We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brad Springs. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brad below.
Brad, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
To be known as a live music venue owner that actually gives new artists a launching pad to bigger venues and wider audiences.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I got into this industry basically due to a love of live music growing up. Not just the music, but the whole live“show” of it all. In my early teens (over 40 years ago) I would spend hours building miniature stages using old strands of Christmas lights that I cut apart stuck into the end of short pieces of drinking straws and wrapped in electrical tape and engineered into different sets of spot lighting wired through toy keyboards so that when different keys were pressed different sets/colors of lighting effects would light up the mini stage.. That evolved into moving parts (at that point I didn’t know the correct term) but in essence lighting trusses that all the lights attached to that would move into different positions using motors I’d Rob out of old cassette players, and then came pyrotechnics using canned butane used to fill lighters. It’s a wonder I didn’t burn the house down! I’d turn off all the lights in my bedroom, put on my favorite songs and choreographed my own shows. All this before I had even attended my first live concert. Then at around 16 or so, I attended my first concert, AC/DC, and I was really hooked. But growing up in a small town in Central Texas there just wasn’t a clear path to even know how to begin pursuing that so I joined the military right out of High School and kinda forgot about it. Still attending concerts along the way obviously but without any real goal of that as a career. After leaving the military, by chance really, I went to work in a resort in the maintenance department. The resort happened to have a small club that had live music on occasion but wasn’t really trying to be a live music venue and really wasn’t making much profit. So a partner and I went to the resort owners, rented the club and turned it into an actual live music venue that was pretty successful. After about 5 years of that and hundreds of shows, I had learned to run sound, book and schedule bands, make posters and promote shows. All before social media I might add. The resort eventually sold to new owners who were not interested in us keeping it going with our format so that was the end of that. I went on from that to being a talent buyer for several small Austin music venues, working as a sound engineer for SXSW as well as production for several small music festivals across Central Texas for the next 5 years or so. The live music industry is a hard business to make a living in though so I was splitting my time working as an electrician and HVAC technician at the same time and that eventually became what financially supported paying the bills. So I took about 10 years off from the music business until this latest venture came along. Around 10 years ago I reconnected with the bar manager of my first venue in the Austin area who had moved back home after college to RIchardson. We started talking on Facebook, then visiting in person, then dating and eventually getting married. So I moved a few hours North on I35 and continued working HVAC here. Along the way we discussed opening up a venue again but really didn’t pursue it until I suffered a back injury that sidelined my ability to continue in the HVAC.field. At that point we started looking more seriously at it and eventually opened Six Springs Tavern in RIchardson that will be celebrating it’s 5th anniversary in Oct. 2022. In that time we have hosted Grammy winners, Grammy nominees, numerous #1 and Top 10 Billboard charting artists, numerous finalists from American Idol and The Voice and hope to keep going strong. We were named as one of the Top 100 clubs in DFW by Dallas Observer in both 2021 and 2022.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I think the biggest indication of our resilience is surviving the Covid-19 on and off shut downs. Just never giving up on it when it would have been so easy for us to be disheartened and give up. But somehow we made it through. And I attribute that primarily to the performers that stuck in and fought through it with us, they were also going through the same situation we were where their livelihood was affected. And obviously to all our customers, the fans, that come out to the shows and appreciate what we are trying to accomplish here
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
Again, Covid 19 could have been the kiss of death for us here, and was for a great many not only live music venues but bars and restaurants too. We didn’t get much in the way of grants through all this, and in fact couldn’t even file for unemployment ourselves as the owners because we hadn’t actually paid ourselves in several years. Luckily our employees for the most part have stuck through it with us like the family that we have become. There were plenty times where making ends meet was a great concern but some way some how we squeezed by. and it was usually because at just the right time we’d have a show that would sell out and we’d have a packed house to get us to the next time we’d have to squeeze by. And it’s still an issue today but not near what it was a year ago. Slowly but surely the touring acts are starting to tour again, the fans are feeling safer about attending public events again. We are far from where we were pre Covid 19, but at least there’s a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sixspringslive.com
- Instagram: @six.springs.tavern
- Facebook: www.facebook/sixspringslive
- Twitter: @sixspringslive