Meet Brad Thompson of Brad Thompson & The Undulating Band in Fort Worth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Thompson.

Brad, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
By high school, I had already discovered the guitar. I was playing acoustic and electric in several groups and also playing solo. I was drawn to artists like James Taylor and Simon & Garfunkel – songwriter, folksy types. But also rock bands like Rush and Van Halen too. Van Halen was my first concert by the way. Lied to my parents and went to Reunion Arena (R.I.P.) when I was 15!! I also went through a huge Beatles’ phase around that time. Got into vinyl pretty heavy and spent a lot of time at Forever Young Records in Grand Prairie.

By the age of 18, I enrolled in the music program at UNT in Denton. I was involved in the a cappella choir and classical guitar ensemble up there. It was amazing and overwhelming. Sight reading, ear training, it was so challenging, unfortunately, I did not graduate but I do feel like I learned a lot. By the late 80’s and early 90’s I was getting pretty heavily involved in the songwriter scene around Texas, places like The Hop in Fort Worth, Poor David’s Pub and Club Dada in Dallas, and Kerrville Folk Festival all had so much going on.

By 1992 I decided to form a band – my band that still exists to this day albeit with more than a few personnel changes. 🙂 We recorded a couple of CD’s and hit the road playing the Southeast, Rockies and West Coast mainly, and of course Texas. We had a blast, met a ton of musicians, probably made a little bit of money, and saw a lot of beautiful places. Bt the year 2000 we were all married and had children so we decided to concentrate our efforts on playing locally or regionally at least. The thought of being gone for two months or more at a time just wasn’t as appealing as it used to be.

Has it been a smooth road?
Not a smooth road! (surprise, right?!?). Luckily I have developed a strong work ethic and I attribute that to my parents. That alone is probably the greatest, single factor in pulling off a career as a musician. I never stop. There’s a mountain of opportunity and possibility out there if you just remain relentless in your pursuit. Also, I try to be nice and fair to every single person I ever encounter. That goes a long way. Sorry, that’s not really a story about a particular struggle of mine but this is… True story. The early nineties, we’re touring the West Coast as a trio with our friend A.J, who we’ve “employed” as our driver, soundman, merch guy and roadie. Our drummer Rich Stitzel gets a bit of bad news from back home. His wife’s car has just been totaled. She’s fine but she’s without a car and he’s 1,400 miles away.

Now there are insurance, car rentals, and mechanics to deal with and he’s doing all of this before there were cell phones! Then his wallet is stolen. Everything – I.D., credit cards, social security card… everything. That same night our bassist, Aden Bubeck, accidentally knocks over his bass guitar and snaps the headstock right off of it. That same week I had booked us in a club that I’ll just say wasn’t a good fit for us. This was before the internet. If I wanted to book a gig in San Francisco I would call up a few friends of mine in the area that were in the music industry and just get a few names and numbers and go for it. If they would promise us a decent guarantee on a night that worked with our routing I’d book it. Sometimes it just wasn’t a good fit. The club canceled the show – during the show!

We still got paid but at this point, we were feeling dejected, defeated and wondering if touring was still the best idea for us. Just thought of another story. This one might be the weirdest one ever. We were booked for three nights in a town in Arkansas, I don’t remember where. It was a dream for a touring band because it was three solid nights in a smaller market in the middle of the week which could really help you get to your weekend gig in a larger market like say Memphis or Nashville. We had no idea what was in store for us. On the first night, we discover our “opening act” is a traveling male strip show (insert joke here – hard act to follow, for example). It as a rough night, not a good crowd, we played super late, sound was terrible. The next morning we attempted to bail on the gig even though we still owed them two more nights.

We convinced them to front us our pay for the first night and got the heck out of there only to discover I had left my bag in the club which didn’t open until later that afternoon. We waited around town all day until they finally opened, I got my bag and we were out!

I’ve saved the worst part of the story for the last. The band house were we stayed the night was somewhere way up in the hills of Arkansas and right next to our place was a giant animal cage like you’d see in a zoo. Concrete floor, massive bars and inside it was a bear! His name was Toby. They said he was “retired”. Back in the day they had removed all of his teeth and claws and drove him around to the bars in the area in a horse trailer and challenged people to fight him. I am not making this up! $100 to fight him. If you lost, the $100 went into the pile. If you won, you got all the money. We were disgusted, horrified and saddened. We contacted the area SPCA to no avail. Needless to say, we were done with that town.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Brad Thompson & The Undulating Band story. Tell us more about the business.
Live music! I perform solo or with a group, as small as a duo or as large as a nine-piece band with horns, keyboard, singers, the whole shebang. We specialize in special events mainly – festivals, private parties, fundraisers, that sort of thing. I’m most proud of that fact that I run the whole thing. We don’t have an agent although I work with many around the state and the country. I love the grassroots, small business feel that we have.

We have a personal connection with everyone we work for, rather than a corporate kind of feel you get from a lot of the larger bands around town. I think that sets us apart and I believe a lot of the people that book us and hire us are really drawn to us for that reason.

What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
My kids are old enough now to attend our shows and to see what dad really “does for a living”. They see how dedicated the band and I are to performing for people and that we really are invested in playing these great shows.

They see how driven we are and how happy we are to be doing what we do. When they attend a concert or festival or whatever it is we happen to be playing and everything is going well and we’ve made a real connection with the crowd and here we are at the center of all this excitement it really is a proud moment for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://bradthompson.com/
• Phone: 817.909.3329
• Email: brad@bradthompson.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/bradthompsonfw/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BradThompsonMusic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/bradthompsonftw
• Other: https://vimeo.com/bradthompsonfw

Image Credit:
Kate Pease, Cowtown Paparazzi, Wes Sutton

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