Presented By First Fleet Concerts

Giovannie & The Hired Guns with Letdown.

Doors: 7:00 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
All Ages

Tickets are now on sale online at firstfleetconcerts.com.

About Giovannie & The Hired Guns

One of the most crowd-thrilling bands to burst onto the national scene in recent years, Giovannie and The Hired Guns have pushed the boundaries of rock-and-roll and country to forge an irresistibly gritty sound all their own. After building a massive grassroots following on the strength of their explosive live show, the Stephenville, Texas-based five-piece ascended to new heights with their smash hit “Ramon Ayala”—a 2021 release that climbed to #1 on the Active Rock Radio Chart and the Alternative Radio Chart, marking the first time in over 15 years that an artist’s first career-charting radio single reached the top spot on both tallies. Fueled by the enormous success they’ve achieved as an entirely independent act, Giovannie and The Hired Guns have now signed to Warner Music Nashville just in time for the release of their third full-length, Tejano Punk Boyz: an immediately vital body of work cementing their status as an essential new force in redefining the possibilities of Texas music.

The start of a bold new era for Giovannie and The Hired Guns—vocalist Giovannie Yanez, guitarists Carlos Villa and Jerrod Flusche, bassist Alex Trejo, and drummer Milton Toles—Tejano Punk Boyz expands on the wildly catchy brand of guitar-heavy alt-rock they first honed back when Yanez was working the counter at a local pawnshop. Like their self-titled 2020 sophomore effort, the 10-track album finds the band joining forces with producer Taylor Kimball (Koe Wetzel, Read Southall Band, Austin Meade), fully harnessing the band-of-brothers chemistry that makes their live set so exhilarating. In addition to delivering songs in both English and Spanish for the very first time, Tejano Punk Boyz doubles down on the culture-bending sensibilities that have long guided the band, fusing elements of everything from Red Dirt country to post-grunge to la musica norteña. “We didn’t want to hold back at all with this album,” says Yanez. “We all come from different walks of life, and we wanted to mesh those influences together and come up with something that feels really free. Because of that, I feel like we created something that’s completely true to us, and like nothing else out there right now.”

With its title taken from an inside joke between Yanez and his cousin, Tejano Punk Boyz infuses that free-spirited energy into every song, ultimately embodying a more joyful mood than their past work. “‘Ramon Ayala’ really set the tone for the album,” says Yanez. “Songwriting is an outlet for me, and on the last record I was going through some dark times in my life. But ‘Ramon Ayala’ came from thinking about my family and the music we love to listen to when we’re all partying together, and that sort of carried over into the rest of the album.”

Along with “Ramon Ayala”—a track that spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay Chart and earned acclaim from outlets like American Songwriter, who hailed it as “a cathartic anthem for the underdogs and rejects of society”—Tejano Punk Boyz features more emotionally raw offerings like the album-opening “Overrated.” Rooted in the band’s signature collision of combustible guitar work and unforgettable melodies, the sing-along-ready track serves as a prime showcase for Yanez’s reflective yet down-to-earth storytelling (from the chorus: “I’m such a freak/I love the way she hates it”). “At the time I was fighting with my girlfriend, so it was the perfect moment for that kind of song,” he notes. On “Numb,” Tejano Punk Boyz shifts into a darker tone as Giovannie and The Hired Guns channel the ache of disconnection, amplifying the track’s moody urgency with serpentine rhythms and brooding guitar tones. “Recording ‘Numb’ was probably the most fun we had in the studio—we didn’t try to force anything, we just let it all out and put everything we were feeling into the song,” says Yanez. And on “The Letter,” Giovannie and The Hired Guns share one of the album’s most vulnerable moments, a heart-on-sleeve love song that slips between English and Spanish as Yanez bares his soul with brutal honesty. “I’d always wanted to sing in both languages, but for some reason I was always too scared,” says Yanez. “When I was writing ‘The Letter’ it just happened naturally, and it instantly felt right.”

Originally from the Northern Texas town of Mineral Wells, Yanez first explored his unfiltered approach to songwriting at the age of 17 (“It pretty much started right after the first big heartbreak,” he notes). Around that same time, he began performing at local dive bars while holding down a job at a rock quarry. “I’d go play gigs and be out till about three in the morning, then get up to go to work at seven—it was a struggle for a while, but I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life,” says Yanez. Not long after landing his job at the pawnshop, Yanez crossed paths with Trejo and soon began assembling the Hired Guns lineup, then pushed forward with an equally grueling gig schedule. “When we first started out it was always, ‘Hey guys, can you play a four-hour set with two breaks? Here’s $200,’” Yanez recalls. As word got out about their can’t-miss live performance, the band began selling out shows all across Texas, in addition to sharing stages with the likes of Read Southall Band and Kody West.

With the arrival of their self-released 2017 full-length debut Bad Habits, Giovannie and The Hired Guns offered a first glimpse at the unbridled eclecticism that now defines their sound: Toles, for instance, brings a soulful intensity informed by playing music in church as a kid, while Flusche’s background includes session work with such prominent country acts as Sam Riggs & the Night People. Another independent release, Giovannie and The Hired Guns featured standouts like “Rooster Tattoo,” a slow-burning track that quickly amassed millions of streams on Spotify thanks to word-of-mouth buzz. As they set to work on Tejano Punk Boyz, Giovannie and The Hired Guns landed on Amazon Music’s 2022 Artists to Watch list, then later inked their deal with Warner Music Nashville in a partnership with Warner Music and Warner Music Latina.

With their career highlights to date including opening for platinum-selling country star Jason Aldean to a crowd of 36,000 at Globe Life Park stadium, Giovannie and The Hired Guns have spent much of the band’s lifespan on the road, delivering an electrifying show that invariably leaves audiences sweat-drenched and ecstatic. “At this point my house is mostly just a place where I collect mail,” says Yanez. “We’ve played an insane amount, but we love getting out there and connecting with the fans. The craziest thing is when they tell us that our music has saved their lives, because I’ve had that happen to me with the music I really love.”

As their following continues to grow far beyond the borders of their home state, Giovannie and The Hired Guns have found their sense of purpose ineffably deepened with each new album they create. “To me making music is a godsend,” says Yanez. “I generally don’t tell people what’s on my mind or how I’m feeling; I hold it in and then get it all out by picking up a pen and paper or strumming my guitar. So the fact that our songs might end up helping other people in some way just makes it all even sweeter.” And with Tejano Punk Boyz dropping in the midst of another extensive tour, Giovannie and The Hired Guns look forward to strengthening their extraordinary bond with their audience. “The goal for the live show is always to take people away for that hour and a half,” says Yanez. “Whatever problems they’re dealing with, whatever they’re going through or whatever’s happening in today’s world, we want them to forget all about it for those 90 minutes. If they want to get sad and cry, then I’ll cry with them. If they want to let loose and have fun, I’ll do that too. We just want to feel connected to everyone, because we truly are—we’re exactly the same as every single person out there in the crowd.”

About Letdown.

Letdown. (period included) may have started as a pandemic project for Blake Coddington, but the Chicago/Nashville-based rocker is in a very different place in 2023. Having spent the last three years cultivating a fervent fanbase through a number of single releases and emerging as a striking live act — finally bringing his music into the physical lives of his online fans across several sold-out, headlining shows this past year — Coddington is rapidly growing his presence away from the internet for the first time in Letdown.’s short history.

The powerful vocals and emotional lyrics over catchy, upbeat drums and guitars originally served as a cathartic way for the songwriter to express himself while working a dead-end job that he hated. But 2022 saw Letdown. being signed to Big Loud Rock and move beyond his beginnings as a viral, at-home musician. This year, however, represents a whole new start for the passionate vocalist, or as Coddington himself puts it: “It’s Season II of Letdown., and it’s definitely the biggest chapter yet.”

With his debut EP, Crying In The Shower, (Available February 24, 2023) and the ability to continue his touring success with an upcoming month-long run in Europe, as well as North American dates supporting Giovannie & The Hired Guns this spring, “Season II” is looking a lot more action-packed than Letdown.’s first couple of years. It was just three years ago that he began throwing videos on YouTube expecting to get a few hundred views, yet now he’s become a known and respected musical commodity both in-person and online with over 640K followers and 5.1M likes on TikTok, 25+ million views on his YouTube channel, over 80M on demand streams and editorial playlisting from the likes of Spotify’s All New Rock, New Noise, Rock Out and Rock Hard.

“I always feel weird when people ask me how long I’ve been around, because I got so used to telling people that Letdown. was this new thing,” Coddington laughs. “But now we’re touring and we’ve got a record coming out with a label involved and all of this stuff. I know I’m not ‘seasoned’ yet, but it feels new, exciting and different.”

As for the new EP itself, pushing forth a collection of seven songs is still a bit of a new experience for Coddington, who’s gotten this far by steadily releasing a single at a time. The title track and opener is a perfect example of the wild, emotional ride that Letdown. enjoys taking his fans on. The song builds into a pumped-up anthem that you can’t help but sing along to, and behind the reactive hook and catchy rhythm, Letdown. takes listeners through the experience and inner turmoil of trying to get over someone you can’t forget by wailing, “crying in the shower, but I can’t wash you away.”

“You ever listen to happy songs when you’re upset or sad or depressed and they make you feel even worse?” Coddington asks with a smirk. “That’s what ‘Crying in the Shower’ is for me. It’s like, ‘Here’s a list of terrible things, set to an incredibly upbeat, happy beat’ — which is almost a metaphor for me. I’m a happy-looking guy who is quite the opposite on the inside.”

Elsewhere, the EP continues to document Coddington’s internal struggle as he searches for answers in times of darkness, uncertainty and self-doubt on stadium-sized singles “Go To Hell,” “Empty,” “Shipwreck” and “Ugly,” a soaring, pop-rock belter featuring Kelsy Karter & the Heroines that encompasses the types of thoughts related to self- image and how we perceive ourselves. “That song is a literal depiction of how I feel about myself,” Coddington adds. “It may be a dichotomy between the actual person that I am and the person that I see in the mirror as my flaws are sometimes all I see. As I try to disassociate from the me that I hate, I also struggle with the reality that we are one and the same.”

In regards to the release of his first full body of music, Coddington remains thrilled for his future, the development of Letdown., and continuing to connect with those who have found solace in his powerful online community. “Getting to put out something like an EP seems so classic to me, which makes me really excited about it.” he says. “I’m honestly just excited that people won’t have to select another song after each one and can just ride the wave. I think we’ve really curated it in a way that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster — in the best way possible.”