For the last 15 years, Cross Canadian Ragweed has been creating amazing Texas country music, developing a sound that is uniquely theirs and acquiring a huge following along the way.
We got the chance to talk with Cody Canada, Grady Cross, Randy Ragsdale and Jeremy Plato just before they played at Lone Star Park -- where they drew in around 24,000 fans during their last show.
One would think their popularity would have given them "country star" attitudes, but we were pleasantly surprised to see who down to earth the guys all were.
NBCDFW: When do you guys feel like you really started taking off?
Canada: "I always answer that question with we went to, uh, Minneapolis on Monday and sleet, and just had the feeling no one would be there. And we had about 400 people. You know, knowing that, thank God we could get that at home, we get good crowds at home, but going all the way up there on a Monday night and having a really good crowd, and they knew everything, felt like to me that we could do it as long as we wanted"
Plato: "[I] think milestone for me would be Billy Bob's, just because I grew up with it's being -- it was such a big deal to play Billy Bob's in my house, to me that was a big deal. Still, still a big deal."
CCR's new album, which they recorded in Orange County this past March, will be released September 1 -- so, of course, they're kicking off the new CD at "The Red Dirt Round Up," which they perform every year at the Fort Worth Stock Yards.
We were curious to find out what the vibe and sound is like on the new album compared to their previous work.
Canada: "The vibe was definitely different, I mean the last record was different from anything just because we didn't know anybody out there, and it was our first attempt at the whole being alone. But this time we were actually alone alone. It was 99% us and the people that played on the record, and it, it was just real creative, turned the phones off, and do your thing and we come up with different stuff and we have a DJ friend back in New Braunfels that said "I honestly think that you, you made a record, you took it in a different direction without changing yourself. He said that's really hard to do, and that's kinda what we were going for, to make something different."
Cross: "I like anything off the new album cause it is new, and we have been dropping about 4 or 5 tunes off the new album, so that's always fun."
Ragsdale clued us into the band's favorite song thus far: "'Burn Like the Sun' it's called. It's the name of a new song, that's my favorite."
Canada: "It was just approached differently, it was a lot of metaphors in the writing and a lot of different cool changes. Randy's drumbeats are definitely the thing leading the charge, it's the instrument leading the charge."
And the title? "[The]album is called 'Happiness and All the Other Things,' that's it!" Canada said with a smile and a nod. "10% happiness."
NBCDFW: What was the other 90%?
Canada: "All the other things."
