019, Bloodshot Records’ future seemed cloudy amid sexual harassment allegations by musician Lydia Loveless followed by news of an internal audit that revealed the label had shortchanged its artists and songwriters by not making proper royalty payments. The label was sold to Exceleration Music in 2021, but the Waco Brothers decided to head out on their own instead of trying their luck with the new owners.
Plenty Tuff
“We decided we wanted to go in a different direction,” Schlabowske says. “We were lucky enough that, unlike a lot of other bands on the label, since we had started so early with Bloodshot, the only deal with them was a handshake, so we owned all our back catalog. Bloodshot was a thing that stemmed from Chicago relationships, and those relationships kept going for 20 years or however long it was, which was an eternity in the record world. It just wasn’t going to be the same thing started over with a new bunch of people that we didn’t really know.”
Schlabowske says what he misses most about Bloodshot is the power of its publicity staff to spread the word about the Waco Brothers. “It’s something the truly independent artist has to learn to deal with,” he says.” How do you get those interviews? How do you get those reviews? How do you get radio play and all that sort of stuff without these people who do it and do a really good job at it.”
The Waco Brothers play Friday, July 5 at the Vivarium with Jon Langford and Alice Spencer of the Bright Shiners opening. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8.
