Shane Smith & The Saints

Flytjendur

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  Shane Smith & the Saints

  Named after the northern winds that blow across Texas during the winter, Norther, the upcoming new album from Shane Smith & the Saints, is anything but monochromatic. Written and recorded during breaks in the band's touring schedule, the album captures Shane Smith and the Saints at their most colorful, offering up a hard-hitting version of American roots music that's influenced by country, folk, and roadhouse rock & roll. It's a sound that's been shaped by the road, where the Saints spent the past decade on tour, building a cult audience with each gig. Those years of raw, redemptive performances are now paying off — not only with headlining concerts at bucket-list venues like Red Rocks Amphitheater (which the group sold out in 36 hours) and the Ryman Auditorium, but also with an appearance on the hit TV show Yellowstone, where the Saints premiered Norther's final track, "Fire in the Ocean," with an onscreen performance.

  For an independent band like Shane Smith and the Saints, the work is never done. "It's like you can't help but feel like you've paid your dues to get to a certain spot, but once you get there, you realize you're just starting to touch the surface of the bigger picture," Smith admits.

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  The Red Clay Strays

  Hailing from the red dirt clay of Mobile, Alabama, the Red Clay Strays have spent the past year

  trailblazing their musical path across the nation by bringing their unique blend of tunes to stages

  ranging from the intimate to the large-scale in small towns and big cities all over the country. Amidst

  the success of their debut album Moment of Truth, the seasoned band of road warriors has kept

  pedal to the metal as of late making major festival appearances at HWY 30 Fest, Bonnaroo,

  Peacemaker Festival, Under the Big Sky, Mile-0 Fest, Lollapalooza, and CMA Fest, as well as

  opening for esteemed acts including Kip Moore, Nikki Lane, Old Crow Medicine Show, Paul

  Cauthen, Brothers Osborne, and The Steel Woods. Throughout their 2023 tenure of live

  performances, the band has rightfully continued to garner industry attention by touring alongside

  notable hit-makers such as Elle King, Dierks Bentley, and Eric Church. And the industry is certainly

  noticing–after a jam-packed summer tour that catapulted them onto the fast track of becoming a

  household name. The band was welcomed to walk into the circle at the Grand Ole Opry, culminating

  lifelong dreams no doubt a result of the years of hard work and drive spent honing their craft. This

  Fall, the Red Clay Strays prepare to continue cementing their well-deserved status as one of

  America’s fastest-rising bands and taking the world by storm with their first major headlining tour, the

  Way Too Long Tour. With their explosive chemistry on stage and eclectic rock-n-roll sound that is

  distinctively their own, they’re bound to burn stages down everywhere. Get your ticket while you can

  for the Way Too Long Tour this fall!

  The Red Clay Strays are Brandon Coleman: lead vocals/guitar; Drew Nix: vocals/electric guitar/harmonica; Zach Rishel: electric guitar; Andrew Bishop: bass; and John Hall: drums.

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  Brent Cobb

  With a Grammy-nominated album under his belt, Brent Cobb spent most of 2017 on the road, touring behind his major label debut, Shine On Rainy Day. It was a hard time to not be inspired. Anchored by southern storytelling and swampy,country-soul swagger,Shine On Rainy Day had become a critical and commercial hit, earning Cobb a long string of shows with artistslike Chris Stapleton and Margo Price. He embraced the road-warrior lifestyle, picking up ideas for new songs every time his band hit the highway.

  Somewhere between the whirl of shows, hotels, and truck stops, Providence Canyon began taking shape. During breaks in the band’s schedule, Cobb would return to Nashville—his hometown for a decade, ever since he left his childhood stomping grounds of rural Georgia—and head over to RCA Studio A. There, in an historic studio run by his cousin, producer Dave Cobb, he brewed up a sound that nodded to his previous material while still pushing forward. The songs were faster. More upbeat. More personal, too. Together, they formed his sophomore album, 2018’s Providence Canyon.

  Named after a Georgian gully that Cobb often visited as a teenager, Providence Canyon is an evocative, electrified album about a life lived on the run. There are road songs, half-lit drinking tunes, tributes to friends and family, and nostalgic nods to one’s younger years. There are songs about returning home and songs about getting the hell out of dodge. Gluing everything together is the unforced country croon and sharp songwriting of Brent Cobb, who credits his recent touring history for inspiring the album’s quicker pace.

  “I’ve always liked the funkier side of country and the funkier side of rock,” he explains. “Those influences have been a part of me for years, but they’re really coming to the forefront now. When you’re touring with Chris Stapleton, and you’re performing to a crowd of 10,000 people before he hits the stage, you find yourself wanting to play something upbeat.”

  If Shine On Rainy Day felt like a laidback country album for front-porch picking sessions, then Providence Canyon is built for something bigger. This is music for juke joints, pool halls, and roadhouses, filled with electric guitar (performed by Cobb’s touring bandmate, Mike Harris), B3 organ, percussive groove, and co-ed harmonies. And while the album’s recording sessions were spread out across an entire year, each song was captured in a small number of takes, with Brent and Dave Cobb relying on instinct and spur-of-the-moment ideas. The two cousins may have grown up on opposite sides of Georgia, but they share similar backgrounds and musical instincts—two qualities that lend an earthy authenticity to these 11 songs of the south.

  “It’s in the blood,” Brent says of his connection to his cousin— who, in addition to producing Shine on Rainy Day, has also overseen award-winning records for Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, and Chris Stapleton. “We didn’t grow up together,but we’re so similar in our approaches. It’s important to me to do this with him, because these songs are about the places I’m from, the places I’ve visited, and the people who’ve taken me there. My family is all over these songs.”

  Songs like “Loreen” and “Come Home Soon” were partially inspired by Cobb’s daughter, while “King of Alabama” was written in honor of a close family friend, songwriter Wayne Mills, who passed away in 2013. “I keep his chain in my pocket, his son in my prayers / Every stage I’m on, I can feel him there,” Cobb sings during the latter song, which pays tribute not only to Mills’ life, but also to the struggle of roadbound musicians everywhere. During the final chorus, Cobb promises to honor Mills’ legacy by doing the very thing Mills did best: creating real, raw music. He urges his audience to do the same. “Honky-tonk’s the trick,” he sings. “Get a guitar and grab a pick / Let the old tunes possess you, and play.”

  On the drawling, guitar-driven “Mornin’s Gonna Come” and “Sucker for a Good Time,” Cobb battles against the temptations of the road, where the drinks are free and the nights are long. He doubles down on his commitment to his wife and daughter with “Ain’t a Road Too Long,” whose mix of Bible Belt boogie-woogie and Southern rock channels influences like the Band. Then, on the album’s breezy title track, he casts his mind back to his teenage years, when a trip to Providence Canyon—a 150-feet gorge in the sandy clay of southwest Georgia, less than an hour’s drive from Cobb’s hometown—was enough to remind him of life’s fleeting, precious nature. “The night won’t last forever, after all,” he sings during the song’s chorus, while pedal steel and acoustic guitars chime in the background.

  Technically one of the oldest songs in Brent Cobb’s catalog, “Providence Canyon” (like the album that borrows its name) glorifies the thrill of hitting the open road, while also pining for the comfort and safety of home. Those themes permeate the album. For Cobb—a longtime touring musician who’d already logged years on the road before Shine on Rainy Day’s success—there’s never been a better time to explore the interlocking worlds of family, work, home, the highway, and wanderlust. Providence Canyon is the soundtrack to that journey.

  “Growing up, I didn’t know the definition of ‘providence,’” he admits. “I looked it up in my early 20s, and the definition is something like ‘the protective power of God—or nature—as a spiritual power.’ When I read that, it inspired the whole song. I was 23 at the time, and I missed the old days and the freedom of youth. Years later, I still try to keep my music honest and somehow sacred, which is why Providence Canyon felt like the appropriate title for this collection of songs. Maybe it’s got something to do with the recurring feeling of me wanting to get home all the time, even while I’m enjoying my shows more than ever. Maybe home is a providence canyon in itself.”