Mother of Music

Written by Charles Agar

Lisa Fletcher was putting out another fire – the air conditioning was broken in the recording studio she runs with her husband, Freddy, and she was on one line with a repairman, on another with artists concerned for their equipment, and in the middle of it all she took a few minutes to talk with Moxie. And that was a slow day.

Fletcher, 53, and her husband run two recording studios in Austin and are managing an up-and-coming band bound for the charts. But while she is a natural in the juggling act that is her day, it was a long and winding road that took her to the music world.

“I kind of evolved into this,” Fletcher said.

Raised in Jackson, Miss. and an Ole Miss grad in social work, Fletcher started her career working with seniors in a nursing home and “loved it,” she said, until she started to get “old ahead of her time.”

On a lark, she joined a few friends from college in applying to be flight attendants, and what she planned as a two-year job turned into a ten-year career in the air for Southwest Airlines.

It was while on layover in Austin in 1987 that she caught a band at the site of what is now the popular Emo’s and met Freddy Fletcher, a musician and music industry veteran. The two hit it off, she moved from Dallas to Austin, they married and she hung up her wings as a flight attendant when she became a mom (her daughter is now 21 and studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York).

Fletcher splits her time between their Arlyn Recording Studio and Pedernales Recording Studio, managing both facilities, overseeing maintenance, making bookings and working with often-fussy engineers.

Her husband Freddy also partners with Willie Nelson on the Pedernales Records label and is a partner in the Austin City Limits’ new live music venue.
“We just kind of got our hands in a lot of music-related things,” Fletcher said.

Though not a musician herself, Fletcher has had a lifelong love of music, and was excited to find her place in the field.

“I don’t think I was really aware that there was a business side of music,” she said, but today she looks at her job as making it possible for people to create.

In the midst of it all, Fletcher started managing an up-and-coming band, Nelo. Fletcher describes their style as “rock with a little pop flavor,” and though she cringes at the Dave Matthews comparison, it is apt. The group has a big college following.

Matt Ragland, a Dallas native, formed the band and is the songwriter and the band’s “heart and soul,” alongside Reid Umstattd out of Austin, according to Fletcher.
The two bandmates went to UT and met as counselors at Longhorn Summer Camp. Today, their six-piece band is climbing its way to the top.

Fletcher first saw Nelo at Momo’s on Sixth Street and she “just fell in love with them,” coming home at 2 a.m. and excitedly telling her husband all about the band.

“We had never managed a band,” Fletcher said, but, inspired, she took them on. Working with a hard-working rock band on the road is a full-time gig, with constant logistical challenges and communication issues.

“I talk to Matt Ragland as much as I talk to my husband,” she said. “I do feel like I have seven children.”

Despite the challenge of starting out as a young band where success is as much about timing and being in the right place as anything, Fletcher has faith in Nelo.

“I want them to do well so badly and I believe in them so much,” she said,

The band has a lot of fans and recently put out a record that went as high as No. 3 on the iTunes rock chart and Fletcher has high hopes.

For Fletcher, the music life has a lots of perks, especially being able to spend time with incredible artists such as Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen and Pat Green, she said.

One of Fletcher’s most memorable times was the two months the actor Russell Crowe spent at her studio recording. It was shortly after the release of his popular film, “Gladiator,” and Fletcher was charged with finding lodging and catering, also helping out an Australian documentary camera crew there to follow Crowe in the studio.

“It’s never mundane or boring and it’s always very, very busy,” Fletcher said.

Life is never certain in music, Fletcher said. With the onset of iTunes and losses from pirated digital recordings, music producers are in a pinch, studio management is costly and music studios are in aggressive competition with one another – but somehow the Fletchers stay on top, mostly by staying very, very busy.

Her hope is to take her group straight to the Grammys. And her vision for the future: “What I really hope is to be doing exactly what I’m doing right now.”