Watch This: Robert Earl Keen’s Road Retirement Makes Way for Brian Beken’s Solo Debut “The Weekend”

Brian Beken onstage (Photo by Emma Delevante)

For most of the past decade, Brian Beken has been riding shotgun in Robert Earl Keen’s band, playing fiddle and then guitar for the legendary Texas songwriter. With Keen now retiring from the road, Beken has taken the opportunity to spool up his own solo project and will release his debut LP, New Geography, in May.

Beken is no stranger to Austin stages. Over the past two decades, the Houston native has stringed with the formidable South Austin Jug Band, toured with Bruce Robison, and fronted the acoustic quartet MilkDrive. New Geography offers up something different from Beken though, leaning into his more rocking inclinations. During the pandemic, with his other projects on hold, Beken holed up in a house on Lake Travis with a laptop and two microphones and recorded the entire album himself.

“I just wanted songs that I’ve written or co-written in other bands to come to life in the way I've always envisioned,” he offers. “Some, particularly MilkDrive songs, took on a new identity when I plugged in and electrified them.

“I always thought I’d just follow the formula and eventually make a solo record in a formal studio with hired musicians and engineers. I just didn’t know when I’d get around to it. So when lockdown happened, I dug out all my gear and old songs (and some new ones) and just hit record. It started as just an exercise in music but grew into something I thought might actually be good enough to release.”

The lead-off track to New Geography, “The Weekend,” premieres with a video below. Written with Drew Smith, the rolling anthem for putting down the tools and picking up the instruments sets up a bruising, boozing Saturday night. The entire album swings eclectic within Beken’s keen sense of a groove and touches on his roots upbringing, while other tunes like centerpiece “Split Peacock” absolutely rip with a bleeding, heavy edge.

“I have always wanted to rock,” confesses 37-year-old Beken. “Growing up playing the fiddle, I didn’t do much rocking, so when I came into young-adulthood I had a bit of a musical identity crisis. The fiddle is what brought me here and has been and always will be what I am grounded in. But there was always this itch to get loud, to move air."

Beken attributes the rock bug to his childhood musical diet in the Nineties and early 2000s: “I just loved how those guitars sounded – the grooves, attitude, and aesthetics – of bands like Pixies, then coupled with older hook-oriented bands like the Beatles and the Kinks. By the time I came around to Stone Temple Pilots or Beck, I was enthralled at how they could mix up so many styles like hard rock, jazz, calypso, country, hip-hop (in Beck’s case) and create something new. I’ve always loved artists who shape-shift from one album or song to the next.”

Although the album debuts next month, Beken is still lining up his live band and eyeing this fall for a full release show, when the vinyl will be officially available. In the meantime, he’s also got two songs penned as part of Keen’s ambitious new illustrated book/box set and double LP Western Chill, released earlier this month.

“Life has shifted for me,” Beken notes. “I’ve had my fill of being on the road full time ... so this project has become my new focus, while still playing with bands around Austin. I’ve delved into producing other projects and have learned that my favorite place to be is in the studio working on music. It’s something I hope continues to happen.”

As for the video for “The Weekend,” Beken and Smith’s romp from the ranch to the Continental Club was directed by Spencer Peeples. Watch the action below.