Monte and Brandi Warden can’t seem to believe the reception to the Wagoneers’ latest EP, Doghouse Flowers. The group’s first project in more than 35 years, released Aug. 10, is their biggest hit yet.
“It’s crazy. I’m 59 years old. I’ve been doing it since I was 14, and this is the most success I’ve had,” Monte says over eggs at a South Austin diner. “That’s ridiculous.”
The project’s Memphis-style rockabilly title track came in at 17 on the national Americana charts the week of Aug. 11, the highest the band has ever reached. The milestone marks five weeks in the Top 20, and their 14th consecutive week on the charts.
These charts didn’t exist when the Wags first set off in the late Eighties – notably, with a breakout performance at the very first South by Southwest in 1987. The Americana Music Association itself was dreamt up at a later edition of the festival in 1999, eight years after the Wagoneers’ first foray dissolved.
Warden was 19 when the Wags started. “I was, by far, the youngest modern country/Americana act by a whole lot,” he says. “Somebody had to be first, you know.” Two decades after their acrimonious 1991 breakup, the original lineup reunited to play the Austin Music Awards with Joe Ely for their own Hall of Fame induction.
Discovering they still had an active audience ready to two-step, Warden and original guitar player Brent Wilson, joined by Mas Palermo on drums and Brad Fordham on bass, resurrected the Wagoneers name and formed its longest-tenured lineup. They’ve had a monthly residency at the Broken Spoke for the better part of a decade, and have become not just bandmates, but friends in the process. Monte leans in: “A buddy of ours says the longest 30 minutes of his life is watching the Wagoneers say goodbye to each other after a gig.”
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, they say, but then Monte isn’t an old dog. His 2017-formed trad-pop jazz project, The Dangerous Few, also has a residency of its own across town. The crowds at Parker Jazz Club and the Spoke dance differently, wear different outfits, and drink different drinks, but once a month at each iconic local venue, fans gather to hear one constant: Warden.
“He’s not confined by anything. If he’s feeling it, that’s what he’s doing. And it’s all 100% authentic,” says Brandi, who is also a co-writer on Doghouse Flowers. “He’s as authentically the honky-tonk guy at the Spoke as he is when he steps on the stage of the Parker.”
The Wagoneers broke up in 1991 after their second album, 1989’s Good Fortune, was plagued by A&R meddling. Their label “didn’t know country music from a hole in the ground,” he recalled in a 1999 profile. “After that, I said that I would never again release a record I wasn’t completely proud of,” he told the late Chronicle great Margaret Moser.
He released two solo albums in the Nineties, but neither were extraordinarily successful. After getting dropped from RCA as a solo artist, Monte received some choice advice from his mentor, country Mount Rushmore songwriter Guy Clark.
“He said, ‘You’re fixing to find out if it’s a career or just something you used to do,’” Monte remembers.
Monte and Brandi got married in 1999, in the midst of Monte’s post-Wags solo career. Three years later, after working in A&R at Decca Records in Nashville, Brandi started her own publishing company, Moonkiss Music.
Monte had been successful in the Texas country world, but marrying into Brandi’s family – her uncle was an engineer at Sun records, and her cousins, parents, and grandparents all boast all-time Nashville careers – was a “paradigm shift.”
Success in her family is based on having million-selling success, he explains. They wrote hits that were recorded by country stars like George Strait, Josh Turner, Patty Loveless, and George Jones.
“We have more gold records in our house than we do wall space,” Monte says.
“To remain tasteful,” Brandi jokes.
The Wagoneers found their way back to each other in 2011 for the Music Awards, and after working out the kinks at the Spoke, rekindled a creative relationship. Doghouse Flowers’ success surely comes from decades of musical experience and songwriting chops, but good friends making music away from the pressures of a major label certainly brewed a perfect storm.
It’s supposed to be fun, Brandi confirms, comparing the buoyant title track to the joy of a Saturday morning cartoon. If the comic-like album art is any clue, Brandi and Monte head up the Moonkiss art department, as well as its IT, executive, and janitorial staff.
“This is a full label meeting,” they chuckle.
But the single isn’t even the best one, they say. “The best song on the EP is ‘Yesterday Stopped By.’ That is one of the best songs [Brandi] and I have ever written,” he says of the soulful country ballad, which details an old heartache. “One of the best songs I will ever write, and it is, so far, the best singing I’ve ever done on a record.”
“Yesterday Stopped By” is a fortuitous song title for a band in the midst of a resurgence. “Dreams can be stubborn things/ That cling to the past/ Guess it’s alright to look back/ If you don’t stare too long,” Warden sings.
In their second incarnation, the Wags are propelled by their own history, bands they’ve both inspired and been inspired by, and once again, Guy Clark.
“Always try to keep getting better. Guy told me that when I was 20,” Monte says. “And I remember thinking, ‘Shit, Guy Clark’s trying to get better. What business do I have in this business? Here’s one of the greatest songwriters that ever lived, and every day, he’s trying to get better.”
Monte spouts off the legend’s advice while simultaneously not believing he’s done it himself. Command-F our interview transcript, and “it’s ridiculous” appears no less than seven times.
Brandi doesn’t think it’s so ridiculous. “Monte does Monte,” she says. “When Monte’s doing his thing, nobody can touch it.”