Averi Burk - The DFW Rockstar
When I first came into the Fort Worth Texas Music scene, circa late 2018, one of the first people I heard about was Averi Burk. Word around was that she was one of the only artists to frequent Fort Worth with over 100,000 streams on a single song. She walked the line of rock/pop very well, and to be quite frank, she looked like a badass on her social platforms. She looked like the kind of artist you’d expect to pull up in a leather jacket and take your girl, but be charismatic enough to make you still feel like a valued individual. All that to say, she seemed out of reach to a lot of people in the scene.
But let me tell you what getting to know Averi has actually been like:
The first show I saw Averi at was at an event most people remember as “Blackhouse”. Blackhouse is an event venue in Fort Worth, but this particular night was one to remember. The night was put on by Nate Viera and Becca Donnis. Becca later became one of our good friends and actually helped us launch our company when we flew her down a little less than a year later. The night was filled with local talent, both from Dallas and Fort Worth. Anybody who was somebody in the scene was there. I believe that night sparked endless possibilities for Panther City. Just the fact that Averi Burk was playing that night, showed that she had a career in the making. Her band out-rocked anyone and everyone that night. Her band was tight, intense, and actual rockers on stage. But in the middle of all of them, was the female rocker, smashing post-emo trap drums into hard rock riffs, commanding everyone in the packed out backyard to shut the hell up & proceed to rock out with her. Every song was pushing into what Juice WRLD, XXX, and Lil Peep would early the next year bleed as “emo-rap” & she was already ahead of it —she knew where it was going. The audience obviously had a kick-ass time, and when it was over I fully expected Averi to head backstage— an “artist’s only” airstream behind the fence. But instead, she surprised me, and caused me to silently vow that I would get to work closely with her in the years to come. She stepped off stage and began conversing with the people around her. Awestruck fans turned into close friends, people who trusted her word turned to her, in their time of need for encouragement, and people actually liked her as a person, they liked her for HER. She wasn’t on some “Life sucks but you’re gonna be okay” fake shit. She genuinely cared about the people, those who were listening to her music and those involved in her life in any way. Don’t get me wrong, she’s talented. She’s got the look, but she’s got the genuine charisma too. She cares about people and that’s what makes me personally believe, Averi Burk will be a household name for years to come.
Through 2020, the pandemic year, we got the amazing opportunity to work closely with Averi Burk. We released a string of singles, Cali Baby, EASY (feat. Refinery), and NOTW (Boss Up) in an effort to help her find HER sound. We even worked together to make a more cohesive brand. Our current management program actually has a great debt to Averi for helping us work out the kinks, and see its early success. She was our very first management client. Through 2020 we were able to work together to secure meetings with Fort Worth’s music influencers, getting her on the city’s public streaming service, money from a grant hosted by Kay Granger, a show at trees, and features for bigger artists.
All of that is cool. Looking back, we did do a lot together, especially for a pandemic year. But the moments I really cherished were the times in between. Packing up at gigs, smoking cigars with Averi’s Dad, and geeking out about health with Averi’s Mom. The phone calls between artist and manager day in and day out really do start to add up.
We’ve been blessed to move from client and manager to just friends, and I’ve enjoyed it all the same. Averi Burk, thank you for helping us grow during this last year, and I hope we get to work together in different capacities for years to come. You are a rockstar.
