Brad Houser, co-founder of New Bohemians, longtime collaborators of Edie Brickell including on 1998’s multi-platinum selling Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars and its trademark hit “What I Am,” died on July 24 at the age of 62.
Houser passed away a week after suffering a stroke, and had been in hospital in critical condition. The musician, who played bass guitar, baritone saxophone, and bass clarinet player had recently been working with his bandmates, including Brickell, on new material.
Brickell posted: “Just spent 6 weeks playing and recording with my friends, New Bohemians. It was our final day recording and Brad was about to take off for a gig when I said, ‘Aw, come on! One more jam, Brad. You start it.’ He nodded and played this great part and I started singing about him to him with the biggest smile on my face just having fun.
“I was celebrating his generosity to stay and play one last song with me. But I never thought it would be our final song together. Our band’s very last jam was a playful song about Brad. I loved him. He taught me a lot.”
Houser was born on September 7, 1960 in Dallas, Texas and founded the group in the early 1980s, when he played vibraslap, with Eric Presswood on guitar and Brandon Aly on drums. Aly went to the same school, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, as guitarist Kenny Withrow and percussionist John Bush, who joined in 1985 along with Brickell. She studied at the same school, but did not know the other members until later.
They made a name on the local live circuit and then more widely, signing with Geffen Records and releasing Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars in 1988. It quickly reached gold and then platinum status in the US, turning double platinum in 1996. Its flagship single “What I Am,” composed by the group’s main co-writers, Brickell and Withrow, climbed to No.7 on the Hot 100 and became an international hit.
The band’s second album, 1990’s Ghost of a Dog, fared less well, and the group split, reuniting for three more albums in the 2000s, the most recent of which was 2021’s Hunter and the Dog Star. Austin lived in Austin in later years, also working in such bands as Critters Buggin, the Dead Kenny Gs, and Diamond Boom. The latter was a collaboration with his wife Kirilola Onokoro. He also worked as an instructor at the New School of Music, which gave free music classes to underserved communities, and designed bass guitars for Reverend Guitars, including 2019’s Reverend Basshouser Fatfish 32.