The Music Man

Performer

Anthony was raised in a family that was all-in when it came to Texas A&M: season tickets to Aggie football games and witnessing the annual Bonfire were built into his childhood.

So was music.

As a toddler, he began classical violin lessons, training under the tutelage of top Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra violinists alongside others his age, many of whom ended up attending music conservatories. By high school, though, some of his friends had discovered the guitar, and playing in a band became more attractive than playing in an orchestra.

His parents were fully supportive of their son’s newfound musical direction; at home, their musical tastes ran the gamut. “I grew up in a home that was equal parts classical music, Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson and The Beatles,” he said.

In 1995, Anthony enrolled at Texas A&M as a political science major with aspirations of attending law school. While he continued to play music with friends, it was purely a hobby.
 

“I walked up to Pat and said, ‘You don’t know me, but you need me in your band,’” Anthony recalled.  “And he said, ‘You’re right, I don’t know you, but if you feel that way, we’re playing at a fraternity party tomorrow night.’”

Anthony said that Green didn’t actually think he would show up at the party. Not only did he show up, but in 24 hours, he had prepared himself to play Green’s latest songs. That fraternity party led to 15 years of playing with Green’s band. By his sophomore year, Anthony had begun touring with Green—and continued to do so until 2010. 

While other students were balancing their academic lives with part-time jobs, parties and extracurricular activities, Anthony was trying to keep up with a grueling tour schedule while simultaneously attending and passing his classes. At this point, most performers drop out of school. But he credits two primary factors with convincing him to graduate.

The first was a promise he’d made to his father, the late Texas A&M statistics professor Dr. Ted Anthony ’65, to get his degree now rather than planning to go back later. The second was the support he received—and gave—to two other musicians he’d personally recruited for Green’s band: drummer Justin Pollard ’99 (his roommate) and guitarist Brett Danaher ’99 (his next-door neighbor).

“The three of us would drive after class to play a show with Pat in Lubbock, Dallas, Houston or Oklahoma City,” Anthony said. “Then we would drive back after the show to go to school and then drive back out to Houston to play a show the next night. Whatever it took. We didn’t sleep for about three or four years, but we all got our degrees.”

Advocate

When Anthony was at Texas A&M in the 1990s, music education was virtually nonexistent. Not only did he have no way to enhance his musical skills other than performing in bars and clubs, but he also had no courses to draw from to help with the technical and business sides of the industry.
 

As a result, he is one of the biggest cheerleaders for Texas A&M’s new College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts and serves on its advisory board. Naturally, the music component of the college is particularly dear to his heart. Anthony is extremely enthusiastic about the promise of what the music program is—and what it eventually can be.

“Texas A&M needs to be a place that creates extremely well-rounded and well-prepared individuals for any type of professional pursuit,” he said. “The commercial music industry is a very valuable industry to the state of Texas. Texas A&M should play a role in creating industry professionals who can participate in and eventually lead that industry.”

As someone who has spent roughly the same amount of time on the business and advocacy side of the Texas music industry as he has on the performance side, Anthony brings a broad perspective to his advisory role.

In advisory board meetings, he said, “I raise my hand quite a bit and talk about practically preparing students for what’s to come as they choose to pursue a career in the commercial music industry. We can’t all be performers. The industry is not predominantly made up of people who play instruments or sing. Those people are the most visible; they are the creative class of the commercial music industry. But hundreds of jobs exist in that space.”

As he accepted the appointment, Anthony realized his political science education was about to pay off.

His worldview in the governor’s office, he said, “was greatly informed by professors I had at Texas A&M and in the political science department. You keep going back to the very first political science classes you take: What motivates people? Why do people make decisions? Why do people typically act in self-interest? And how can you use those answers either to your advantage or to a mutual advantage? That is a core concept of politics and economics.”

When he went to work in the governor’s office, Anthony said, these ideas he thought he’d never use again became “forefront concepts.” By pairing knowledge from his Texas A&M classes with his real-world expertise, he could confidently talk to trade organizations and business heads and create policy that positively impacted others’ ability to make a living in the Texas music industry.

In directing his staff, Anthony relied on leadership skills forged through time, experience and example, chiefly hiring smart people with good ideas and allowing them to act. “As a manager or leader of an organization, if you can find a way to empower your staff to use their skill sets to move the overall vision forward, then you’ve done right by them,” he explained. “Every human being works in a specifically unique way. Figuring that out and figuring out how to get the most out of people is the role of a leader in any forum.”

Businessman

By 2010, after years of high-energy performances with Pat Green’s band and before answering Abbott’s call, Anthony was ready to trade life on the road for a more settled existence. The answer came in the form of Austin-based OneLive Media, an innovative direct-to-fan marketing business he helped create. As head of e-commerce, Anthony used emerging technology to help Texas music artists like Beyoncé and Willie Nelson increase and better connect with their fan base.
 

These days, he is enjoying his role as vice president of the new Big Loud Texas, a division of the Big Loud record label based in Nashville. Working alongside two of his other heroes, Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall, Anthony’s new position involves advancing the careers of Texas musicians. In doing so, his responsibilities merge the policy, creative, technological, and business skills and experiences he’s acquired over the last three decades.

He is acutely aware of how many people dream of succeeding in the music industry and how fortunate he is to have carved out a life there. Passing on what he’s learned, he said, is a responsibility he treasures; it’s a public service role he gladly took on at the Texas Music Office and now relishes at Texas A&M’s College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.

“I’m really proud to have had a career in the music industry for as long as I have,” he said. “And I enjoy getting to do things that may expose people getting started in the industry to new ideas. If you’re not sharing your ideas and experiences with other people, they go with you.”

Residing in Austin with his wife, Kelly Branum Anthony ’97, and their 8-year-old daughter, Anderson, he and his family make it back to Aggieland on a regular basis for football games and other Texas A&M events. During such trips, they stay in Anthony’s childhood home, where memories of his introduction to music and the stars he witnessed as a boy in College Station, like Lyle Lovett, are center stage.

“I’m still that kid who thinks about his heroes with stars in his eyes,” Anthony said. “The fact that I’m a part of the music industry and a person in that world is still something I pinch myself about.”

Propel the performing arts in Aggieland. To give students the tools they need to succeed in the music industry or in other arts-related fields, contact Heather Sauber ’99 at hsauber@txamfoundation.com or 979.845.0939.