Today we’d like to introduce you to Dana Chavez and Korey Manuel.
Hi Dana and Korey, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My husband and I met through my boss, his aunt, at the foster care/adoption agency I worked at in San Antonio. I was new to the city (graduated college at TWU in Denton) and had joined a rock band to meet new people. Korey was a gigging musician working through the emotional toll of a recent divorce. Several months passed before Korey asked me out on a date one Tuesday night in late August. That night began the rest of our musical and romantic path and for 11 years we have been inseparable. We were in different bands at the time when a light bulb went off that we should be playing together, at least on the side. When our acoustic duo took off, I quit working for the foster care agency and went a full-time musician like Korey. We hustled in order to pay the rent and in 2014 finally decided to write our own material and give our acoustic duo a proper name, Kerosene Drifters. We were married in a small-ish DIY wedding in my mom’s park-like backyard in north Texas on October 1, 2016. I learned how to run a small business (being an independent artist) through research, trial, and error, and receiving tips from anyone who was kind enough to lend a hand. Korey upped his social media game with research and advice from people like Dennis Gelbaum of ramp it up entertainment. Our self-titled EP released May 2017 with the help of a few great friends. It was very much a budget project but we were so proud and excited, and looking back we were so green. That release gave birth to a hunger for more, for bigger shows and bigger ideas. Discovering ourselves and our voices helped us realize the music that moved us, which allowed for more meaningful songwriting and interesting lines. Knowing the direction, we wanted our music to go, we took an enormous leap of faith, left our home and the city that built us, and moved to north Texas with the intention of expanding our brand to the wide variety of the DFW market and traveling regionally. My family is in north Texas and they have been gracious enough to care for our dog and two cats while we’re away, as well as being some of our biggest cheerleaders. We couldn’t do this without them.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
“That’s a complex question,” Korey said. Being independent artists means we do everything ourselves in a business that is always changing. We’ve adjusted what to do, what not to do, and what’s the new way to reach people in a world where everyone is inundated with stimuli at every moment. Each of us have had challenges as well. It took Korey a few years to heal from his divorce but out of it came a man who matured, loves deeply, always thinks of those he cares for first and a has great respect for me and what we’ve built. I’ve had to learn to be good with who I am, to grow thick skin, and to appreciate the emotion that I feel in order to write about it. Running a business, being creatives and performers as well as being together 24/7, we’ve had our ups and downs as a couple, as I imagine most couples would. Sometimes we don’t agree on the direction a song should take, the way our time is spent during the day, personal matters between two married people, and ridiculous arguments that occur from having the multi-faceted relationship of marriage, business partners, bandmates, and best friends. We chose to see a marriage counselor a couple of years ago. It helped us realize how the other person needed us to communicate, when to give space, and to not take frustrations personally. We’ve had to learn to trust one another and trust our instincts, especially when we left everything – our comforts, our home, our friends in order to pursue this passion without a safety net. We knew we had to go all in. We have to give it our absolute best shot each day or else there will always be some excuse as to why it didn’t work out.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We label our musical genre as “Drifter Rock” because we drift in and out of rock, blues, and country a bit more than just a subtle influence. Our co-producer on this new album, J.R. Castillo, likens us to Fleetwood Mac as he says although our songs don’t resemble one another, we always sound like us. That sound has taken many years to pinpoint through blood, sweat, and tears. I’d say what we’re most known for is our teamwork. Kerosene Drifters can be an acoustic duo on steroids or it can be a full 5-piece band. The root is always Korey and me singing and playing, and our harmonies are haunting. We’re very yin and yang. Korey is strong where I’m weak and vice versa. I write a good amount of our songs and Korey really makes the music come to life. He handles the social media aspect of the business and I perform the administrative tasks. We’ve had points of pride over the years. The fun and weird music video we made for “Barb’s Wired” from the first album that placed Top 3 the entire first season of “The One – Indie Music Battle” on REELZ was pretty awesome. Our pride and joy at the moment is our new full-length album “The Gun Announced Go” and the three singles we have released from it so far, “Redemption”, “Bad Mojo”, and “Oh Gloria”. Those singles are spinning on national radio and international internet radio currently. We spent a lot of time and resources on this album and got many talented people involved. We wanted to create something that told a story from start to finish like the albums we grew up listening to. Our music is known for being fun, bold, and heartfelt. We strive to be the band you go to listen to and have an experience. It’s music with fire and soul.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I tell every creative person, every entrepreneur, every person who seems stuck in some way in life, to read “The War of Art” by Steven Press field. I’ll order several and keep them on hand to give away. That is one book I’ve read and re-read and will continue to do so because it is such a great kick in the ass when you’re not motivated or feeling lost. It’s the first in a series of three including “Turning Pro” and “Do the Work”, all of which are easy quick reads. He also has “Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t” and I just discovered another called “The Artist’s Journey”, which I will now need to buy. There’s an app called Blinkist that features one book each day to give a 10-minute rundown of, all of the non-fiction variety. It can sometimes be a subtle reminder of what the universe needs me to hear that day. We also watch a lot of live recordings on YouTube of bands we admire to gain insight as to how we can make our show and our music better or for inspiration to remind us why we fell in love with music in the first place.
Pricing:
- T-shirts, Ladies’ Tanks – $20
- Koozies – $5
- CD – $8
Contact Info:
- Email: info@kerosenedrifters.com
- Website: https://kerosenedrifters.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/kerosene_drifters
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/kerosenedriftersrock
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/KeroseneDrifter
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/KeroseneDrifters
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kerosenedrifters
Image Credits
Ken Maxwell
Alba Fernandez
Lonia Photography
Jessica Waffles
Bruce Davis
