Dustin Perkins — a brand new day

Originally printed in the Sherman Herald Democrat, Friday, 1/21/11 issue

Howard Strause and his grandson, Dustin Perkins

Mary Jane Farmer

For Dustin Perkins, the stroke of midnight ending 2010 and beginning 2011 marked his era of new beginnings.

Perkins has been making music for nearly a decade, since his mother, Sandy Perkins, first took him to a T-Bones open mic night when he was 15 years old. Until mid-2010, he generally played solos and open mics and was content but not satiated with the musical path he was traveling.

It all changed directions for him in about March or April. Even Dustin has a hard time remembering exactly when the doors started swinging open for him. It was after a Tuesday night solo gig in which Dustin opened for one of his idols, Zane Williams, when an area radio personality, Brett Dillon, answered Dustin’s question, ‘How did I do?’ with his own advice. Dillon told him, Dustin said, that he needed a CD and he needed a band, and when he had those, he would be on his way.

One of Perkins’ self-penned songs is called “Take That Advice,” and although that song is about another area of life, Perkins took that advice to heart. Within six weeks, he had a CD and a band, and Dillon seems to have been right. Dustin Perkins and his band are on their way.

Music is in Perkins’ blood. His mother turned down Nashville, he said, in favor of raising her family; and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins up North play music and have for a long time. His grandfather, Howard Strause, put two songs on 45-rpm records in the mid-50s. Both later became hits for Eddy Arnold and Patsy Cline and have since been recorded many times. But when Strause recorded them, they were unknown. “Seven Lonely Days” and “I Really Don’t Want To Know” received considerable radio play in those Northern states.

“My grandpa was 24 years old when he recorded those,” Perkins said after spending an evening at his grandparents’ house in Sherman. “I want to show you what I had on the radio,” Strause told his grandson. “We sat down and listened.” Dustin said the 45 record had come from the juke box in a cafe, and it was worn and so scratchy in places as to have been almost inaudible, but Dustin said he sat in awe listening to his grandfather. “It was, well, wow. I didn’t know that part of his life. To actually hear that record tonight, I know music has got to be in the blood and it’s bred into me.”

Strause had another copy of the record, Dustin said, but he gave it to a relative to be played at a wedding and never saw it again. He also has several copies of the song on 8-track tapes.

Strause was, at the time of that double-sided recording, the same age that Dustin is now, 24.

Changes in Perkins’ life in the past month alone have been dramatic and could be called ‘never dull,’ similar to the name of the professional management company he and the band have signed with, Nvrdul LLC.  The management company is Fort-Worth based and led by Carri P. Hyde. Details of their one-year contract are, of course, between the two entities, but Perkins said that the band has promised them a professional job.

Dustin Perkins and Colton Gilbreath

One of the first hurdles was having to classify The Dustin Perkins Band’s music in a genre. Were they going to be considered country, rock, or any of the various other classifications that would make marketing them a bit simpler, but may not completely describe them.

“We are classified as ‘country,’ although not mainstream country,” Perkins said. “The band is solid now, and at some point, we might add a fiddle,” he smiled.

The band, Colton Gilbreath on lead guitar, Nathan Brown on drums, and Jason (Fuzzy) Smith on bass, and Dustin on rhythm guitar, is eager to hit the road, to tour. “The biggest step is going from being a weekend warrior, bar band to becoming a professional act,” Perkins said. To that end, the band is performing non-stop at their shows, and investing in equipment that not only sounds more professional, but also looks that way.

Dustin Perkins, 12/31/10

“We’re all so different that it works. We’ll all just from different ends of the musical spectrum,” Dustin said. “Nathan is punk rock, Colton is a Beatles fan, Fuzzy is a Gary P. Nunn fan, and I’m in the middle. We talk about our music and we think it’s all a little bit of all those styles put together.”

He said that band practices are “cool. Everybody throws out an idea. Colton wants a pause here, Fuzzy may like the first and the last of the song, and Nathan has his own ideas. This way, we can take a cover tune and make it completely our own. And when we take, maybe, a new song of mine, it may turn out completely different from when I wrote it, and it’s a mixture of all the two-cents worth everybody has thrown in.”

On 1/1/11, Dustin and his fiancee, Jacy, got hitched in a surprise wedding, one they kept under their hats until about an hour into their “engagement” party, when they got the attention of those gathered and said something like, “This is really our wedding day.”

Jacy said about being the wife of a musician, “I’m just a back-seat supporter, a fan. I would have been a fan even if we had never met.” The new Mrs. Perkins is not threatened, she said, about what some women would consider a formidable opponent, her husband’s musical passion and the possibility it could turn into a major, time-consuming career.

“She wants me to go on and do this, and that’s one of the reasons we went ahead and got married,” Dustin said. “All of my friends have helped us, my family, and now Jacy.”

Also a major change in Dustin’s life, one made solely for the purpose of moving toward a completely professional career, is that he gave up his full-time job as a lineman for Oncor.

Having a management company will help the band with its logistics, i.e. hotel arrangements, merchandise, website management, and booking. “It’s a lot of the business I’m learning now. It is business, not just music, and I enjoy that, but at the same time with a management company, the band can concentrate on it as a job, and not as a hobby,” Perkins said.

Light, smoke, and heighth, all from one box

Nvrdul will possibly be working with Perkins on some changes to his CD, “I Wrote You A Song.” The first release off that CD, “Brand New Day,” has received considerable radio airplay, and there are others on it that could be heard, including that original, “Take That Advice.” The changes in the records might include, he said, making full-band productions out of the ones now produced as solo or acoustic recordings.

“Everything I have done in my life, when I’ve gotten something done, it’s been by backing my way into a corner and fighting my way out of it. I can either make this work or find myself back at home, starting over again. But at least I will have tried,” Perkins said. “A lot of people have said they respect what I am doing, that I am living my dream. Even if we walk back here flat broke, we can hold our heads up and say we are better people because of it all.”

Dustin added, “We want to be the best we can possibly be and have the most success.”

The Dustin Perkins Band is opening Saturday night for the Eli Young Band at Outlawz in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

Category: *- Features