BURNING DESIRE

To the uninitiated, Shakey Graves’ ascent might look downright providential: Laid-back Texas dude with smoldering good looks goes from relatively unknown local one-man-band to in-demand Americana icon appearing on NPR and Late Show with David Letterman, headlining Bonnaroo and the Newport Folk Festival, selling out nearly every show on his schedule — and still generating enough goodwill back home in Austin to earn an official Shakey Graves Day.

But the real truth is that Alejandro Rose-Garcia, age 28, has been hustling as an artist for nearly a quarter-century. He started acting at age five and secured an agent by age 11; he did the commercial-and-reality-show circuit for several years before lucking into recognizable roles in Spy Kids: 3-D and as a love-to-hate-him older boyfriend on acclaimed NBC series Friday Night Lights.

As a high schooler, Rose-Garcia tried theater geek and screamo band singer on for size; before graduation, he dropped out to give coffeehouse singer/songwriter and struggling actor a go. But on return trips to Austin while living in New York and Los Angeles, Rose-Garcia was struck by the possibilities of the solo-guitar-and-suitcase-drum performances he saw that blended fingerpicked folk with bluesy, swampy, gothic-tinged roots rock. Calling himself Shakey Graves, a name derived from a long night of campfire acid tripping, he wrote and recorded his debut album Roll the Bones in random bedrooms and living rooms, in between the grind of casting call rejections in LA.

“Music kept reminding me how much emotion I didn’t have an outlet for,” he told Texas Monthly last August. “Los Angeles can tear down your confidence, leave you sad and confused, and I didn’t have anywhere to put that. You can find catharsis from acting, but reading other people’s lines, playing out other people’s lives, makes it a terrible place for therapy.”

The truly cathartic moment for Shakey Graves came on Jan. 1, 2011, after he’d returned to Austin for good to move back in with Mom and finally try to be a musician full-time. He released Roll the Bones on Bandcamp under the outlet’s artist-friendly name-your-own-price policy, and within a year of playing non-stop at every venue in town, he’d sold tens of thousands of records and had become Austin’s hottest local commodity. Those who loved him really loved him and felt invested in his evolution.

“The idea for the first album was anti-marketing,” he told Austin Chronicle in 2014. “It was an immensely conscious decision to limit my output. I wanted to figure out how to acquire fans right now, different from the old model where artists were pushed at you. I spent three years building a fan base that felt like they discovered me, which they did. That’s something no one can ever take away.”

It’s also something upon which to build a flourishing career. The three years of buzz that surrounded Rose-Garcia’s ascent from solo troubadour to rootsy, rockin’ bandleader provided the perfect PR foundation for 2014’s And the War Came, a slightly more polished but no less gutsy collection of brooding country- and folk-inspired tunes recorded with a full supporting cast. His collaboration with the ethereal Esmé Patterson provided the biggest jolt, though — a live version of the playful yet broken-hearted “Dearly Departed” became one of 2015’s most viral tracks on YouTube and Spotify, and no matter how many times you listen, its quiet/loud, whisper/sing-along contrasts never get old.

That substantially increased profile led to all the aforementioned perks: appearances on the late-night shows of Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, and Seth Meyers, a Best Emerging Artist prize at the 2015 Americana Music Awards. None of that sudden fame has changed Rose-Garcia much, though. He’s still fiercely protective of his music, keeping much of it off iTunes and Spotify. His songwriting remains dark, inspired by a hallucinogenic, borderline schizophrenic three-day bender that he suffered in Los Angeles. In contrast, pull up any of his live videos on YouTube and you’ll see a charming, good-looking guy with an easy smile, an easier laugh, and a propensity to wear silly hats, talk at length about queso, and make fun of himself relentlessly.

Just don’t forget that beneath that veneer of easy-going, Austin-born slackerdom spins a tireless artist with an unwavering vision of success. For two years, his seemingly random tour itinerary was actually custom-built for maximum success: Play a festival on a relatively small stage, blow everyone’s mind with a magnetic stage presence, then come back a few months later and sell out multiple nights at multiple venues, something he pulled off in major markets like Seattle, Denver, Boston, and New York. Then return to the same festival the next year and leap right to the main stage, something he did at Sasquatch, Bonnaroo, and a dozen or so others.

“I want to play on stages so large you can barely see me, but I can still make you feel like it’s just us in a bathroom together,” the self-described Gentleman from Texas told Texas Monthly last August. “To me, the coolest challenge in the world is finding a way to connect intimately with the masses.” Many artists could crumble under that pressure, but Rose-Garcia, still hustling after all these years, seems up to the challenge: “This would be the absolute wrong time to say, ‘Maybe I need some time to myself.’ I want to burn the world down.”