Rising Stars: Meet True Lawton

Today we’d like to introduce you to True Lawton.

Hi True, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have been a musician since I was about ten years old. I quit college a year early and moved to New York City to play music full time. After several years playing in some of the iconic underground rock n’ roll clubs, we followed our then bass player to Austin, TX in search of cheaper living conditions and a better reception to our unique style: Avant garde southern rock. Throughout those years, I came to realize truly how difficult it was to prioritize music and art as the main theme of my existence. I am fortunate that throughout my childhood, I was forced to learn some hard skills as a painter, carpenter, and all-around hustler. My family is full of small business owners and tradespeople and there wasn’t a summer that went by without me having to hold a hammer or a paintbrush. These skills were about the only thing that got me through the feast and famine artist lifestyle. When you’re going out on tour for 2-3 weeks, then returning and hoping to do it again in a month or two it’s very difficult to hold down a “regular” job. Craigslist hustling, word of mouth, and even chance Home Depot connections kept a roof over my head and food on the table. As I hit my mid-twenties, it was apparent that I needed to have tried to hone my skills into some sort of a career heading. Although my band wasn’t failing, it was easy to see that our brand of heavy, crazy blues didn’t necessarily have mass appeal. I found myself working as a carpenter and production worker for large events. I was able to flex my creative muscle by designing and building custom event furniture, backdrops, and props while continuing to push my music forward. Finding the world of film, music, and event production was a big win for me as it seemed to include the type of people I wanted to work with as well as a familiar type of work. 

As I began to crest 30 years, I found the landscape of my world much different. The band, Diesel and Dixie, reached some local notoriety, but our combined directions seemed to rub in a way that none of us enjoyed much anymore. We had made a real run of it though. Opening for the Toadies at Stubbs to just over 2k people, doing some extensive touring, and recording some killer music felt like the right place to close the chapter on Diesel and Dixie and begin to wonder what the next was. It was at this time that I had one of the most dramatic shifts in my life. The day we were clearing out the rehearsal space the other guitar player and I were tossing out an old glass tabletop and in one of life’s inexplicable ironies the glass table broke as it was going into the dumpster. A large piece (about the size of a car window) somehow found its way to slicing through the top of my left arm just above the wrist. If the cold panic in my gut didn’t tell me I was in trouble then the significant blood and lack of mobility of my left hand certainly did. As the surgeon explained to me that seven of my extensor tendons had been completely severed and I would need “many months” of extensive physical therapy in order to use that hand again. The curious question of Music’s role in my life now had some serious weight behind it. The subsequent several months were so challenging. I could no longer fulfill my duties at the film and TV rental house I was managing, showering and brushing my teeth became a battle, and for the first time in my life I had accrued a debt so large it looked insurmountable. This entire tragedy seemed to hang on my choice around how serious I would treat my recovery. Music had once again inserted itself into my life in such a demanding way. I had a choice: If I chose to go back to the things I used to do, I would surely re-injure my arm, or at the very least render my fine motor skills forever impaired. If I did nothing, I would surely become a sad song heard many times before. I chose to take my recovery seriously and also chose to strive for a bigger professional existence. 

Through a “jamming buddy” I found a job as an event manager for a local concert production company. As I healed and grew away from using brute strength to make a living I became a full-fledged concert and event producer. I found a specialization in throwing concerts and parties for private, corporate, and non-profit clients. Over the next several years, I saw some of the most exciting professional growth of my life. In one year, I clocked in over 70 concerts for awesome Austin and national brands such as: Black Fret, Boys and Girls Club of Austin, Dell, Deloitte, Kids In A New Groove, and many more. At this same time, I began to find my next artistic endeavor too! Instead of a traditional band, I created a music-based podcast where awesome musicians come on and tell you their musical story and are made to make up the episode’s theme music right on the spot! NO REHEARSING! I was growing as a musician by getting to play with some of Austin’s top musical talent that I was able to tap from my new success as a premiere concert producer. I found a wonderful partner, Mel, who I was married to in 2018, and started doing some of the biggest concerts and events I had ever done. In 2019 specifically, I produced 2000+ person block party in Austin’s premiere retail zone: The Domain Northside all the while helping plan a 17 band award gala at ACL Live Moody Theater. 2020 looked like it was going to be on fire! 

As it went for a lot of people all over the world, the financial landscape changed dramatically between February and March of 2020. For me, I had over $100k of work go away in a matter of three days! The owner of the company that I had so loyally (and happily) helped build over the past three years tearfully told me that there was no way to support my salary since ALL of our clients had pulled ALL of our events for 2020. The rest of the pandemic year was a nail-biting roller coaster of hustling my way into odd jobs, scraping by to make rent and bills, and a whole lot of self-doubt and self-loathing. It was really hard for me to understand that everyone was going through this same turn of events. On the fourth of July 2020, I found myself working as a beekeeper’s assistant and mechanic (both jobs I had no professional experience in prior to the pandemic) and spending all of my “free money” on alcohol. I was so bummed and upset that my career and podcast were just sitting dead in the water. With the help of my incredible partner, friends, and AA proper I was able to end a long time struggle with alcohol addiction in my life. At the time of writing this, I am currently 245 days without alcohol, but who’s counting. I began to see a lot more opportunity around me as well as a lot more of my fellow musicians and industry professionals who were living in very much the same peril. It was at this point I decided to go back to being a Handyman. In October of 2020, I put one social media post and emailed about 100 homeowners in my contact list and received two months of work within 14 days. Every single person I talked to had the exact same story: I can’t find a reliable handyman.

During one large remodel (a make-ready for sale) the sellers deadline was dangerously close and as I scrambled to find qualified painters to assist me with the project, I found that it was truly hard to find skilled laborers who would return a phone call. What I did find was a bunch of local Austin musicians and industry professionals that were pleading with me to let them prove themselves as quality helpers. It was at this point that I really started to see that I was standing in between two big pools of resources that were begging to be connected. In November of 2020, The Handyband Collective was born. It was already getting bigger than I could handle on my own. The idea was simple. Trusted experienced, musician, handy-people with apprentices under them. A way to learn some hard skills that fit a tried and true artisan pathway. Several old bandmates and lifelong carpenters were immediately brought on to help with the workload. We began to find apprentices that wanted to find a better work life for themselves and began to deliver a service that continued to be hard to find: A reliable Handyman (person). The big shift came when local Austin news organization KXAN found us and ran a Christmas story on our business. We received almost 200 job submissions in a matter of one week after that story broke. We had everything from: Come clean our gutters to remodel our bathroom. It was apparent that we had to step up to the plate and make this loose band of rockers and crooners into a real-life company. I began to use my connections as a concert producer to seek the council of some of Austin’s best business and marketing minds. I was beginning to see the long-reaching implications of a national whole in the marketplace. After bringing on John Paul Dingens (my right-hand man at the more than 150 concerts we threw together) and David Ventura Garcia (Fellow Austin music podcaster and construction industry veteran) to become the very first Handyband “Booking Agents” we finally began to churn through the jobs sitting in the inbox.

In 2021 so far, we’ve paid out over $23k dollars to local musicians and industry professionals and have grown from True to almost 12 part-time contractors. There was still this nagging feeling that we should be putting more people to work. We still had about 35-40 tryouts that we hadn’t been able to put to work. I went back to the drawing board and restructured our job pipeline to include “Roadies!” We can certainly pay 10-20 Roadies $15/hr to call clients and ask for details and photos of the work needing to be done. That seemed like an easy win to start putting the green handy-people on the beginning of an employment path with The Handyband Collective. We’re so excited about this next phase of existence. It looks like 4 – 5 “Handybands” (work crews), 3-4 “Booking Agents”, and a whole fleet of totally green “Roadies” churning through all of Austin’s to-do lists. The most common story of one of our clients is that they have us out for a small project, fall in love with our communication, professionalism, and crews then sick us on everything else that has been bugging them on their list. In April of 2021, we’ll be hanging out in an open air park, cooking food, and giving out awards to our team members at our first all hands meeting. My goal for this company is that everyone, customers and contractors alike, will say: this is the coolest company I’ve ever worked with. I really feel that’s within our grasp. With awards like: Safest M-F’er in the Bunch, Best Janky Conversion, and Best Handyband Name we’ll be giving out local art with gift cards to mom and pop music stores and tools to those in the Collective. That’ll be an awesome moment. It’ll feel like we’ve made it through phase one of the business and we can really tighten into phase 2 – WORLD DOMINATION!

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?
We’ve had all sorts of challenges. The first being our ability to do more than one job at a time. Then it was having too many jobs for us to keep track of. We’ve found out that the construction industry has a real problem with how they hire and cover their workers as well as the learning curve for people stepping into the gig economy and knowing that they are responsible for their own taxes. The biggest challenge for us has been taking the client’s tasks and accurately estimating the time it will take to do the projects. With our mission, helping musicians step into this kind of work, sometimes we’re faster than other crews and sometimes we’re slower. We’ve had to adapt an entirely unique business model to be able to deliver a consistently dependable product while also be delivering on our mission.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your art. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I have been playing guitar since I was ten years old. Much to my parent’s worry, I felt that my lot in life was to show the world how awesome heavy, soul-crushing, ear-splitting, and blistering rock and roll is. I started a progressive hard-hitting southern rock band with a fellow bible-thumped redneck Adam Brady when I was 20 years old. We used to drive 2 hours to each other’s homes to try and practice, we moved to New York City to try and make a name for ourselves, and eventually found some notoriety in Austin, TX where our music hit home a bit more than our previous haunts. Dubbed Diesel and Dixie, we wrote songs about being a drunk sailor during the turn of the 20th century, the classic rivalry between the Hatfields and McCoy’s, and even a song about how old school truck drivers used the Georgian hills to clock in at over 100 mph. We felt that we had a strange place being born in the stubborn south while being people that were trying to find the progressive path into the future. I learned so much about America, music, southern culture (for good and for bad), and myself in the nearly ten years that I played in Diesel and Dixie.

There are countless stories from the studio or the road that warm my heart as well as make my sides hurt with laughter. Although I was never the “cover song musician” I have found a pathway for art creation in my music. That endeavor ended and gave way to my current musical art project: The Soundwizard Podcast. We invite musicians onto the podcast, ask them about their path as a musician, and make them improv-jam that episodes theme music. Each episode has original conversation and music from that artist and The Soundwizard house band. We’ve had local Austin artists such as: Trouble In the Streets, Moving Panoramas, Mobley, Jeff Plankenhorn, Cowboy Diplomacy, AJ Vincent, and Valen (forever). It’s an in depth look at real musicians where you get to see what the music sounds like when you trap a bunch of talented musicians in a studio and force them to play based on suggestions such as: “Those fresh new mars tunes!”

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Number one with a bullet is my dear friend John Paul Dingens. At a time where I had just taken on a 25 event concert series for killer Austin-based non-profit Black Fret, I was in desperate need of a Production Manager. Production Manager being the one in charge of the execution of the Producers plan for a live event. It’s a tremendously stressful job that needs someone who can solve complicated technical and sometimes emotional problems on the fly while still looking good doing it. I met john paul at a 250 person college party at a place called “The Pink Palace” in the west campus area. I had been asked to fill in as a bass player to a college aged funk cover band. There were several bands, tons of artsy lights and “experiences” going on, as well as a TON of kids tunneling through this four story Victorian Pink Palace in the heart of UT’s residential district. I was so impressed with how well the DIY concert part of this party was going. I was met at the driveway by a 6-foot tall handsome man who looked like he should be carrying a barrel of beer over his shoulder. He helped carry gear, got the band their favorite beverages, explained away our fears around a time delay, and even told a party-goer to stop bringing down the vibe. I thought to myself: “This guy must do this for a living, he’d be perfect as my PM.” As I yelled over the house music asking him if he did this type of thing for a living and what experience he had doing professional concerts he stared at me and asked: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, do we have a problem or something!” That was an amazingly beautiful and honestly tense moment. I handed him my fancy “Concert Producer” card and told him that we had the opposite of a problem. The next morning I got a very well-written email from what would then be someone I worked with for the next three years. John Paul is fearlessly honest, incredibly loving, and as Hunter S. Thompson puts it: an original design. There are a bunch of people that have helped me along the way aside from John Paul. I wouldn’t be anywhere if it wasn’t for my incredible partner Mel, our first “Tour Manager” David Ventura Garcia, a bunch of personal mentors and my Handyband Team leads: Olin Roth and Richard Earnest. Really the Handyband Collective is nothing without each and every member involved.

Pricing:

• A Handyband (2ppl) is billed at $80/hr with a 2 hour minimum
• We book specialists (Electricians, Plumbers, Cabinetry Professionals) at $90/hr
• Very simple pricing plan: Labor Time + Materials = Cost

Contact Info:

• Email: atxhandyband@gmail.com
• Website: www.handybandcollective.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atxhandyband/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/handybandcollective
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/atxhandyband

Image Credits
Ryan Hannasch – Logo’s