Interview: Get Real Promotions Discusses their Philosophy Behind the Promoting of the Austin DIY Hardcore Scene

Get Real Promotions founder, Felipe Lopez-Navarro, sits down with Afterglow to discuss upcoming shows and his vision for the future of the Texas hardcore scene.

Written by Mar Carmona

Get Real promotions has become one of the main giants leading booking and promoting in the Austin DIY Hardcore scene within the last two years. Bringing together hardcore fan favorites to their yearly Heavy Hitters Fest, Get Real is apart of the next wave of promoters putting the Texas scene on top. In this interview, Felipe Lopez-Navarro talks the realities of promoting, the community-oriented Get Real philosophy, and upcoming shows that’ll feature some of hardcore’s heaviest acts.

Afterglow: Tell me a little bit about yourself, how you got into promoting, and how this entire company got started.

Felipe: Me and another guy from Amarillo started Get Real promotions as kind of like a way to try to promote bands that are in the local scene, share music videos, and promote whatever they're doing, not necessarily as a full time booking company that it's kind of evolved to.

It's a lot of work, and it's a lot of stress. You're stressing out on your days off and stuff. For a while I took a break and I literally was like “I really miss booking.” I took myself out of the music scene in that period of time because I was just burnt out on the music, burnt out on the community. Once I got back into it I was like, “Oh snap, there's a lot of cool bands.” I ended up just kind of hitting up a few bands that I was really into and it just kind of grew and hasn't really stopped growing since.

What are some of your favorite shows that you’ve done or people that you’ve enjoyed working with? I know you have some recurring shows like Heavy Hitters, and there’s the toy drive that you throw annually?

Heavy Hitters developed into a fest, but we couldn't come up with a fucking name for the festival, that or the show that I had. And I was like, man, all these bands are like “heavy hitters” and that's kind of how that came about. We had a shit ton of kids show up from all over the place for that show. It was really cool because it was people that I haven't seen in years, so it became a gathering of the Texas scenes.

The Toy Drive that we're doing this year is actually going to be our first toy drive. We wanted to do one in the past, but we weren't able to with COVID. I feel like the toy drive is [not just] an indication of me growing as a person, but also the company growing. The school supply drive is something that we have done before in 2019 and it did really well. We connected with someone from the scene who worked for a nonprofit organization and from there, we just booked bands. The idea was to bring new donations and that did really well, so I wanted to do it again. I kind of just want to have, hopefully like 3 stable trademark shows for Get Real, which would be the toy drive we're launching this year, the Heavy Hitters Fest we did earlier this year,and the school supply drive we also did earlier this year.

Yeah, I remember when I saw you promoting Heavy Hitters on social media, and you posted about getting 197 Media to come out and cover the fest. That’s a moment where I was like “Woah, he is not playing!”

I don't know if it's like the Latin blood in me or whatever it is. But like, I've heard some things and people kind of underestimated. First of all, there's always talks about who was the better scene in Texas: Austin, San Antonio, Houston or Dallas. I have my opinions on that — they’re biased — but I believe what makes Texas great is that all these scenes can come together, which I think is really awesome. The main motivation behind Get Real was [that] a lot of the touring bands were skipping Austin all the time, because there just wasn't a market for this type of stuff. The 197 move was not a flex, but it was kind of a flex. I was not playing around when I booked this fest. I wanted to make a statement and I think the statement was made.

That's awesome.On that same note, how have you seen the Austin scene evolve since you started promoting in the context of the larger Texas scene?

I would say like pre-COVID, the scenes were kind of unified.There were certain individuals that created some tension between the scenes, but the hardcore scene always does a good job of policing themselves and making sure that it is a safe environment. A safe environment that we all want, that we all preach about, the safe environment that benefits 100% of the people that go to these shows.

Post COVID I would say that Texas is probably one of the strongest hardcore scenes in the world probably. You have a bunch of cool shit coming out of Texas. Bands want to play Texas, bands are excited to play Texas. Bands still want to come here and provide that escape for people. We live in a fucking red state where it's fucking god awful to wake up sometimes. Those bands want to come here, tour Austin, [and] meet all the great people. It only helps make the scene stronger.

You mentioned how at one point, the scenes were a little bit divided. Do you think Get Real has made an impact as far as putting Austin on the map,so that the scene can become more cohesive?

I definitely do think we did a good job of putting Austin on the map as far as certain things, but there's also other promoters in town that have done a killer job like Pat from Bad Kids Presents who is now working with Resound. You have Parade of Flesh, that does stuff in Austin now too. I attribute my success to what the scene indicates because let's be honest, if these kids didn't want to fucking see a hardcore show, I wouldn't be where I'm at. The need was there, and I'm just the one that was like “Fuck okay I am going to do it,” because it's fucking stressful. It is God awful annoying, it is everything that you can hate, but like afterwards you're like “Man, this is like great!” Once stuff just started coming into my email with people wanting more shows. I found out that there was a need for a DIY promoter to join in the party with all the other promoters in town.

Okay, so that goes into my next point– what are some of your own goals for the scene as a promoter and what’s the philosophy behind your work?

I want to compete with the big names. I want to show that you don't have to be a shitty person, a money-hungry person to fucking be able to put on the bands that have supported you. A lot of what people don't know is that I pay for the flyers out of my own pocket. I pay for the venue costs of my own pocket. All the stuff for Heavy Hitters I paid out of my own pocket, except all the revenue that we generated based off ticket sales, which is fucking unheard of for a DIY show. Being able to put some back into the bands, the community, and back into the venues that are allowing us to do this — that is my goal. My goal is to keep it local, but also to grow. One of my biggest accomplishments is seeing bands like Ballista, Sanity Slip, or Mangala (rest in peace that band), play bigger fests, bigger lineups, bigger stuff because of the exposure that one Get Real post did. If I can make my friends fucking famous, that's the ultimate goal. I ultimately don't really care where I end up as a promoter, but if I can provide that safety net for my friends, the people that I love — that's the reason why I do it. If you're a band and your money is not being poured into by a record label, exposure is ten times harder. You have algorithms on social media [and] people always flock to bigger bands, so if I can include smaller bands in those conversations, then I'm doing my job.

I agree. Having that support behind them to keep booking shows and keep up with coverage is what we collectively need to be better about, so I think that mission is really important.

I've always wanted to document my stuff. The idea of Get Real was actually to be a collective, so reaching out to 197 was kind of weird because I like to do stuff locally. My YouTube channel isn’t going to provide the same exposure for a band that this YouTube channel is going to do, and it’s also keeping it with good people. I want to work with good people and good people work with me, and that's the goal.

Are there any other upcoming shows that readers should keep an eye on?

There’s a show Dec. 1 with a group of bands that are routing to No Sleep Fest in Houston. Dec. 10 is our toy drive, where we will be partnering with a local nonprofit charity called Save Austin. Their mission is that they help out of place families and kids who get displaced due to physical [and] emotional abuse. Any type of trauma that they've seen, they get placed into this — It's like a foster home. They were a big part of my life, so I wanted to give back to them. They accepted my offer for me to do this for them, and I'm pretty excited about it. On Dec. 1 we’ll have Momentum, Gates to Hell, No Cure, Realms of Death, Worst Behavior, Mouth for War, and Heat from Dallas.

I'm stoked. I'm really looking forward to these shows and I'm glad that especially after the pandemic, there's a glue that's keeping us all together.

Yeah, the need for shows is important. I think giving people the avenue to socialize within the confines of what they know is even better because going back into the real world after Covid was really fucking weird. I think having the music scene there was really perfect for a lot of us weirdo kids that don't know how to socialize to begin with. You’ve taken us out of society for fucking two years, and to go back to music, is really cool.

You can follow Get Real Promotions on Instagram , Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

This interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.

InterviewsAfterglow ATXNovember 25, 2022mar carmona, get real promotions, interview