Fans of The Red Clay Strays call them the Strays for short. The band ended 2019 on a hot streak when their song “Good Godly Woman” was picked for the soundtrack of a Stephen King movie. A new booking agent started getting them into music festivals and more shows outside of Mobile. The Stray’s minibus was nicknamed the Breeze. The band called themselves musician mechanics because they spent so much time broken down and making repairs getting from gig to gig. Transmission, brakes … You name it, they replaced it.
Then COVID-19 hit. Every email was a cancellation or a reschedule. Music venues shut down. Leaving the Strays with no work and no place to play. The band's hot streak ended.
“I told everybody, y'all need to find something to do. Find a job or something, because shows are going away. I don't know when they're going to be back,” said lead singer Brandon Coleman, when he spoke with APR in October 2020.
“Me, Andrew, and Drew started off doing the Waiter thing,” Coleman recalled.
Not only were the Strays out of work. They were mourning the death of the drummer's brother. A longtime friend who sometimes played keys with the band. Brandon called 2020 the toughest year of their lives. They still believed things would turn around.
“All we want to do is be able to make enough money to support a family,” Coleman said. “But we're going to take it as far as God will let us take it. And if we end up getting super big or whatever, playing big stages, that's cool. But if we never get known and just play our little tour circuits and make money, that's cool too.”
The gigs came back and the Strays kicked off 2022 with the release of their song Doin’ Time. More and more folks started discovering the Strays and were willing to pay to hear new songs. Fans raised over $50,000 for the band to produce its first album, Moment of Truth.
Then things really took off. The Strays toured with bigger artists and played at Red Rocks, Lollapalooza, and Moon Crush. Their song “Wondering Why” went viral. The music sharing website Spotify says people have listened to that song over 100 million times. The Strays’ first tune on the radio, it hit the top twenty on several Billboard charts.
The Strays were even invited to play at the Grand Ole Opry. And there they were. Front and center at the home of country music.
After the Opry, the band traded in the Breeze for a bigger tour bus, selling out their own headlining shows. One of drummer John Hall’s shirts says “Alabama music is the best damn music in the damn world.” And the Strays are working to prove it. They sold out their debut at the Ryman Auditorium so fast they added two more shows. It was three sellouts in under five hours. The Strays played a sold-out concert in Fairhope in March. They know how far they’ve come.
“We used to want to play at the Flora-Bama. That was one of our goals,” said singer Brandon Coleman. “The whole time, we were happy. We weren't playing the Flora-Bama and wishing and we were at the Wharf amphitheater. We were happy with our goals and what we were accomplishing. Playing at the amphitheater didn't even seem possible at that point. That wasn't even on our radar.”
Signing with a major record label wasn’t on their radar either, but they recently joined powerhouse RCA. Now, the Strays are coming up with new goals. Bass player Andy Bishop starts them off.
“I’ve got one. I want to headline a major festival. Getting nominated for a Grammy!” he said.
“Grammy. Boom. That's it. Grammy's huge. Winning one, whatever. But at least to get nominated. That's probably one of our big goals right now,” his bandmates concurred.
They also couldn’t have dreamed of opening for one of the greatest bands of all time. But that’s exactly where they are now. The Red Clay Strays are opening for The Rolling Stones in Gillette Stadium outside Boston and the biggest crowd yet will hear this band from south Alabama for the first time. The Strays have come a long way from repairing a broken down bus and being out of work from COVID-19 to sharing a stage with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger.
