What Are You Gonna Do Today?

I’m working on an essay about fan culture I hope to publish this weekend. It’s hard to write about fan culture. I’ve been a full-time musician. I found fan interactions awkward, which makes me extra sensitive now that I work with artists on the business side. Nevertheless, I am a huge music fan. It’s why I do what I do. Some days I wish I could find the same joy in another line of work. But alas, other than family and the people I love, music is what I care about.

I’m writing today as a fan. I’m writing about my favorite band right now, The Red Clay Strays. I’ve had a number of favorite bands throughout my life, but the Strays might be my favoritist favorite band. I won’t impose on you with that old cliche that they saved my life, but the Strays—both their music and the people involved—have absolutely been a blessing in my life. Just like the song says, I’m grateful.

In full disclosure, I’ve been part of their business team (their attorney) for several years. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know everyone in their fast-growing organization. Before I get to the music, I can tell you this: it’s a fantastic group of people. The Strays have always been careful and thoughtful about who they bring into their circle; but once you’re in, they’re treated as family. Having been in the inner circle of many artist communities over many years, it’s a rare and wonderful thing to be part of such a community.

The Strays came into my life at the perfect time. I had just exited after almost five years in an executive job. In 2022, I walked away from a ten-year law practice and a great clientele I’d built from the ground to take the job. It was a risk, and it wasn’t an easy choice to make the move.

Without getting into it, I had a mixed but ultimately unhappy experience as a record executive. Someone I used to work with used to tell me over and over that I’d been lucky before, that I’d never build a business like that again. It would be risky and foolish to even try. That’s the sort of thing that sticks in a loop in your head, especially when you make the decision to start over. Starting over in middle age is scary and difficult under any circumstances; it sure doesn’t help to have that sort of inner voice playing on repeat. Failure is a choice, but it’s an easy one to make. If something seems impossible, that’s when you need the right mindset.

I worked for a corporate law firm doing work that wasn’t connected to my passion as I set about building a music clientele from nothing. Sometimes I wish I could find joy working outside music, but I’ve accepted that it’s a lifelong obsession and what I do. I asked a lot of my music business friends to coffee to remind them that I exist, that I’m open for business. Slowly my phone began to ring here and there. About a year after my return, in early 2023, a friend texted that a rock band from South Alabama needed a lawyer. Things were starting to happen. They’d self-released a kick starter-funded album that had attracted the attention of a big-name producer and a few labels.

Naturally, I was happy just to get the call (thank you Brandon M). Referrals like that are the only reason I have a business. When I get those calls, the first thing I always do is listen to the music. I don’t necessarily have to love it, but I have to appreciate it. Sometimes it takes a few spins. If someone is building a business around music, I need to understand the value of the product. Sometimes it isn’t for me and I refer it out, which is disappointing. On a good day it’ll be something I’ll listen to for enjoyment. On a great day, I get goosebumps and I know it’s going to be a favorite—which almost always means it will be successful. I’ve been blessed to have had some great days over my 20 years on the business side of music.

I’ve come to believe luck has little or nothing to do with it. Or at least, that luck is the result of enormous effort and something else.

That day I dropped the needle (or rather clicked play) on the Strays’ debut album Moment Of Truth was a great day, indeed. Once I’d met the guys and we agreed to work together, I knew everything was going to be fine. I knew our business relationship would be the cornerstone of whatever came next, as it has proven to be.

One thing I know is that my clients wouldn’t consider our connection to be a matter of luck. When I think back over my career, to all the seemingly lucky connections along the way, it doesn’t feel random. Although it isn’t a requirement that everyone in the Strays’ organization is a person of faith, most are believers. They’d say it isn’t luck; it’s God’s plan. If I’m walking in God’s path, then of course the right doors will open, the right people will come into our lives at the right time. It’s strengthened my own faith to be around people so confident in theirs.

Their faith comes across in their music; but by their own description, they’re not a Christian band. As singer Brandon Coleman often explains, they write and sing about their lives. God is in the songs because God because God is a big part of their lives. I understand the distinction, because in addition to being true, it’s a subtle rejection of an entire industry. They’re a rock n’ roll band of Christians. Sometimes the songs are about God, often they are not—at least not in any obvious way.

Just a rock n’ roll band—but in my opinion they’re one of the best rock n’ roll bands ever. They get some nice reviews, but I think the critical community will catch up soon. My evidence is simple: they’ve already achieved something very few bands have done: they’ve released three A+ albums in a row, beginning with their debut. Who else? If this sounds like hyperbole, I believe my opinion will age well. The body of work speaks for itself.

Their decade of playing beer joints has chiseled them into a sharp, super tight, but still somehow loose rhythm machine that becomes a single organism when the instruments lock in. They have the of frontman a generation, with the voice of a true superstar—the true key the kingdom. They have a three-guitar attack in the grand tradition that can soar from delicate as a feather to tearing your head off in about a second flat. But most of all, they have songs. Each album is absolutely packed with incredible songs with a stunningly wide palette encompassing the history of Southern music.

Some of the songs are overtly spiritual, the respective writers’ (primarily Matthew Coleman, brother of singer Brandon Coleman, and guitarist Drew Nix) relationship with God. Sunshine, God Does, I’m Still Fine, and several on the new album are overtly spiritual. Like all great gospel, the lyrics tend to be wide open for interpretation in personalization. Their unique Southern musical gumbo includes a deep vein of gospel that underpins many of their songs. Most of my favorites lean into gospel and church singing that’s in the Coleman Brothers’ musical DNA. It isn’t remotely preachy or saccharine; it’s in a tradition practically as old as the very same fertile dirt that gave us Hank, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and about ten thousand more.

One reason I love the Strays’ music is because it’s a descendent as well as a continuation of all my favorite music. The music I select when I’m driving long distance or doing chores or cooking dinner—my comfort music—usually falls into one of two categories: country and R&B, each mostly from the mid-20th Century. In those days the music business self-segregated, a defacto racial segregation by genre. But for those great Southern artists with many examples, those boundaries have always been porous. Great artists were influenced by what they heard. Real music fans have always crossed genre lines freely. Great musicians influence each other, regardless of race. If it’s greasy, it’s obviously good.

I fell in love with the sound of Southern Gospel from secular records from places far outside the South. I got it second-hand, but undiluted, and eventually it led me to the Soul Stirrers, The Swan Silvertones, and Mahalia Jackson. First it was The Stones. I grew up on Exile on Main Street. That’s one gift my older brother Jake gave me, bringing that album into our lives in late adolescence. Do yourself a favor and revisit “Shine a Light,” “I Just Want To See His Face,” or “Loving Cup.” Later is was Spacemen Three, then Spiritualized. Those guys mined Southern gospel in the same way the British Invasion bands mined American blues records: reinvention not imitation. Spiritualized might be the furthest thing from “Christian music,” but true to the name, it’s profoundly spiritual music. As are The Red Clay Strays.

The Strays’ songs that most speak to me are the ones anchored in gospel that address themes of struggle and redemption, through a lens of faith. Those lyrics are just ambiguous enough to resonate with anyone who has struggled, regardless of faith. And that’s the thing: everyone has struggled. Everyone is comforted by songs that remind us we are not alone in our struggles. In fact, that is the highest and best form of the uniquely human expression we call songwriting.

The first time I heard “I’m Still Fine” was my first time seeing the band at a packed North Georgia road house in 2023. It came in the middle of one of the greatest sets of music I’ve ever seen, and it still caught me off guard. It resonated with me so deeply in that moment that it nearly brought me to my knees. It spoke to me in that way only music can, hitting at the cellular level. That’s why I keep going to shows, looking for those moments.

Since then I’ve stood in rooms shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of all kinds of people singing “I’m Still Fine” at the top of our voices, filling the hall. That’s something you see at concerts all the time, by the way. I believe we have a deep need to hear our voices with other voices. It used to be something everyone did in church. Now the church can just as well be a football stadium. It’s a magical thing when the song is right.

The new album, Grateful, is another triumph, another leap forward, the completion of that rare hat trick of three back-to-back classics. As usual they cover a lot of musical ground, but Grateful leans even more heavily into the sound and feel of Southern Gospel. It’s an embrace of the direction I hoped they’d go. I have to give credit to Dave Cobb, who produced their most recent two albums. He has captured the sound perfectly. If you love Southern music, Dave is an absolute treasure trove.

My favorite song on the new album—at least at the moment—is “Do Today.” It’s a piano-driven, gospel-tinged song about grief, a recurring theme for the Strays. The band shares a strong bond in part because they have suffered real tragedy, including the passing of one of their founding members. They grieved the loss together as young men. The real life experience of grief comes across vividly.

The narrator encourages a grieving friend to find hope in their hopelessness. “Cause the sun’s calling your name, and the stars would love to see you dance again.” Then the bridge begins, and the tone changes, the plot thickens. Suddenly he’s addressing me directly:

“You were just a kid back then, just trying to find your place

I know it’s hard to start again when you’ve lost everything…”

In my own era of music, the fabled ‘90s, we didn’t really search for meaning in rock n’ roll lyrics. Lyrics tended to be decorative. We weren’t seeking profound meaning in the actual lyrics of Oasis, Sonic Youth, or The Pixies. Back then it was about the sound, the vibes. Of course I loved that era of rock, but it’s so comforting and connecting when songwriters have the courage to write from a place of true vulnerability.

My relationship with the Strays came at a time when I struggled with real feelings of loss and regret, a time of reluctant new beginnings. Their music and the opportunity to help grow their reach around the world has given me a deeper purpose. We all struggle from time to time, then we find our way back and find have so much to be grateful for. Being part of something so much bigger than myself has shown me a path to a higher service. I’ve found meaning in the songs, and I just felt like telling someone.