May 2026: "Adios Arizona"
Hey y’all,
Here’s the Austin B. Sweeney newsletter coming in hot for the month of May. I put these out once a month to keep you updated on upcoming shows, what I’m listening to, general musings, lyric breakdowns, and much more! I hope this newsletter will provide value for you, if for no other reason than it may introduce you to music you haven’t heard before!
Let’s quit wasting time here and jump into it, here’s what I’ve been listening to in the last month:
Song: “Shine a Light” – The Rolling Stones
Album: “Spirit of the Light” – KBong and Johnny Cosmic
Artist: The Rolling Stones
I’ve got a new live album, “BE HERE NOW (Live in the PNW)”, recorded at The Artichoke in Portland, OR is OUT NOW, every where you get your music! Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, etc.
Also, if you want to read any past newsletters, click here
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“ADIOS ARIZONA”
Alright, this is the newsletter where I make the big announcement that Laura and I are moving out of Arizona.
We’re moving back to my home state of Oregon now that we’ve got a baby on the way – we still don’t know if it’s going to be a boy or girl, but we’re going to find that out on May 12th!
It’s worth noting that even though we’re moving away, not too much is going to change. I’ll still be pursuing music as fully as I have while living in Arizona, just from a new location. We’ll still be back in Arizona quite a bit (and for like a month at a time), as Laura’s whole family lives here and all my music friends are still here. So, on that front, yes, things are changing, but not as much as it would seem.
When I first moved to Arizona, it was August of 2019. My buddies Kevin, Russ and I hatched a plan in April of 2019 to make the move. I had lived in Nashville for a while in 2015 and after moving back to Oregon, I was just farming, selling real estate, and playing music. It was busy, and I was stretched pretty thin between the three careers.
Things had grown a little stagnant though day-to-day. We went to the same bar a couple nights a week (shoutout to The Bypass), and sang karaoke, drank, and dealt with hangovers like 50% of the week. During this time, I lived in a little 800 square-foot house that my grandfather built when he was in his twenties when he first got married to my grandmother. It was great. I lived alone on a piece of farm property and could do whatever I wanted.
So what did I do? I moved my whole bedroom out into the living room and turned my bedroom into a music studio. I was pretty broke at the time. I was primarily selling real estate, and during the first couple years of being a realtor, not a lot of money comes in, and if it does, it’s sporadic.
So, I recorded an album in that bedroom on a very thin budget. I went out and bought a $100 drum set off Craigslist and decided that if I couldn’t find good players to play on the record, then I would just learn to do all the parts myself. Long story short, I made the record for about $200, and it sounds like it. I’m still proud of the songs, but it’s certainly not a “radio-ready” album.
In April of 2019, my buddies Russ and Kevin came over to my house and told me that they wanted to move somewhere away from Oregon. I told them I would have to think about it for a few days.
Ten minutes after they left, I called them and told them that I was in for the move. We were deciding between three places to move: Texas, Colorado, and Arizona. We chose Arizona mostly because we all had always wanted to live in the desert. We pictured the whole adventure feeling like one big Eagles song.
It was also an opportunity to separate myself from the farm for a while. Living as close as I did to the farm meant that there was an omnipresent gravitational pull that I could feel that prevented me from making bigger moves in other ventures. That’s just the way it is when it’s a family farm, you’re a part of it and it’s a part of you.
As we planned our big move to Arizona, I knew that if I really wanted to make this move properly, I had to dedicate myself fully to the pursuit of music, and that’s what I did. I didn’t know how I would return to Oregon, but I knew that it would be my home again one day. I just didn’t know how far down the line.
The last thing I wanted to do was return to Oregon after a year or so, broke, with my tail between my legs.
Therefore, I had a big motivating factor to make something of myself in Arizona. I’ll save you the long story of how I developed my music career in those first few years, but let’s just say it was a lot of hard work. I would get up at 4:30 in the morning for my job as a CDL truck driver in Tempe, loading and unloading trucks in the hot sun by hand for 8 hours, drive home and take a shower to get ready for the night. 3-4 nights a week I would have gigs (mostly restaurants and bars) that would keep me up until 11pm or later and go to sleep and then wake up and do it again. I kept that schedule for 5 years. My motto at the time was “take every gig”. It didn’t matter how big or small, I would take it. I figured if luck is going to strike, I needed to be in the most places possible for that luck to have a chance to strike me.
It worked well. I’ve met some of the most amazing and talented folks I could have ever met. Not only were they great musicians, but they were great people. I’ve got so many friends down here now that I will remember for the rest of my life – again, not that I’ll never see them again, just saying.
I learned a ton about music, and I had to learn it the hard way. I know now that just because a bar is willing to give you a 3-hour, weekly residency for $100 a gig doesn’t mean it’s worth taking. “Take every gig” has its drawbacks.
Nevertheless, taking every gig meant that I crossed paths with so many talented folks that got me to where I am today. A huge shoutout has to go to my friend and musician, Josh Williams. I played a “Country Night” show at Yucca Tap Room in Tempe in 2019, about a month after moving here. I was the solo acoustic opener. The two bands that followed were the Salt River String Band as the middle act, and Jim Bachmann & The Day Drinkers as the headliner.
Josh Williams was a member of the Day Drinkers, and as I was hanging out on the smoking patio of Yucca Tap Room, he came up and talked to me. It turned out that he lived in Oregon in his high school years. We bonded over fishing stories. He liked my set.
The Salt River String band was Laura Hamlin’s band. She told Josh Williams that she was looking for an upright bass player. I got a phone message a couple of weeks later from Hamlin asking if I would join her string band as an upright bass player. I don’t play upright bass. But, keeping with the motto of taking every gig, I told her of course I knew how to play upright bass.
Where does one even acquire such a massive instrument?
I’ll tell you where: Josh Williams’ house.
I still have that phone message from when Hamlin first called me. I don’t think I’ll ever delete it. That phone call changed the trajectory of my life. Hamlin became one of my best friends. She and her husband Tall Paul were at our wedding. Those two are the realest deal and we’ll be friends for life. The world is a much better place having those two people in it.
I played with the Salt River String Band (eventually moving over to guitar) for a couple years. We released one single and then the band fizzled, as all the members were also very involved in other projects.
Alright, now let’s backtrack to that Yucca Taproom show. Josh Williams told me that I need to come to an open mic at Roosters Country in Mesa the following week. As I was determined to take every gig – which included open mics – I said yes.
Here’s the thing though, open mics happen every night of the week somewhere in the city. They’re fun, but usually sparsely attended and often consist of beginner musicians or people out trying to meet other musicians. The night I went – the one that Josh Williams invited me to – was packed. The Cole Trains were there. Laura Hamlin was there. It was packed with people that I didn’t know at the time, but who would eventually all become lifelong friends. I don’t know if the Cole Trains have been to an open mic since, I’m still not sure why they were there that night, but they were.
I met them, and a couple months later – interestingly, the night before Covid shut everything down – they asked me to open a show for them at The Roadrunner in New River.
They’re a very popular band down here and the place was packed. They didn’t have to ask me to do it, as I was the new guy in town, but they did, and that gig led to many more and I’ll be forever grateful to those dudes who took a chance on me.
So, I’m getting longwinded on the first few months of my move to Arizona, so let’s speedrun through the next few years.
The next few years were a blur of good times, gigs, work, relationships, and a lot of time spent up on the roof. Kevin and I would spend hours up on the roof of our house – we dubbed the house “Area 51”, as it was just off the 51 freeway – just hanging out, drinking, listening to music, etc. We affectionately called the roof, the “Rooftop Bar.” We figured if we hang out on the roof of the house, we effectively just doubled the square footage of our place.
We did that for years. Some of the absolute best years of my life.
Side note: When we first moved here, Kevin and I had to pool our money to buy an old Buick Regal that we shared. We were completely broke from the move and just trying to keep our heads above water. The windows didn’t work, the odometer didn’t work, but the A/C blew cool air, and the radio was functional. What else could two fellas need?
Through a lot of hard work, we eventually got our own, separate vehicles.
Dreams do come true.
Russ moved to Colorado, following a girlfriend, after about one year of living with Kevin and my antics. Fair enough.
So, for about 4 years it was pretty much just Kevin and I. Doing best-friend-shit, having fun, getting rowdy, and living it up.
And then Laura came along.
I wrote a previous newsletter about all the things that had to align to meet Laura, which you can find here.
Laura joined us in our adventures. She’s spent many hours up on the roof as well. That’s where we really got to know each other. We’d be up there until two or three in the morning, just talking. That roof really did a lot of heavy lifting for the first year of our relationship.
Laura started coming to all my shows. I played a Labor Day Weekend show in Pine at Old County Inn with a full band when I first asked her if we could make our relationship official.
If we hadn’t gotten engaged at The Pelican in Oregon, we would’ve gotten engaged at Old County Inn. That’s our place.
Once we were engaged, we started talking about what our future might look like. As you all probably know, we moved into a fifth-wheel camper that we live in down in Apache Junction, you can find that newsletter here.
Before the big camper, which we call “The Bandwagon,” Laura and I had originally bought a small pop-up camper together. We named it “Stevie” after Stevie Nicks, because the camper was built by Fleetwood. Little did we know that we would be upgrading that camper in short order.
So, like I said, when I first moved down here, I always knew that I’d end up moving back to Oregon. It’s my home. The Pacific Northwest is in my bones, and I knew that I would go back someday.
I didn’t know how or when though. I knew there was a chance that I would flame out like I did in Nashville and come back with empty pockets. However, I was determined that Arizona would be different.
I had hoped that I would return with a wife or at least a girlfriend willing to move to Oregon. That was a tall order though. I was a degenerate musician at the time. I ate, slept, and breathed music and nothing else – I didn’t drink music though, that was reserved for alcohol. Finding a woman who would be willing to hitch her wagon to that lifestyle wasn’t going to be easy and would take a long time to find.
Enter Laura.
She believed in me and my dream. She also believed that I could be better than I was. I was living the very excessive music lifestyle – the kind that you always hear stories about – when she first came along. She pushed me to become better. She helped me believe in my own ability to make big changes in my life. She loved me for who I was but also knew that I could be more. It didn’t happen quickly though. When you’ve lived a certain way for a long time, turning yourself around is a long and sometimes painful process.
That was one of the reasons I knew she was the one. I can be very headstrong and unwilling to make changes that I don’t want to make. I’m full of opinions that I take very seriously. I’ve dated girls in the past that were essentially “Yes Women” to my ideas. Anything I came up with, well, they also thought was great.
Even though I think many of my ideas are great, I’m also aware that I can be full of shit and very capable and skilled in lying to myself. Laura pushed back in the places others wouldn’t. She is tremendously sweet and supportive, but if she doesn’t like something, she doesn’t hold back. I respect her a lot for that. She was who I needed in my life.
She’s also the one who’s always down for an adventure. Before we’re even done discussing the details, she’s already packing snacks. She was down for all of the gigs. She’s spent untold hours in bars watching me play my music. She’s also given me helpful feedback and constructive criticism, even when I didn’t want to hear it, which is usually when it’s most needed.
She is the soon-to-be mother to my child and she’s going to be an amazing mom. The number of adventures (successful or otherwise) we’ve gotten to take together have made us an unbreakable unit.
The Sweeneys.
Our honeymoon alone was a grand adventure, full of ups-and-downs that you can read about here.
So, instead of simply returning to Oregon alone, I’m now returning to Oregon with my beautiful wife and a baby on the way.
Life’s funny that way. Sometimes you ask for the world, and you get very little out of it. Other times you ask for very little and you are given the world.
Arizona has changed my life. So many stories, adventures, heartaches, close calls, mistakes, and love all packed into the seven years I’ve been down here. So many lifelong friendships have been made, and so many songs have been played, written, and shared.
Musician is what I write on my tax forms now. That’s my job.
The journey continues now and it’s only going to get bigger and more complex by the day, and I’m here for all of it.
To all of you who have made my time in Arizona such a pleasure, thank you. We’ll see you again soon, just with a different home address.
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Here are the shows that are coming up in the month of May. This month they’re split between Arizona and Oregon gigs, so for all you PNWers out there, I’d love to see y’all at a show!
· 5/8 – Old County Inn, 6-9pm (Pine, AZ)
· 5/9 – Lazy G Brewhouse, noon-3pm (Prescott, AZ)
· 5/10 (Mother’s Day) – The Monastery, 3-7pm (Mesa, AZ)
· 5/14 – MY BIG GOING-AWAY SHOW at Roosters Country (lots of musician friends coming out to play at this one, don’t miss it, it’s going to be a banger.), 7-10pm (Mesa, AZ)
· 5/15 – Grapeables Wine Bar, 6:30-10pm (Fountain Hills, AZ)
· 5/16 – Savvy’s, 7-9pm (Queen Creek, AZ)
· 5/17 – Mandy’s Wine Bar, noon-3pm (Maricopa, AZ)
· 5/23 – Turner Pizza and Taphouse, 6-8pm (Turner, OR)
· 5/24 – Dry Town Tap Station, 5-7pm (Monmouth, OR)
· 5/29 – Chehalem Valley Brewing, 5:30-8:30pm (Newberg, OR)
· 5/30 – Portland Saturday Market, 2-3:30pm (Portland, OR)
· 5/30 – Kopitos Cocina, 5:30-8:30 (Dundee, OR)
Stoked to see y’all soon.
Austin
Listen now!
https://open.spotify.com/artist/433eTr5V5LEv1VtP1ejbkt?si=Jlzl5oz8RvulN-ocxrGqyg
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