People are quick to want to place Garrett T. Capps and his NASA Country band in a box labeled “Texas Cowboys” but the truth is, their collective sound cannot be confined as it is a blend of hippie, dreamy, intergalactic rock and roll, with a little country in it.
A quick glimpse at the artist on streaming platforms and one would think he only writes about his native San Antonio but really, he and his band speak to the human experience as a whole.
“I think that’s funny because I like making concept albums,” says Capps who also runs the local honky tonk, The Lonesome Rose which will celebrate six years next month.
“Sometimes I’m like, why not do a San Antonio thing? It’s totally my vibe, but I like stretching out and pushing boundaries.”
“I like stretching out and pushing boundaries.”
Capps and his NASA Country band continue to push boundaries with their latest release Everyone Is Everyone, out October 4. They will celebrate with a perfect pairing opening up for a royal member of the cosmic cowboy movement, Gary P. Nunn at The Heights Theater on Saturday, October 5.
“He’s definitely a hero of Texas, cosmic county and the whole thing,” says Capps of the opportunity to open for the legend in a perfect billing curated by Houston-birthed Vinyl Ranch.
Capps and his band have been intentionally hitting up Houston regularly since they began in 2017 when the band worked with him on his In His Shadows album. He hopes for Houston to become a place they can play two, three times a year if possible and they recently played River Revival hosted by Houston based Splice Records. The NASA Country name is a nod to our leaders in space exploration and Capps describes a few NASA employees that come out to his regular Houston shows. The name itself came from an audience member’s clever and modern take on their “cosmic cowboy” sound many years ago at SXSW in Austin and it just stuck.
“The NASA Country band is my primary my only band right now and they’re really good friends of mine,” says Capps who credits Odie on bass, jazz rooted drummer Kory Cook, “the swampy stratocaster guitarist” Torin Metz and the “modular, synthesizer, space sounds guy” Justin Boyd for creating their out of this world sound.
“It’s all because everyone is a really good listener, is really talented and has really good taste in music and we’ve just become this cool unique band,” he says proudly. “Everyone is so cool and fun so we just have a good time together.”
The good vibrations can be felt in every performance, fun music video and song that the band has released. Everyone Is Everyone sees them taking their blend of sounds even further past the stratosphere of Earth while maintaining a clear vision of what they are presenting.
“Flow State” sums it up nicely as it begins with a steady, almost surf-like rhythm that quickly morphs into a trippy journey into the subconscious state and ability to open oneself to whatever energy the universe is coursing through us.
“I’ve discovered that when I write a spacier, more drawn out jammy song, it’s usually something that NASA Country plays and sometimes the lyrics will turn into this, ‘We are all in this together’ universal thing which I think can be corny but I mean at this point, it feels like it’s just part of my style and I like it.”
Positivity can border on corny in other contexts, but not this one as Capps delivers the thoughtful and reflective words with a calm, almost talking blues conviction in his voice making the message feel like just really good, heartfelt advice from a wise source.
Everyone Is Everyone is a nice journey into a wide possibilities of sounds and cerebral concepts. Capps describes how the band has come to the habit of recording warm ups which has produced the beginnings of many of their songs as the band noodles around to get ready for a show.
“I’ve really been trying to study and sharpen my skills as songwriter over the past few years and I think that I’ve figured out that there’s like four or five styles of songs that I write; one of them is a spacier krautrock style, folk style, danceable country style that might even be tex mex and another one is like a rock kind of thing and then the other one is just other,” he says with a little laugh.
For Everyone Is Everyone, the band took from songs they have been playing live for many years, including the first single “Ouray” and went to Boyd’s home studio. Being in Boyd’s home turf allowed them to spend their time adjusting the sounds and vocal effects at their leisure.
Being from San Antonio, a town with a rich and eclectic musical history and tight knit musical community that blends Tex-Mex, rock and roll, punk rock and country, Garrett T. Capps and NASA Country perfectly encapsulate the city’s non existent formula for being authentically cool with their songs.
“It’s all a musical journey,” says Capps of the creative process adding, “and it’s really exciting to release this record with my friends and play some shows.”
Garrett T. Capps and NASA Country will perform with Gary P. Nunn on Saturday, October 5 at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th. Doors at 7 p.m. $34-464.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
