The reason there are so many great country musicians that have come out of Texas? Well, because most of them were cursed with the decision that they were never going to do anything else with their lives. They’ve got stories they want to tell, so whether it leaves them just about penniless – and trust that’s the outcome for plenty – they’re going to pack up their guitar and find an audience that wants to hear those stories.
The music industry has more pitfalls than your typical job, to say the least, and the business is only consolidating, usually leaving promotional efforts entirely on the shoulders of the artist. In other words, it’s hard out here for an honest cowboy.
Cody Hogan is here to help. The owner of CH Lonestar Promo (PPAI 747616, Standard-Base) lives on a 2,500-acre ranch in Aubrey, Texas. “Cows, horses, the whole shindig.” Texas country music has always been woven into the fabric of life for him, played in the background of horse tracks, bars and venues.
It was in getting to know some of those hardscrabble Texas poets who were bitten by music’s calling when he started to see just how much of a struggle it was for some of them to make a living.
“I thought I knew how I could help, so I got into the merchandise business, and now we’re 30 employees in, and we help hundreds of musicians all over the country,” Hogan says.
Cody Hogan
Owner, CH Lonestar Promotions
CH Lonestar Promotions handles band merch in any variety of offerings, including laser engraving, screen printing and custom artwork. That might mean bulk orders for musicians to take on the road or individual orders directly to fans.
Hogan started working with small artists, and that’s all he ever really needed to do, hoping the Texas music ecosystem would support these artists and eventually a few of them were bound to burst out into greater success. In the case of CH Lonestar Promotions, that dam broke with Red Clay Strays and Treaty Oak Revival.
“That was a breakthrough,” Hogan remembers. “Then they both went to the moon. We’re still working with them today.”
- CH Lonestar’s extensive roster of regular musician collaborators is listed on its website.
- That list doesn’t include some of the bigger names who have done one-off promotions with the distributors: country music stars like Ashley McBryde and Morgan Wade.
‘Texans Are Very Loyal To Their Musicans’
If you ask Hogan what draws him to Texas country music, it’s the songwriting that sets it apart from the stuff they make up in Nashville.
“It’s actually about a true story,” Hogan says. “It’s about lifestyle. It’s not about just writing a song that sounds good or to get a hit.”
Of course, a hit certainly comes along every once in a while. Ella Langley may not be from Texas, but her chart-topping megahit, “Choosin’ Texas,” traffics in a little bit of that Texas country cred that Hogan is making merch for. These artists aren’t usually overnight successes, though.
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“It’s a little bit more of that road warrior type in Texas,” Hogan says. “Like, you really got to grind it out – where in Nashville, you can just have a hit, or anywhere else, you can just have a hit and rocket launch.”
Part of grinding it out is having some sort of general infrastructure that allows you to survive and keep going. There are dozens and dozens of Texas legends who have made careers touring mostly just within their own state, working the same cities and bars and venues for years, eventually working out a good living.
“It’s its own economy,” Hogan says of Texas. “100%. Texans are very loyal to their musicians.”
If Texans are willing to support their musicians, not having merch to sell them is a missed opportunity.
But if Texas country music is most associated with anything, it’s the Outlaw movement. Back in the early seventies, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and a cohort of other talented, country artists with rebellious streaks were sick of giant Nashville record labels telling them how and when to make their music. Searching for creative freedom, they decamped to Texas and over the next decade recorded some of the most influential music in the genre’s history.
There are facts and myths built into the Outlaw movement, but the reputation has stuck around for over 50 years. To this day, many Texas musicians, not only in country music but even in genres such as hip hop, take pride in being free of major labels. That, of course, comes with a tradeoff: creative freedom but no financial support.
“I would say that probably 80% of the business we do is probably with independent artists,” Hogan says. “We have their backs.”
Full-Service For The Musicians
To say an independent musician, or any musician for that matter, needs someone watching their back, would be an understatement. As the music business has consolidated, the simple financials are working against artists. In the streaming era, actually making a decent profit off of music is extremely difficult for anyone but the biggest stars in the world. Most musicians rely on touring to make money, but even that is a tough ask for a certain class of artists as fewer people are willing to leave their houses when they are more than happy to stay at home and stream television or movies rather than see live music.
A musician’s ability to reach their fans and give those fans an opportunity to support them is absolutely crucial. CH Lonestar provides that. Beyond just typical merch, like band shirts or patches, the firm will press CDs and vinyl records for musicians, so that they can distribute physical music at shows or directly to fans without having to go through a record label.
“For a lot of musicians, they’re not just the musicians,” Hogan says. “They’re the banker. They’re the driver. They’re the merch guy. With them juggling all that, we’re always getting the phone calls at the last second. We’re able to pull that off. For better or worse, we try to always say yes. We have built a one-stop shop.”
The next step is the most exciting.
If CH Lonestar is already providing the merch and that merch already includes CDs and vinyl records, then the logical next move is helping the musicians record the music. You guessed it. Hogan is in the process of building a 2,800 square-foot recording studio on the property so his stable or artists can record music.
A branded merch company that is truly a one-stop shop for maintaining a music career.
