Country singer Roger Creager is also a modern-day adventurer. He doesn’t claim to have a bucket list, but if he did he could check off activities that some people only dream about, such as piloting an airplane, snorkeling with dolphins, scuba diving coral reefs, skiing in the Rockies, catching tuna, spear-fishing near oil rigs, surfing in Costa Rica, playing music in the Italian countryside and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in August 2006.
“The mountain-climbing was not my idea,” Creager says, laughing. “I had a friend who was stationed in Germany and he kept talking to me about doing it. Eight months later, we were in Africa climbing that peak. Not that I have any aspirations to do Mount Everest next or anything.
“I just like to celebrate life and have fun, which is part of what my fans pick up on with the live shows, their enthusiasm and energy. I can go four years without putting out an album, but I can’t go very long without performing.”
He reckons he has performed six or seven times in Little Rock, at either the RevRoom or Stickyz, where his show will be Wednesday night. He released his first album, Having Fun All Wrong (Dualtone) in 1998. After several albums, he switched to Thirty Tigers Records in 2008. Hismost recent album, Surrender, was released last year.
Creager’s best-known songs are “The Everclear Song,” “Things Look Good Around Here,” “Love Is Crazy,” “Rancho Grande,” “Love Is So Sweet,” “A Good Day for Sunsets” and his latest, “For You I Do.”
The 42-year-old native of the Corpus Christi, Texas, area says he always wanted to be a country singer, but was too shy to make many moves in that direction. He took piano lessons in the second grade and learned to play the guitar in high school, where he was too shy to sing to anyone but himself. He wentto Texas A&M for a time and transferred to Sam Houston State University, where he got a degree in business.
“Then I went back to A&M,” he says, “and got a degree in agriculture. I worked agriculture-type jobs in college, including the Extension Service and at grain elevators. When I got out, I took a job as an accountant in Houston, worked hard and had some success. But I always hoped that I could do music, so when I was approached about starting a band, I guess I sort of jumped in the water and learned to swim.”
A recent thrill came when George Strait recorded “Sitting on a Fence,” on his latest album, Love Is Everything. Creager cowrote the song with Keith Gaddis.
Creager has opened shows for Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Gary Allen, Lee Brice and the Eli Young Band, but says most of his performances are solo headlining gigs. While he performs mostly originals, Creager says his show may include songs by Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett and some old rock ’n’ roll hits.
“We attempt to transform our listeners and take them from where they are to where we’re at,” he says. “I try to keep a spectrum in my music as wide as possible, to give people a wide variety of musical experiences.”
Going against the grain of living in either the Nashville, Tenn., or Austin, Texas, areas, as do many of his peers, Creager praises the virtues of living in Houston.
“I’m pretty close to the Gulf of Mexico and the beach, and nine months out of the year, that’s a place I like to get to,” he says. “And there’s fishing, surfing and kayaking, and I also like to play golf in my time off.”Roger Creager
8:30 p.m. Wednesday,
Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chick
en Shack, 107 River Mar
ket Ave., Little Rock
Tickets: $10
(501) 372-7707 or stickyz.
com
Style, Pages 27 on 09/24/2013