The Larry Joe Taylor Texas Music Festival invites many musical artist and groups to come out and perform their best to a grand crowd of music fans. With many people coming from far and wide wishing to have a good time and listen to some great songs, it only made sense to the members of The Tejas Brothers for them to pack their accordion and make their way to LJT.

The Tejas Brothers are a unique musical group that specializes in what the group refers to as, “Tex-Mex Honky Tonk.”

In an interview with The JTAC, members of the group described ‘Tex-Mex Honky Tonk’ style as being, “inspired by country and Tejano (and Blues and Rock).”

A description from the group’s webpage explains their style as, “a typical Tejas Brothers medley might start out as a jumpin’ tejano polka, hop into a steam-engine country train song and then drop you off in a twisting blues rocker.”

The members of the band met at an open mic session in the Stockyards at Fort Worth, Texas.

“At that time, none of us were committed to or were members of a working band,” The Tejas Brothers said. “We casually put the band together, because we enjoyed the music we were making together and we began getting requests to play for private parties.”

As they formed the group, they found that, “playing music for others make us and them happy.”

“Then, when other venues started contacting us through social media, a schedule started to form,” The Tejas Brothers said. “We were a band. We had gigs. And eventually, we decided to record some of our original songs.”

When the group writes their songs, they found inspiration in, “people and family … life and stories … love and patriotism.”

While writing songs, the group also find themselves looking up to artist such as Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, The Coasters and Mingo Saldivar.

When it comes to favorite songs from the group’s albums, “lately, our favorite has been ‘Red, White and Blue’ from our ‘Live a Little More’ album,” The Tejas Brothers said.

Their most recognized song has been, “’Boogie Woogie Mamacita,’ because most people who’ve heard it or know our band associate that song with us and us with that song,” The Tejas Brothers said.

Currently, the group reports that, “we’re always coming up with new songs. We never know when the next albums are coming, but they are coming.”

The name of the band, Tejas Brothers, originated from how accordion, harmonica and vocal player Dave Perez refers to someone as ‘brother’.

“When Dave meets someone, he uses the term brother, because, after all, aren’t we all brothers and sisters, as children of God? So, naturally he began calling his fellow band members brothers, as well. Soon, all the guys in the band started referring to each other as ‘brother,’” John Garza, bass and vocals for The Tejas Brothers, said. “Then, Danny Cochran, our drummer at the time, said why don’t we call ourselves the Tejas Brothers, since ‘Tejas’ is basically the Native American word for friends, which we all were, but we considered each other like family, so add ‘Brothers’ and you have Tejas Brothers (friends/brothers). Also, Tejas would bring about the thought that some of our songs might have a little bit of Tejano music in their roots. It just seemed like a great name for our band.”

While the Tejas Brothers await the day they will be able to perform at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, they continue to enjoy themselves performing at The Larry Joe Taylor Coastin’ and Cruisin’ music festival. Meanwhile, they make preparation to get to Melody Mountain Ranch and find themselves, “seeing familiar faces, meeting new friends and hugging them all,” all while saying, “your Tejas Brothers love you. God bless.”