Country music artist and Texan Braxton Keith began his career by posting cover videos on social media platforms like YouTube. The 23-year-old now boasts hundreds of thousands of streams and several viral hits. Braxton will perform at Austin City Limits’ second weekend at the BMI stage at 5:10 p.m. The Daily Texan spoke with Keith about his career, ACL debut and more.
The Daily Texan: You got your start by publishing song covers on YouTube and other social media. Did you expect anything to come of posting?
Braxton Keith: I knew the media was the new way of communicating with lots of people in short amounts of time. For an artist, that’s a pretty big thing. We used to have to go and play shows and tell people … when new music is coming out (or) you’d have to put up posters or flyers around the cities. … Now all I have to do is make one post about it.
DT: You’ve said that you are trying to bring back the traditional values of old-school country music. What are these values in your own words?
BK: The reason that country music is very unique and very special is because country music (is) getting back to the basics of love. … All I do is get out there every night and give the little boys one more chance because I believe in love. … My job is to help people fall in love.
DT: What does it mean to not just play country music, but to live it?
BK: I’m constantly thinking about some country music. … It’s everything to me. It’s the only way I’ve made a living now for seven years. It’s blessed me tremendously. I love it. … Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to do something like this but told myself that it was too difficult and that I would never be able to do it. And now here we are. So, this is a dream come true every day that I’m getting to play country music.
DT: How does it feel to be able to play at a music festival that so many country music icons have played at?
BK: It’s crazy. All of the live shows that I watched of my favorite artists are mostly from Austin City Limits. … It’s a crazy feeling being able to play (in) the same place as some of your idols played.
