Friday, March 16   1:00 a.m.
Jovita's   (1617 S 1st St)

Add this to your SXSW Calendar

  Two Hoots and a Holler - Dance Hall Swing
Download   |   Stream

If the band’s name sounds familiar, it should. For more than 20 years, Rick Broussard and company have been hammering out their unique blend of country meets roots rock in every honky-tonk, dance hall and bar from Texas to California to Oslo.

Founded in the early ’80s by Broussard (lead vocals, guitar, head songwriter), Two Hoots and a Holler is rounded out by Brendan Ryan (bass, vocals), Sid Sanchez (guitar) and Scott French (drums, percussion). Together they have made Two Hoots and a Holler one of the best-known bands in Austin, Texas, packing the places they play and leaving their fans fighting for dance floor space. The band has won numerous Austin Music Awards for Best Roots Rock Band and in 2004 and 2005, Rick Broussard was nominated for the Austin Chronicle Hall of Fame.

The local music community fell in love with Broussard when he started coming to Austin from Seguin to play in the Surfin' Cajuns in the early '80s. Fronting his next band, Two Hoots and a Holler, Broussard was sure to be a star. The band’s catchy original songs such as "Blues in the Night," "Step Fast" and "Middle of the Night" defined Monday nights at the Black Cat, where the crowds lined up hours before show time and didn't let up all night. As such, the two hoots and a hot dog era was born.

Two Hoots and a Holler is influenced by everyone from Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash to The Cramps and The Clash to the swampy, Cajun music Broussard heard growing up. While the band can play a mean classic country tune, there’s no denying the effect rock ‘n’ roll has had on them, which led Broussard to once remark, “I’m just a punk rocker in cowboy clothes.”

“The ninth of 10 children of a civil service worker at a San Antonio Air Force base, Broussard grew up idolizing his older brothers, two of whom were the only white members of soul band C.L. and the Teardrops. When drummer brother David, a Vietnam vet, died of a heroin overdose in 1979, it hit Ricky hard.

A year earlier he had a musical epiphany when he saw the Sex Pistols at Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio. "There was a real division between the metalheads and the punks and the local rock stations had been badmouthing the Pistols," Broussard says. "That's when I said 'I'm there.' "Galvanized by the Pistols' swagger in the face of their musical primitiveness, Broussard dropped out of school in the ninth grade and put together the trailer park anarchist punk band 60 Inch Bazookas. But his guitar playing, heavily influenced by Duane Eddy instrumentals, was taking him in a different direction.

In April 2005, Two Hoots and a Holler released Jesse Dayton produced Rick Broussard’s Two Hoots and a Holler on Stag Records. This CD is a collection of choice original songs including newly recorded versions of Broussard classics such as “Blue Texas Northern” and “Step Fast”. The CD also includes the band’s first recorded cover of their staple live guitar instrumental “Sukiyaki”.

In March 2006, Rick and the band released Songs Our Vinyl Taught Us Volume II carrying on the tradition of Songs Our Vinyl Taught Us Volume I, which was released in October 2004 on Freedom Records. These albums are “full of infectious original songs that they always perform live along with obscure cover songs – covers that deserved to be committed to record” – Michael Corcoran; Austin American Statesman

Additionally, Two Hoots have three previous albums; Shadow Man, No Man’s Land and Angels Cry and Counted Sorrows.