Mayeux & Broussard

Mayeux & Broussard play the kind of Texas music that sounds better with a little dust on it. The Austin outfit mixes gritty country, swamp blues, honky-tonk and rock & roll into a sound they’ve dubbed “Swampy Tonk.”

The band grew out of an unlikely place: its founders originally played together in a heavy band before circling back to the country music they grew up around. That harder background still shows. Their songs can swagger like a Gulf Coast roadhouse band one minute, then slide into cosmic-country territory the next. Blues, jazz and zydeco also run through the mix, giving the music considerably more grease and grit than standard Texas country.

Formed in Austin in 2011, Mayeux & Broussard built their reputation the old-fashioned way—playing hundreds of shows and Texas honky-tonks, dance halls and clubs. Albums including While the Gittin’s Good, High Times & Good Rhymes and Cosmo Oil Co. document a band that has never been particularly interested in staying inside one genre.

Think outlaw country dragged through a Southeast Texas swamp, plugged into a loud amp, and sent loose in an Austin bar.