In late 2023, Zach Bryan’s team approached the Sagebrush, an independent music venue in Austin, Texas, to film a music video. The story behind how this happened is incredible, explains Chasen Wayne, the Sagebrush’s talent booker and Austin-based musician.

In short, Wayne’s boss was unimpressed with the financial compensation offered by the team to rent his space and declined the offer. Wayne, knowing Bryan’s popularity and love of a smaller, more intimate establishment, saw this email and called them back very quickly to give them the space—overruling his boss. 

After a few days of filming and getting to know each other, Wayne asked Bryan if he ever would be willing to put on a show at the Sagebrush — to Wayne’s surprise, Bryan said sure, let’s do it now.

Of course, it was a massive hit.

Nearly as soon as Bryan posted about the show on social media, thousands rounded the block to get into this intimate show. Bryan paid for everything, including the cost of the door and bar minimums. The positive press more than covered other incidental costs.

Now, more than half a year later, Sagebrush has seen a 25% increase in income month over month revenue when compared to the previous year, Wayne explained in a recent interview.

The venue, which opened in 2020 and made it through the pandemic on a mixture of grit and miracles, had to fight for bigger names before Bryan came to town. Often, the independent venue dipped into the owners’ personal savings to pay bills.

But things are better for the Sagebrush these days, and Wayne credits the risk they took with Bryan.

“I had been obsessively watching Field of Dreams,” he said, to the point that his wife asked him what was going on. “I went to work the Sunday after that week of watching the movie, and I saw the Zach Bryan email. I just had this weird feeling something good was going to happen.”

“I called my wife and said it was the fucking Field of Dreams thing.”

“This solidified my career as a talent buyer, it helped my music, and I may have just saved the venue for a while.”

Wayne believes the night with Bryan helped build excitement for larger acts playing smaller venues. Wayne cited Charley Crocket playing his release show at The Broken Spoke in Austin, and Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours playing solo shows at the Mercury Lounge in Tulsa, Oklahoma, between headlining arenas and festivals. 

“The reality is artists really want that still and are willing to sacrifice their pay, but their overhead is just too much to do it, and the industry infrastructure won’t let them.”

Regardless of it happening elsewhere, it happened at the Sagebrush in January.

“My friends who we got into the show said it was magical, and it was magical for me, too. After the show, I went into my office and cried. Before us, no one thought to squeeze Zach Bryan into a 400-cap venue.”

“I’d be interested to see what the importance is for him,” Wayne said about these small bar promotional shows. “That whole small bar culture is something I’ve always known—I grew up in bars. My parents joke that I was conceived in one.”

Last month, perhaps building on the success of the January show, Bryan held listening sessions for his new album at a number of small-town bars. Fans and influencers alike jumped at the chance to see his stadium act at a local dive—or at least listen to the album before it was released. It’s entirely possible that many of the attendees would not have heard of these joints before Bryan announced his tour, much to the dismay of the regulars.

Bryan’s latest album uses these establishments and the people who patronize them when his marketing machine isn’t in town as its source material. The songs of this album assume these institutions are immune to the changing economic and social realities of the country. 

However, inflationary pressures have increased the cost of operation, in some cases to the point of putting a local night of entertainment for middle-income and financially comfortable Americans out of reach. Health and wellness deprioritized drinking with friends. The long tail of the pandemic keeps wagging. 

So Bryan’s promotion tour hit at a critical moment for these institutions. But will this infusion do anything for the 23 bars on tour or the thousands of others around the country after the tour is done? Can the American bar scene Bryan calls “great” survive another generation? 

The Tour Itself 

Uwe Korak is part of the ownership group at The San Fernando, a bar and restaurant that opened in 2017. While the pandemic shut the doors, there was a silver lining for the young institution. The ownership team invested in a large outdoor space to allow for socially distanced drinking and entertainment opportunities—something they utilize to this day, adding to their revenue streams.

In the months after the lockdown was over, the team reintroduced the bar’s self-described “pretty rowdy” Tuesday Jazz Jams. Zephyr Avalon was the regular bass player in these jams. 

Avalon went on to play in Bryan’s band. 

When considering a bar in California, Bryan and the team looked to their bass player—and Avalon suggested his old haunt, The San Fernando. 

The June 29 event was “the best night we ever had,” said Korak. With lines around the block to get in and phones ringing off the hook begging the staff to allow underaged fans a chance to listen to the music (and perhaps see Bryan), demand was unprecedented. 

The Bryan team provided financial incentives for the staff, a commemorative plaque and 10 pre-released tracks from the album to play at the event. Lizzy Passion and the Cowboy Assassins, a local band, provided live music. 

Overall it was a positive experience. The bar made money, and the success of the night opened the door to expanding its music offerings as the team saw the marketability of the Americana music scene, Korak said in an interview. 

“It was way too much to handle — in a good way. It shows the power of celebrity.”

While the connection to Bryan was clear for The San Fernando, the same can’t be said of Shannon Tavern in Boston. There had been rumblings of Bryan liking the bar and the neighborhood, but when he named this small, third-generation, family-run bar to his list for the Great American Bar Scene tour, things got “pretty wild,” said Mikey Bowen, co-owner. 

“The first night he gave us the album started early—I didn’t anticipate how crazy it would get to be completely honest, ya know?” he recounted in an extremely strong Boston accent. “I opened at 10 in the morning, and at noon I was at capacity, and I stayed at capacity all day long. That first night, I literally sold out of beer. We get busy but this was non-stop, busy, busy.”

There was a line for an entire city block filled with people hoping to grab a drink with Zach Bryan, who was playing in the area that week and to listen to the new album. “I told my brothers we have to go outside and get a picture, Grandma’s not gonna believe this.” 

Bowen’s grandfather immigrated from Ireland, met his wife and purchased the bar. His father kept the family business going, feeding the workers of the Big Dig, a massive, nearly 25-year project to rebuild the highway system through Boston. And now Bowen and his brothers are keeping this manifestation of the American Dream alive. 

But it isn’t always easy. The neighborhood has changed a lot in those generations, he explained. “We’re the last little corner bar in Southie. The town has changed. It used to be the working man’s town. But now Southie is a place to be seen through windows. It’s where the pretty people go, but my place ain’t that pretty, ya know?” 

Yet for Bryan, it’s exactly the kind of place he wanted to celebrate with this album release tour, and in fact, he just showed up one night back in October. As Bowen tells the story, he was out on a date when his brother told him Bryan was in the bar, which started the buzz around Shannon’s and Bryan’s connection with it. (Bowen didn’t want to give up on the very good seats he purchased for the evening, so he missed the visit.)

“I have no idea how he found my spot, but I’m glad he did,” Bowen said. “The amount of gratitude I have for this guy, I can’t even. Gratitude doesn’t do it justice.”

The buzz has died down a bit since the album release events. But the bar has seen a bump in notoriety around town. 

“People are still like, ‘Oh, the ZB bar,’ and I tell them we’ve been here since 1961. I’ll tell you straight-up: we are the Great American Bar Scene.”

Small Town Friday Nights Needs a New Home

Small Town Friday Nights at the Silver Lake Lounge in Los Angeles provided a perfect place to enjoy local country, Americana and “y’alternative” music. Nestled into a dingy block of Sunset Boulevard, the dark bar is loud and dirty, serves strong drinks and has a back patio for smokers. 

But now, after surviving the shutdown, re-opening, additional shutdowns and three years of cost increases, this monthly showcase of local talent needs to find another home as the nearly 88-year-old bar closes its doors for good. 

The value of real estate far outweighs the potential upside from revenue increases from a dive bar and music venue selling $8 drafts and $14 mixed drinks to an audience largely comprised of fellow musicians and artists attending mostly free shows.  

Ryan Hahn, the production manager for The Silver Lake Lounge and curator of Small Town Friday Nights, explains that people don’t party like they used to. He said that despite increased drink costs, recent bar tabs have been “astronomically low,” hitting just 21% of the average for many weeknights. 

The economics simply do not add up. 

Hahn negotiated for an above-average revenue-sharing deal for the Small Town event. He receives 10% of the bar after covering expenses, which hover around $400 per show. Using recent bar totals, which are approximately $2,500 per show night, Hahn will have about $210 to pay the three or four bands on the bill. 

“Without my day job, I couldn’t have sustained this event,” noting he often would front another few hundred dollars to pay the bands. 

“With the economy, we talk about the shrinking middle class. It’s the same with music—you’re either elite, or you’re living in the trailer park with the rest of us. If you’re not Zach Bryan, you have to have a plan B.”