Randy Rogers Band

11.16.2006 -- Feature by: C. Eric Banister

But accusing someone of �selling out� simply because they desire for them music to be heard on a bigger scale also makes the artist seem short-sighted, as if they are blindly lead from their comfortable homes and tossed headlong in the Music City machine.

That has happened before, to be sure, but it�s not always the case. And it certainly isn�t the case for the Randy Rogers Band. Sometimes the cries of �Sell-Out� come from the fact that the band simply recorded their songs in another State. With the release of Just A Matter Of Time, he and the band work to debunk such thinking.

Rogers explains: �If you enjoy a little bit of success, a little bit of a rise in your career, people automatically assume that you�re buying your way in or selling out or whatever, it�s inevitable that people are going to say that. It�s inevitable that people are going to have an opinion about your next step, that�s why when we signed our deal, we recorded it in Austin, we recorded it in the same studio, if you look at the liner notes, it�s almost the exact same as Rollercoaster. We used a different engineer and we mastered it in a different place, other than that, that�s it.

So we were really conscious of our crowd and really conscious of our fan base. Going into the deal we knew that if we changed up too much stuff that we would lose what we had been working for for so long and we would just never do that, we would never. All five of us are very true to what we want to create and we want to create a new sound for Country music. And I don�t see us conforming to anybody else�s ideas.�

Rogers started early developing that new sound, writing his first song at age eleven and continuing to write sporadically until college. At that time, he had begun to think more seriously of a career in music and after graduating with a degree in Public Relations with a Business minor, it was time to make a decision. �Yeah, on my senior year, I started the band and that Spring I was faced with that fight or flight kind of deal,� he recalls. �I was living in the back of this house in a closet and, which I was fortunate, the Steel guitar player in the band, Eddie Foster, he�s no long with the band, but he helped me start the band, he had this house where his sons lived and he let me rent this room that was no bigger than a closet in the back of the house and if it wouldn�t have been for him, I couldn�t have stayed alive. I got a job working at Mailboxes, Etc for $6 an hour, just so I could have a little money. Those were some hard times, it was like 6, 7 months of that, maybe a year of living like that and everyone was telling me I was crazy and I need to go get a real job. Just a lot of decision that I needed to make then and luckily I stuck with it.�

But even through those lean times, he knew in his heart that he had what it took to go further. �I was just full of conviction, you know? I think that you can do anything if you put your mind to it and I think that I just had so much conviction,� he says.

So The Randy Rogers band began playing shows in 2000, the same year their live debut, Live At Cheatham St. Warehouse was released. As they made a name for themselves on the live music circuit, Rogers continued to write songs for their first studio release, 2002�s Like It Used To Be.

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It was around that time that the band opened a series of shows for another Texas music legend, Radney Foster. �I just approached him and let him know we were big fans and I was interested in writing songs with him, and that�s kind of how it all started, out of songwriting,� Rogers remembers.

Soon the pair began to write together and it developed into a mentor relationship. �He kind of took us under his wing and helped us along the way and kept us out of the troubled waters of Nashville,� Rogers says. �We had never been to Nashville, we�d never talked about signing a record deal, none of that stuff, so he kind of guided us through a lot of the stuff.�

Foster took the band into the studio to record Rollercoaster in 2004, which included one of the pairs songs �Somebody Take Me Home� and returns to produce Just A Matter Of Time.

One difference between his earlier recordings and the last couple has been the presence of more co-writers. �You know, I used to enjoy writing by myself more than I did co-writing, but now it�s a lot of fun to meet up with somebody, talk a while and come up with a tune. I used to be scared of it, now I really enjoy it. Lots of times your ideas aren�t always the best, at least mine aren�t,� he laughs. �Most of the time you go in with four or five ideas and you bounce them off the other person and then hopefully that person came with four or five ideas as well and then you just use the best one. But typically, I�ve never shown up to a co-write with nothing, you know, I always want to do my end of it.�

Even though Rogers is the main songwriter, and his name is most predominant, it is still a band. Understanding that was a main reason for signing on with Mercury records. �They just understood us, you know?� he says, �They understood the fact that we wanted to be signed as a band. They understood the fact that it was important to us that all five of us sign the record deal and play on the record and make the record the way we want to make it. Of all the record labels we met with, they spent more time coming out to shows, getting to know us, getting to know our sound, getting to know what we do live. So it just felt very comfortable with them.�

The Randy Rogers Band is currently on tour with Miranda Lambert (a fellow Texan) and headliner Dierks Bentley. Bentley has been a long time supporter of the Texas music scene in general and Rogers in particular. �Yeah, he�s very supportive and has been from day one when we met, he met our band. I don�t know why that is, but I appreciate it,� Rogers laughs.

And touring with the rising star has allowed Rogers to see a few places that he hadn�t been able to make it to before. �For the last three years we have played the Midwest pretty steady and the South, kind of an eight state radius, but as far as all over the Country, this is the first time we�ve been all over the Country,� he recounts. �On this tour we get in front of 2500 to 4500 people every night. And usually they stare at us for about the first four or five songs and by the last song they are smiling. I feel comfortable in saying that we turn at least 50% of the audience by the time we are done playing. But that�s not every, some nights they just stare at us with what our bass player calls the confused puppy dog look. But, we�re still selling CDs every night and we still go out to the merchandise booth and meet as many people as we can and we do the meet and greet because we want to be accessible to our fans.�