To this point, Austin Meade ’s career has been the sort of old-school grind that Texas artists once accepted as just the way things work in independent music. He’s steadily growing and has been since he released his debut album in 2014, but that doesn’t make the slow nights any easier. “We’ll go play big festivals, and then the next night, we’ll be playing a smoky bar to 200 people,” he says.

Meade is sitting on his tour bus on a sweltering August day in the Texas Hill Country, waiting to open a sold-out Treaty Oak Revival concert at the 5,700-capacity Whitewater Amphitheater. Meade has been a favorite opener for both Treaty Oak and Koe Wetzel in the post-pandemic era, and that’s the point of Almost Famous , Meade’s sixth studio album, which he released in early November.

“Ther

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