We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lonnie Treviño Jr a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lonnie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your business and how did you resolve those issues?

It’s a familiar story, really. It’s a story as old as 4 years ago.

A little back story; Since 2011 The South Austin Moonlighters’ north star was to get The Band to Europe, The Iberian Peninsula, and The UK where Americana Texas music, more importantly Austin Texas Americana Music, is adored, dare I say, perhaps even more that in Texas itself.

The Band was on a real upward trajectory to our goal as a successful touring and recording act. Imagine if you will in 2019 releasing our 4th studio album produced by well respected singer song writer Anders Osborne, being on a new up and coming record label named StationHouse Records, having a number 1 album on the Alternative Country Charts for a week, having a number 11 single for 4 days on the same chart, and finally booking a festival in London England with four dates through Europe and ending in a festival in Spain to perform with Los Lobos. We were finally reaching our north star goal we had been working on for eight years. Then the world shuts down in March of 2020 with no real idea of when we would, if ever, get back to work. In the middle of all this confusion a founding member and key singer song writer announces his departure from the band to marry his fiancé and settle down from touring life. Plus our booking agent saw the writing on the wall and dropped the band in favor of more Cover band acts and tribute acts. We couldn’t blame them. Tribute Acts generate Millions of dollars for a booking agent, and we weren’t sure when we would get back to the numbers we generated before 2019. This was a huge blow to the band and obviously the business. The 3 remaining members of the band had to take a real hard look at our situation and determine whether or not we all still wanted to proceed with the Band with the knowledge that there was a real good possibility we would be starting all over again. We had to find the joy in working again, and why we started the band in the first place. When you first start a band you are not thinking in business terms, but as you move up the ladder it becomes inevitable.
With venues closing left and right from the strain of the Pandemic it was apparent we were losing our place in the “touring music world” line having to prove our worth again even though our numbers looked amazingly well on paper. And even though we were a part of the prestigious Central Texas Touring Roster we found ourselves vying for the same real estate on venue calendars as every other touring bands including higher level touring acts who were now taking up to three squares in a venue calendar to assure that they would sell out a venue and charge for higher ticket prices. Where we were once a 6 figure earning band we were lucky if we could clear 4 figures after the Pandemic. It was looking bleak. The good news was we were not alone. The bad news was… we were not alone. It had become “Dog Eat Dog” in the Touring world. So in order to compete we would need a new release in order to generate some interest and momentum to earn back our place in line.

With a fresh new band member in tow we reached out to our fans, friends, and families to raise money to begin work on our 5th studio album. With a successful crowd funding campaign completed we began work in the studio with Grammy Award winning producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos on our 2023 release “From Here To Home”. Our former record label still reeling from the financial loss of the pandemic politely passed on the album and gave us their blessing to release it on our own. The release would be late June of 2023 and it just so happened that every other Americana act released a “Pandemic Record” all at the same time so our album got lost in the shuffle. We had a few successful radio campaigns here and there, but without a proper booking agent it proved to be very difficult to get to the markets that were spinning our music. We had to bite the bullet and whittle down the band to the two primary song writers to do a Radio Tour to promote the new album. The other two had to find other work for that summer hoping that when we returned this radio campaign tour would be a success. It did indeed work, and got us back on the map in the Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Colorado areas generating successful tours to close out 2023.

And now in 2024 we have continued to persevere working these markets to generate income to get back to where we were prior to 2020. We have again made contact with a German Record Distributor, BlueRose Records, and a German Promotion agent, Stahl Entertainment, to work on a two week European tour in March of 2025. Our trajectory is back to pointing upward, but the climb is a bit more steep this time around. It’s a challenge we welcome. It’s just another hurdle we have to overcome in order to be a successful Touring Business Band again. The South Austin Moonlighters will persevere.

Lonnie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The South Austin Moonlighters are a four piece True Americana Band from Austin Texas that was formed in 2011 in the world famous venue The Saxon Pub in South Austin Texas. With four part harmonies SAM often get compared to The Eagles and CSN&Y, but musically the band is often compared to the band Little Feat as well as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. With Song Writing in the forefront the band sets itself apart from other original Central Texas Bands with beautifully written songs that leave the listener wanting more.

How’d you meet your business partner?

In 2013 we lost a founding member of the band who decided to move back to northern California and we needed to find a good replacement for this new vacant seat. I got up on a Sunday morning with a newly acquired old Tube TV that I gladly accepted from a friend who was upgrading to a new flat screen TV. After setting it up with “Rabbit Ear” antenna I came upon a local TV show called Song Writers Across Texas and featured was a Guitarist Song Writer named Chris Beall. I had met Chris back in 2009 at a Church we both worked at and attended. I reached out to Chris telling him about our very young and newly successful Band, and the business model we had been working towards. He though about it for a while and decided to be my partner in the venture. Once Chris joined The South Austin Moonlighters it legitimized the band as a viable force to be reckoned with vocally and in the song writing department. Which upped the song writing game of the other primary song writers, which led to our successful 2016 Album release “Ghost of a Small Town.” This album got massive Airplay on Texas Radio the next two years.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Still to this day the tried and true method of advertisement for a Touring Band is “Word of Mouth”. Even when spending money on advertising on Social Media, Radio, Publications, Google Ads, etc., the method that still generates the best results is word of mouth.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thesouthaustinmoonlighters.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samoonlighters/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southaustinmoonlighters
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSAMoonlighters
• Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/bookthemoon

Image Credits

All photos by Mark Del Castillo