There is a certain kind of person who shows up early, works harder than anyone in the room, makes sure everyone else has what they need — and goes home alone with their own dream still waiting. Brandon Wayne DeMaris spent two decades being that person. He came to Austin in 2004 with a Berklee education, a drum kit, and a love of music so deep it expressed itself first as service. He interned for Brad Paisely and Austin’s blues icon, Jimmie Vaughan. He helped launch Sonic Guild (formerly Black Fret), the Austin non-profit that has directed millions toward independent musicians. He founded his own concert production company, The Good Wolf Experience and produced the MusiCares Sober Jam for 15 years. He built stages for other people's songs — because he believed in what music could do for a community, and because it was easier, for a long time, than believing it could do something for him.
Brave Bones arrived in 2018 — his debut, released at an age when most artists are already on their third record or have given up. It was about exactly what the title suggests: the courage to step out from behind the curtain after years of holding it open for everyone else. Drawing from the plain-spoken craft of John Prine and the warm intimacy of James Taylor, DeMaris writes songs that are unhurried and emotionally precise, built around stories that land harder than expected. KUTX 98.9 named one its Song of the Day. He was selected among five Austin artists for The Acoustic Guitar Project, writing and recording a new track in a single week and performing it live at The Townsend. His second full-length, We'll Be Alright, followed in 2021 — ten songs recorded at Same Sky Productions, arriving at exactly the moment Austin needed to hear those words.
Be Here Now is his third project and most personal — and in some ways the natural conclusion of everything that came before it. Having finally claimed his identity as an artist, DeMaris found himself facing a new version of the same disappearing act: early fatherhood. The strain on a marriage. The loss of self inside relentless responsibility. These four songs move closer to the confessional, emotionally unguarded side of his influences — the quiet devastation of Wilco, the raw self-examination of Ryan Adams, the ache in early Counting Crows. He produced and mixed the record himself, with tracking engineer Andre Cantave at Same Sky Productions and mastering by Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Mastering. It sounds like someone who has learned, through long practice, how to tell the truth.
The release event takes place at Journey Imperfect Faith Community on Woodrow Avenue — where DeMaris first landed in Austin over 20 years ago, and where he first heard poet Sara Alarcon perform the words that became the song "Brave Bones." A limited edition of 100 numbered and signed CDs precedes the streaming release. It is, in every sense, a homecoming: the man who spent two decades making room for other people's music, finally, fully, in the room for his own.
