Georgia Line. “Two years ago, we did 230 shows, last year about 180 and this
year about 140. Next year, we’ll do about 80.” Though he loves touring, he says
he’s looking forward to spending more time at home in Lenexa, Kan.
Dan Weller ’95/97 has come a long way since the days it was a challenge to simply hold the instrument that had caught his fancy as a child.
“I kept running off with my dad’s guitar,” he says. “It was a classical full-size guitar that was about the same size I was.”
His parents encouraged his musical inclination, signing him up for guitar lessons when he was 8 years old and introducing him to a variety of music. “Broadway, jazz, old country, blues, rock — I had exposure to all kinds of music,” he says.
These days, having since become a masterful musician who plays guitar, bass, banjo and keys, Weller — Did we say he sings backup vocals, too? — performs on big stages and under bright lights with Florida Georgia Line, a country duo that has nabbed a slew of awards and produced multiple chart-topping hits, including “Cruise,” “Dirt” and “This is How We Roll,” during a meteoric rise over the past few years.
The band supports its hits with a strenuous concert schedule, two years ago posting 230 shows.“It’s been fun,” Weller says of his time with Tyler Hubbard, Brian Kelley and the rest of the band. “We hit the right markets for what we’re doing, and it grew a lot pretty quickly.”
Finding the right market is a concept Weller was familiar with well before he joined FGL in February 2013. After graduating from Fort Hays State with a music degree, he moved to Wichita and got a job in advertising at the Wichita Eagle.
“I got to work with all these really great small businesses,” he says. “I became interested in what it took to run a business.” So he enrolled in WSU’s entrepreneurship program. “That helped a lot down the line,” says Weller, who also earned an MBA. “I had a great time at Wichita State.”
While an MBA student, Weller was a graduate assistant to late professor Ron Christy, who was also a noted businessman and director of WSU’s Kansas Family Business Forum. “As his grad assistant, I consulted with clients,” says Weller. “I was the one helping research viability and market size.”
Weller also applied classroom instruction to his graduate project: helping start a band. That band, King Me, which still plays gigs in the Wichita area, was able to earn national airplay. “It was about learning how to be effective in markets,” he says. “Musicians need to understand they’re running a small business.”
Cash flow, merchandise sales, logos, copyrights and publishing were all thoughtfully considered. “There were all these business things going on. I was able to apply the stuff I was learning in class.”
After graduating in 1997, he continued to put his education to use, this time in business consulting at Arthur Andersen in first Kansas City and then Dallas. But he didn’t give up music and used his free time to play with local bands.
In 2004 after moving back to Kansas City, where his wife Donnelle ’00/04 works as a user experience researcher at Sprint, he began devoting more time to music. A few years later, he was making regular trips to Nashville to play with area artists and eventually landed a full-time job touring with Colt Ford. While on tour with Ford, Weller met Hubbard and Kelley, who were starting to grab the attention of country music fans.
Weller joined FGL several months after the release of “Cruise,” which skyrocketed to the top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and stayed there for 24 weeks — breaking the record for longest tenure at the top.
“It’s the fans who allowed it to happen,” Weller says of FGL’s immense popularity. “There is a great fan base that’s lots of fun. Seeing the people at the shows, I like that. The best part is touring around.” He also enjoys absorbing local culture and sampling the cuisine.
During a European tour earlier this year, he was particularly enamored with London, Dublin and Glasgow. “It’s one thing to read about it, but seeing it makes it real,” he says of centuries-old buildings and places where history was made.
As much as he enjoys touring, this business savvy musician looks forward to a slower FGL concert pace. After all, there’s no need to flirt with market saturation.
