Playing upwards of 200 dates a year, giving heartfelt, unrestrained performances and winning over a loyal audience show by show, it takes a lot to stop this band from El Paso, home of the “dirty river” known as the Rio Grande. It was against this backdrop that Nino Cooper, Marco Gutierrez and Travis Stearns came of age, playing music in various bands and dreaming of recording at Sonic Ranch, the mammoth residential studio just outside of town. Fast forward a decade or so, and Nino had returned to El Paso from Southern California, where he’d abandoned a corporate career. Armed with an acoustic guitar and an armload of originals and covers, he began playing anywhere that would have him, including restaurants and hotel lobbies. Travis quickly jumped aboard to provide percussion, but venues weren’t crazy about a loud drum kit, so he picked up the cajón, a box-like instrument common south of the border. Marco Gutierrez, a veteran of a number of local bands, soon rounded out the trio, and gigs in hotels and restaurants soon became bookings in El Paso’s handful of live music clubs, which led to trips out of town with a hard-driving roots-acoustic style that wouldn’t sound out of place on a playlist with the Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons. Along the way, they’ve reached a number of significant milestones, including opening for Willie Nelson several times and selling out the famed Gruene Hall in New Braunfels.