Brandon Owen Reid Stoner

Music is as much a part of Brandon Reid as his wandering spirit, his commanding presence and his yearning for understanding of life's experiences and emotions. He uses music to explore avenues of the soul, singing direct from the crossroads that are part of every journey of truth.
Brandon's connection with music was nurtured by his grandmother. She gave him his first cassette tape and it was a portal into a new world of which Brandon knew little. Brandon and his grandmother would sit in the lounge room of her tiny house singing hymns and playing guitar for hours and hours. This time spent together ingrained in Brandon the power of sharing music, just one of the many gifts his grandmother passed on to him. Music ended up being an education, something that constantly shapes who he is. 

Brandon grew up in Portland, Oregon but found a home in Fairbanks, Alaska. His music is shaped by this place, by his connection to the land and by the questions that forge their way out of the mind when faced with such epic beauty and extreme conditions. It's a place that supports the simple things in life while also being able to stretch a man to his limits; this is an opposition that Brandon explores in his music and is also part of the man he chooses to be. It's sometimes impossible to tell where the place ends and the man begins; he can make a map of Alaska with his hand, Fairbanks a star tattooed in the middle. 

In Alaska, Brandon started playing in a punk rock ‘n’ roll band called The Scurvies. They're a band to behold live and he became immersed in this crazy troupe for four years. The band toured all over Alaska and the lower 48. It was a time of brotherhood, scrounging money together for beer and cigarettes, stick and poke tattoos and living, breathing and smelling rock ‘n’ roll. They rolled through towns day after day in a beat up van, hungry and tired, hanging out for the next show; Brandon became accustomed to life and music on the road.

He is fueled by a simple premise: write songs, stash them away in a backpack and a guitar case and take them places. Sing to people. He left The Scurvies and recorded an EP before his buffalo heart took him wandering to Australia in 2009. This was a place with a new set of extremes and challenges. Brandon hit some rough times as he played his music on the streets of Melbourne, a soundtrack to violence and a stranger to almost everyone, living off coins flipped into his guitar case by drunks. 

Around this time, Brandon met The Avett Brothers from North Carolina after they played a show in Sydney, Australia. The band has long been a huge influence for Brandon and they shared some advice that transformed the way he pursued music from that point. They told Brandon that sooner or later, he would have to take his music from the street to the stage. Brandon instantly started booking shows in Australia and started planning a monumental return to the U.S which would see him play countless shows day in and day out.

When Brandon plays a show, it is an experience of enchantment. It doesn't matter if the room is empty except for the barman polishing glasses or if it's a full house who knows just when to stomp and whistle in his songs. His music echoes the hearts of an audience, a constant seeking of light on the darkest roads, and his voice blends courage with sincerity. A vast collection of adventures swing through his songs and the conflict clashing within him is tangible as the audience travels into his world.