 Bruce Robison grew up in Bandera, Texas a small town of less than a thousand people - an hour northwest of San Antonio. With his older brother Charlie, Bruce was in his first band while still in junior high school. Together they played a lot of the music they had been reared on, mostly home grown Texas music from the likes of ZZ Top, George Strait and Gene Watson.
"We played rodeos...dances...anywhere they'd let us, Bruce recalls, "and in Texas, nobody was surprised or confused at all to hear the Stones segue into Merle Haggard or Johnny Paycheck. There were great songs to be found in all of that."
After some time at West Texas State University as a basketball player, Bruce decided that music was a better option and headed to Austin, Texas. "I relocated because I knew this is where they kept all the music in Texas. It was the whole melting pot of hippies and rednecks. It was the place and I knew I had to be there."
Once in Austin, Bruce moved through a series of bands, some reuniting him with big brother Charlie, and became a fixture in the Austin music scene. "I was sort of funneled into songwriting," Bruce recalls. "I started getting good reaction to my songs pretty early on, and it was the first thing I ever really felt good at in my whole life. Austin gave me the time and space - out of the glare - to start finding out who I was. But initially, songwriting chose me more than I chose it."
Bruce's growth as an artist produced his debut CD release "Bruce Robison" in 1995, followed by the 1997 release of "Wrapped" on his own label, Boar's Nest Records. "Wrapped" was so well received, it caught the attention of Sony Music Nashville, led to Bruce's signing with the label, and "Wrapped" being issued again with some new material added to the original CD.
The re-release of "Wrapped" on a major label is an indication that Bruce is ready for attention outside Texas, but just don't label the music...alt-country.
"I rebel against being put in a niche," Bruce says. "I'm a singer/songwriter who lives in Austin. It's country music, and there's lots of different people who connect to it. We're all a product of our influences, but you can draw on what's gone before you and put it together in a way that's unique and original, and still very accessible. My favorite music has always been that way."
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