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“I didn’t know any different” says Randy Houser when asked how he began his journey of music. “There never was a time that I can remember as a kid when I didn’t have something to make music with… kind of like a toy you never get tired of playing with.” Music would prove to be more than a toy to this soulful Mississippi boy and only he can tell his story best.
“I grew up with my mama and sister after my folks split up in Lake, MS. I felt like the man of the house way before I was one. My mother did the best she could to provide for us; we didn’t have a whole lot though. I’d spend a few weeks with my daddy every summer and Christmas and he’d teach me a new chord or song while I was there. He lived a few hours away in Biloxi and always made sure that my sister and I stayed hip to good music. Our tastes in music were fairly broad for two kids from a town of less than 500 people. We got a lot of good ole country; Merle, Conway, but, we were also spoon fed early Bonnie Raitt, Delbert (McClinton), and B.B. King. Just good soulful music. Thank god for real artists!
Of course, growing up in Mississippi you hear a lot of Blues. I would hang out on weekends at the Subway, a now defunct juke joint, which was located in the basement of the terminal hotel in Jackson. Man, those folks were rockin’ up in there.
I started fronting bands pretty early, about 13 years old. You know every town has to have their eighth grade rock stars (whew!). I began to develop a pretty large following around the area through the high school years and that turned into a scholarship to East Central Community College. I couldn’t believe that my music could actually help me pay for some education. At the end of my second year of school, I put together a band called 10 Lb. Biscuit. We were very lucky to keep a couple house gigs and packed these little honky tonks three nights a week. One of the bars even had to shut down and double in size to fit all the folks in that wanted to come see us! It was just a hell of a lot of fun to be a part of. Those were pretty wild times.
I had been trying to teach myself to write songs for years by this time and about ten years into the process I decided that it was time to see if I could play ball with the big boys in Nashville…Music City. Man, have I sat the bench. Finally, I got my first cut on trace Adkins’ Songs About Me album in 2005, a song called “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”, inspired by somethin’ truly dear to my heart.
For the past couple years I haven’t played with a band or at any clubs because I wanted to concentrate on writing songs that I would want to play and record. But I was really starting to miss playing live. So recently I have put a band together and am playing pretty often around town and loving it.
I can honestly say that it hasn’t been such an easy road to this point. But somehow I’ve managed to keep it out of the ditches this far. I’ll just drive until I run out of gas or breakdown. I’ve surrounded myself with good people and with any luck I think we can keep this thing running for awhile.”
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