“The Three Hour Song Challenge is really just the result of me struggling as a musician to make friends, to build community, and to find projects that I’m really excited about, and I think that a lot of artists can relate to that,” Andy M. Brand says.
Over the last decade, the career drummer has hopped across the country playing in bands and for studios, trying to find a scene that felt like home. After leaving the Austin band Hidden Floors and taking on his first solo project, a yet-to-be-released album produced by guitarist/sound engineer Kieran Krebs, Brand found an outside-the-box way to create with musicians that inspire him: by writing and recording an original song in three hours.
Brand and Krebs further condense the three-hour sessions into 10-to-15-minute episodes that depict the process, released on YouTube. The duo has already welcomed all styles of Austin songwriters into their studio, from psychedelic rocker Nolan Potter to, most recently, hip-hop artist Anastasia Hera.
Each video has its own flair and pacing, sometimes following the writing processes through reality-show-style interviews, sometimes just letting the drama unfold. Brand brings a now-classic millennial style as a pseudo-host introducing the challenge, clapping his hands and welcoming viewers – “sup, guys” – in their first few episodes.
Once the song gets rolling, addressing the audience takes a backseat. In most episodes, a single songwriter collaborates with Brand and Krebs, but sometimes, as with funk supergroup Grandmaster, a couple of musicians take on the task together. Under the tight deadline, the co-creators’ differing backgrounds occasionally bring awkward moments to a head.
“I was really put to the test [when] Grandmaster came in,” Brand says. “When it was happening, I was like, ‘Man, I’m really not playing my best here and I’m kind of messing this up for them.’ But we completed it in the end.”
“We’re actually, genuinely writing a song from scratch, just based on an idea that people find familiar.” – Andy M. Brand
For the first few episodes, Brand asked musicians to come to the studio with a riff or a lyric idea. Some composers, like S.L. Houser, took the opportunity of a new setting and new collaborators to spark a different direction. Usually drawn to piano-centered writing and quick-moving pop melodies, Houser instead wrote on guitar in her session and created a crooning, alt-rock jam.
Houser’s professionalism and command of the writing process made for smooth sailing, even with the self-imposed challenge. Other songs come together without much friction too. In a post-recording interview, Billy King and the Bad Bad Bad frontman William Bradford remarks several times about the ease with which “Can’t Stop the Fire” “just flowed out.”
The show needed an element of surprise, Brand decided. He placed a selection of iconic songs, written on slips of paper, in a yellow, floral print captain’s hat, and implored artists to draw one to inspire their three-hour song. Janson Sommers was the first to take on the new challenge, pulling guitar-lesson classic “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes. The resulting shoegaze track doesn’t necessarily sound like the original inspiration, or like the techno-driven releases Sommers has put out.
“Now it’s much more challenging and way more fun, because we don’t have this ‘pre-idea’ in the bank,” Brand says. “We’re actually, genuinely writing a song from scratch, just based on an idea that people find familiar.”
Moving forward with their hat trick, Brand and Krebs have recorded a handful of episodes they’ll release in coming weeks, including an upcoming episode with A Giant Dog’s Andrew Cashen, out August 19.
When asked who he’d like to see take on the evolving challenge, Brand throws the question back to the public: “Who does the Austin crowd love right now that they would love to see in the spotlight?”
This article appears in August 1 • 2025.
