You never know who’s going to blow up.
That could easily be the motto for anyone working in the music-booking industry today, something Howard Dozier and Braxton Wilson know all too well.
As the team behind The Foundry at Judson Mill, formerly known as Cowboy Up Nightlife, they’ve seen music acts rise to precipitous heights in what would’ve been unprecedented just a few years ago. That’s the recently rebranded music venue is partnering with Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest live entertainment company, to expand the roster of talent coming to Greenville.
“You’ve really got to catch an artist at the right time,” said Wilson, who handles the booking for the venue through his company Palmetto Entertainment.
Take an artist like singer-songwriter Zach Bryan. Heard of him? If not, you’re in an increasingly small pool, at least when it comes to country music fans. Just a short while ago, Bryan was an active duty member of the Navy, playing acoustic guitar while on break and uploading the grainy videos to YouTube for his friends and family to watch. Since then, the now 26-year-old’s videos have gone viral on TikTok, earning him millions of devoted fans and a major label country record, “American Heartbreak,” that charted the biggest first week for a country album in 2022.
“Zach Bryan could get a quote for $50,000 a show in March, and by June, he’s making half a million and selling out amphitheaters,” Wilson said. “It’s practically overnight now with some of these artists.”
@zachlanebryanBut by the morning light, you’ll be the finest sight I ever saw.♬ Round and Round – Zach Bryan
For Dozier, the owner of The Foundry at Judson Mill, it’s an entirely different world from the food and beverage industry where he cut his teeth. And while The Foundry at Judson Mill, at 701 Easley Bridge Road in the namesake Judson Mill development, will still operate as a bar and restaurant, Dozier is hoping the rebrand will allow him and Wilson to catch some of these artists in their respective sweet spots.
“We feel there’s nowhere in Greenville to go see live music at that particular level,” Dozier said. “Greenville is growing, but there’s one thing Greenville has been missing that all other neighboring markets have, which is an all-genre venue.”
The partnership with Live Nation will allow the venue to catch artists that otherwise would have skipped over Greenville, according to Wilson.
“Upstate music fans can now catch some of the hottest touring shows without having to travel to the Orange Peel in Asheville, Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh or Music Farm in Charleston,” he said.
No bull
That’s why Dozier is looking ahead after rebranding the venue. What was once an overtly country-music-themed space, with its rustic wooden interior and massive mechanical bull, is now less Nashville-inspired, Dozier said.
For one, the bull is out, although that was less about rebranding and more about opening up space, he said. Some tables are also being removed. This allowed the venue’s interior to be rearranged to “substantially increase capacity,” according to Wilson.
And just because the interior no longer has an overtly country varnish doesn’t mean there won’t be country music acts. Quite the contrary, Dozier said.
“I hope the country music fans realize we’re doing this because it allows us to get bigger country artists than we were able to get before,” Dozier said. “Once they see these bigger names coming in, I think they’ll get what we’re doing here.”
Bigger names extend beyond the country music genre. Hip hop, rap, pop and alternative artists, who might have been wary of performing in a honky-tonk space named after cowboys, now have a more welcoming venue that fits with their brand and aesthetics, Wilson said.
“It gives us a wider window of opportunity,” Wilson said. “I think people don’t realize that just because an artist plays a similar-sized venue in another city, it doesn’t mean they’ll play that same size here in Greenville. Artists are going to make a decision based on what’s best for their brand, in addition to concerns like routing, getting your bus drivers, your production team and so on all together.”
The venue reopens on Jan. 14 with its first show of the year, Sean Kingston. For more information, visit FoundryGVL.com.
