Gamble in Gastonia: Can a small downtown music club draw big enough crowds to survive?
Just shy of a month after Michael Carpenter opened his small, unassuming, close-to-a-million-dollar live performing arts venue in the center of downtown Gastonia, The Rooster doesn’t yet have many successes to crow about.
Opening weekend featured two events that packed the 190-capacity club — one was heavy-metal extravaganza The Carolina Headbangers Ball on Oct. 22 — but since then, Carpenter says the various local-music concerts he’s hosted have drawn only about 30 to 40 people. Sixty at most.
And yet the Gaston County native doesn’t seem to be sweating it. He seems to believe it’s a long game, and has faith that The Rooster eventually can win it.
“It’s never really been about the money for me. That’s why I couldn’t get investors,” says Carpenter, who bought the 107-year-old building at 334 W. Main Ave. in 2019 and, after a long pause due to COVID, used his own money and a business loan to have the entire interior gutted, re-constructed and funkily decorated.
“I want to do something that matters. ... That’s the goal here. Yes, I want to make money. But ultimately the goal is to get people in here to appreciate and enjoy art and be a part of the community. ... To keep these lights on for as long as I can.”
Unofficially, The Rooster is the first and only true live-music venue in the city of 80,000 and change that sits west of Charlotte. Joints like nearby Freeman’s Pub and Rock House Grill & Billiards on the east side of town routinely offer live music, but it’d be hard to argue that they aren’t bars first and foremost.
The Rooster, meanwhile, is going all-in on the idea of showcasing local and regional acts — and then some.
Here’s what that means, plus a few other key things you should know about Carpenter and his bold new gamble/venture.
Live music ... and much more
By his own admission, Carpenter is a metal fan. He was pumped to score the Headbangers Ball show. But he says that event in particular gave some the impression that The Rooster is a metal bar.
Which is not true at all.
Last weekend, the schedule included an indie-rock show on Friday night and an inspirational gospel show Saturday. This coming Friday, Nov. 18, there’ll be a jazz concert; then on the night of Saturday, Nov. 19, the venue will welcome Caskey, a Southern hip-hopper with a significant following.
“I’m gonna continue to make my calendar eclectic like that,” Carpenter says. “The idea is that we get people that love music. Not just rap fans or metalheads or, you know, country folk. ... I feel like if I made this place a metal punk bar, then I’m denying country artists and hip-hop artists and jazz artists an opportunity that they deserve, too. Because there’s so much talent in this area.
“In the Southeast in general, but particularly in western North Carolina, there are so many talented musicians and artists — why would I take that opportunity away from them to give them an audience?”
On top of that, Carpenter is experimenting with other types of monthly cultural happenings:
- An open-mic night every first and third Wednesday;
- Line dancing every fourth Wednesday;
- A “Paint and Sip” night every first Thursday;
- A “Storytellers” night (in the vein of the old VH1 series) every second Thursday;
- A “Misfit Market” for offbeat and quirky local artisans every first Saturday; and
- A more-traditional artisan market dubbed “Roosterpalooza” every third Saturday.
“Just all kinds of stuff,” Carpenter says. “Really, 100% the intention is to be a hub for the arts in general.”
What you’ll find inside
Size-wise, The Rooster is roughly along the lines of The Evening Muse in NoDa, or the old Double Door Inn. That is to say, it’s probably going to seem smaller than you might imagine.
But packed into the intimate venue are several striking design features:
- The 27-foot-long bar topped with maple flooring planks that had been sitting since 1978 in a warehouse owned by his grandfather (who told Carpenter he wanted to see them used to construct the bar shortly before dying, during the pandemic).
- The foot of the stage, which was painted by members of the Charlotte Street Art Collaborative and centers a lyric from Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio” — “For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall,” itself a play on a Simon & Garfunkel lyric. “It’s a statement on the commercialization of art and the corporatization of art,” Carpenter says. “That’s why I put that on the front of the stage, because I’m trying to make a conscious effort to let people know that, ‘Hey, this is a safe place for artists and musicians.’”
- Four high-top tables made from barrels that were used to make Redemption Bourbon at the Southern Grace Distilleries in Mount Pleasant, and longer tables with tops that were painted by local artists. Chair seat cushions are wrapped with T-shirts repping bands from Hall & Oates to Wu-Tang Clan.
- On one wall, multiple murals, one done by local artist Darrell Endicott, another created by Jason “Jbird” Parker.
- On the opposite wall, rows of vinyl album jackets and LPs (ranging from Michael Jackson to Mantronix to Merle Haggard to Mother’s Finest), donated by a pair of Gaston County vendors.
- Three guitars, hanging from the wall near the entrance to the green room, that were designed and donated by LedFiddle Guitars of Fort Mill, South Carolina.
- And, of course, rooster-related imagery and word plays all over the place, from the logos burned into the center of the barrel-based high tops to the “Cock-tails” menu.
Why he called it ‘The Rooster’
It’s probably best to just let Carpenter tell the whole story:
“I pined for months about what to call this place. ... I just struggled with it. Every time I thought that I had a good name, I’d sleep on it, and then be like, ‘Nah, that sucks.’ Finally, my wife says to me, ‘Well, you’re doing this whole thing because of your love for music and the arts, why don’t you just pay homage to one of your most influential artists?’
“I started thinking about that. And I honestly thought I was gonna call this place Ruse. … That’s one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, Chevelle. Great hard-rock band. ‘Ruse’ is just a really good song. It’s simple, it’s short. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, ‘Ruse sounds like a club where you go and dance — like a nightclub. Or, I joke, I say, ‘That sounds like a booty club.’
“So I’m still struggling, I’m driving, and one of my favorite bands from when I was young — Alice in Chains — one of their songs comes on the radio. It was ‘Sea of Sorrow,’ off their first album, ‘Facelift,’ which is still my favorite album by them. It’s the most complete album they made. It’s great. Anyways, that song comes on, and I start thinking about Alice in Chains, and in my head I’m scrolling through the Rolodex of their song catalog, and it just stops: ‘Rooster.’ And I was like, That’s it!
“I was like, it’s one word, it’s two syllables. Everyone knows it. It’s a farm reference, it’s a blue-collar reference, and then the song itself is the story of (Alice in Chains songwriter and guitarist) Jerry Cantrell’s father. His dad was a Vietnam vet, and that song was about his dad’s experience going off to war in that time, because you live in a nowhere town and there’s no options and no opportunities, so you join the military.
“You go off and then these veterans, they come home from Vietnam and they get treated like s---, because so many people were protesting the war. And in a lot of ways none of that’s really changed. Veterans still go off all over the world, put their life, blood and soul into this country, and they come back and they can’t get good f------ health care. They’re still getting treated like s---. And a lot of people don’t realize that was a protest song. It was just hidden behind the mask of this story.
“I just thought about all the people I knew growing up who had that same story. And I was like, ‘This is it. ... There’s so many connotations to this name that match this community and our experiences, like, it has to be called The Rooster.”
One giant leap for a man
Carpenter, a 43-year-old Hunter Huss High School alumnus and father of three, owned a collection of vending machines scattered around Charlotte and Gaston County before making the drastic career change.
“My last business was doing OK, but it wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing,” he says. “So my wife and I started talking. We had this idea several years ago, and just finally decided to pull the trigger.”
He says he’s spent almost a million dollars — “and most of that’s not my money,” he explains, pointing out that he’s on the hook for a sizable bank-issued loan — to get The Rooster to where it is today.
“And it was always about giving people something to do. This is my place, but really this place is for this community.
“I grew up out here. I still live out on Crowders Mountain. I bought property, built a house on Crowders Mountain. I love it out here. What I don’t love about here is how the old mill town attitude still is running through a lot of people’s veins. It’s gonna take a lot of training this community to get used to something different. ... But we’ve got a whole new generation of kids that are growing up on the internet, and they’re gonna want stuff to do.
“If (Gastonia) wants to grow the way that they say they want to grow — you want to attract young professionals, young, educated people ... you need to give them something to do in downtown.”
He hopes that in the long run, if he can figure out the formula for which events work and which don’t, The Rooster can play a key role in providing that outlet. But he also acknowledges the personal risk he’s taking on.
“I feel like I’ve done everything that a man can possibly do to achieve what I’m trying to achieve. Now it’s kind of in the hands of the community. Will they show up? ’Cause if they show up, then we’re all good. But if they don’t —”
Carpenter pauses, and chuckles before continuing — “man, I’m headed for bankruptcy.”
The Rooster
Location: 334 W Main Ave, Gastonia, NC 28052
Instagram: @theroostergastonia
Upcoming events: theroostergastonia.com
This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
