How The Red Clay Strays Took Over Country Without Taking Over The Airwaves: ‘Radio Is Dead’
Categoria: Musica
The Alabama band — this year's Country Power Players Groundbreaker — has picked up major country awards and billings even as it has kept the Nashville establishment at arm's length.
Por Billboard | 28/05/2026
As the Red Clay Strays packed up to leave the sessions for their 2024 sophomore album, Made by These Moments , they were confident in what they’d just created. Still, they worried: Would a last-minute mishap mean they’d never get invited back to eminent producer Dave Cobb’s studio? “We had just made our first record with him, and we were leaving, and [guitarist] Drew [Nix] spilled Coke all over [Cobb’s] freshly painted stairs,” recalls the band’s charismatic frontman, Brandon Coleman. “We were like, ‘You ruined it!’ ” He needn’t have been concerned: Made by These Moments became the band’s full-length breakthrough, and The Red Clay Strays would soon return to Cobb’s Savannah, Ga., studio to record much of their new album, Grateful , out June 5 — and it would likely take more than just some spilled soda to slow the Alabama group’s momentum. After breaking out on TikTok with the 2022 single “Wondering Why,” the soulful country-rock ensemble has become one of the fastest-rising acts in the country world, with second-line billing at this year’s Stagecoach Festival and its first arena tour on tap. An impressive ascent — especially for a band that doesn’t even necessarily see itself as “country.” Related After Slow-Burn Rise, Riley Green Is Red Hot: ‘If This Had Happened To Me When I Was 22, It Would Have Been Mayhem’ ‘I Know the Right Way To Do It, Because I Did It Wrong’: How Miranda Lambert Became a Hitmaker and Mentor Billboard Country Live Returning to Nashville With Red Clay Strays & Tucker Wetmore How the band is classified, Coleman says, “doesn’t matter. I’ve always just said ‘rock’n’roll,’ because we don’t have any fiddles or anything like that. We’re just three electric guitars, bass, drums and piano. “We’re definitely country boys with Southern heritage,” he continues, “but I just never really thought of ourselves as a country music band.” “This new record is another step away from the country sound,” interjects bassist Andy Bishop, but “we always keep a toe in that country world.” “So we can go to the CMAs!” Coleman responds. Today, the band — which, as it happens, won vocal group of the year at last year’s Country Music Association Awards and group of the year at May’s Academy of Country Music Awards — is gathered in a nondescript Southern California office space as it prepares for its Stagecoach play later in the week. The members are known for their stylishness onstage, but over Zoom, they’re just a crew of normal dudes in their late 20s and early 30s, clad in T-shirts (Bishop’s Pat Benatar one takes the cake) and good-naturedly s–t-talking while still marveling at their hard-won success after years of playing to small audiences. “We started out playing in barrooms,” Coleman says. “The barrooms just got bigger,” guitarist Zach Rishel adds. Either way, as drummer John Hall puts it, “I’m just sipping on Miller Lite.” (Keyboardist Sevans Henderson rounds out the group.) Seated from left: Bishop,