Randy Rogers appreciates his band’s longtime fans ahead of July 6 spectacular at KC Live!

Randy Rogers Band. // photo credit Allen Clark

Randy Rogers Band’s brand of red dirt country has been pulling in audiences for well over 20 years now, thanks to their frontman’s intimate lyrics and a crack band whose lineup has been the same five guys for the entirety of its duration. Their regular appearances in and around Kansas City and Lawrence have created a fiercely-devoted fanbase who are among the most friendly and welcoming live concert crowds we’ve ever met, with their live performances unmissable gems.

Their latest, Homecoming, released in October 2022, sees the band really leaning into what they do best, and Randy Rogers Band is bringing those songs and longtime favorites to KC Live! On Thursday, July 6. Ahead of the show, we hopped on Zoom with the band’s eponymous frontman to discuss their history, the most recent album, and more.

The Pitch: You all have been making music for so long. It’s gotta be really satisfying that fans are finding the new stuff just as good as when you first formed.

Randy Rogers: Yeah. Right. That’s always the complaint of the consumer, right? That you change or you lose it? I think the fact that it’s the same five guys for 22 years now, that helps with continuing what you created and the purity of the band.

What I really appreciate is that it’s the same five guys who have been in the band since the start, but you’ve also done so much collaboration with so many other artists. It’s like you all are your own self-contained unit, but you’re not afraid to see what someone else can bring to the band.

Yeah, especially like in the studio, we have always had a couple guest guys come in and do things that we can’t do, and have different instruments and instrumentation. We’ve really tried to stay pretty pure, though, to the same people that we use every time. That’s the thing about the honesty and the realness of being a musician, and being creative person is that your ideas always aren’t the best.

Taking advice and learning–really learning–is the key to growth. After doing this for so long and making so many records, you realize that from each one of those sessions, you learn something. You take a piece away, a new trick or a new plugin or a new sound amplifier or guitar tone. Just a million things that we’ve been able to take away from different producers and different players. Even on the road, you see somebody’s rig or you see somebody doing something a little bit different.

One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about the band, is that you’re on the road all the time, and every time I’ve seen you, the performance gets tighter and hotter, if that’s even possible. How do you keep finding that energy 22 years down the line?

Well, it’s still fun. Being on stage is still better than anything else besides the obvious–family and love and being home. But you know, there’s still that rush. I guess, by now, we’re probably all addicted to it. Probably couldn’t live without it. I know we had some time off and took some vacations and that first day back on the tour bus, everybody’s just as excited to be around each other as we were in the beginning. The friendships and the camaraderie are still there.

This new album, Homecoming, has such a great title, especially given the singles that you’ve released off of it. It just seems like you’re really leaning into that sense of both band camaraderie and family. How did this album come together?

Well, during Covid I started writing and reconnected with Radney Foster, and we had the idea to go back with him finally after four albums being away from him. It wasn’t like we lost touch. We always talked throughout the year about gigs and family and he is family to me. I mean, he took me in and let me sleep on his couch when I was young and got me my first co-writes in Nashville, got me my first publishing deal in Nashville, and he did a whole bunch of stuff for me that he didn’t have to. I feel like I’m indebted to him in so many ways and he doesn’t feel that way at all. He feels like he was paying it forward.

It’s an easy way to make a record or to reconnect with somebody. It’s like riding a bicycle. We know his tendencies. We know where he is gonna lead. We know his ideas. We know they’re good. We know his songwriting is so good. It was very much like reconnecting with a lost friend and a lost love or whatever–and also a lot of fun.

A lot of memories came back that studio and Maurice, Louisiana we were so young. A lot of memories came back there at Cedar Creek in Austin where we made Rollercoaster. A lot of stories were brought up that I somehow had forgotten–things that happened, like how broke we were. Some of us were sleeping in the van during the recordings and he did so much for the band early on.

It just seems like the band really benefits from having folks who’ve really believed in you over the years, especially the fans. I’ve seen you play shows that I felt like nobody else in my circle of friends knew about and then showed up to a packed house. It always makes me happy to feel like I’m part of this club.

Yeah, I feel like our fans have always had that. Back before there was the social media that there is today, there was a group of fans that called themselves the Choir and they would travel, meet up, and I’d see ’em in Kansas City and I’d see ’em in Dallas. We grew that pretty organically.

Having started out so long ago, and I think that that’s just grown and grown and grown and grown, I thank my lucky stars every day for the long-term fan–the lifer, the person that can tell me they were there at Cheatham Stree Warehouse in San Marcos. They were there when we first played Billy Bob’s of Fort Worth. They were also there when we headlined the first time at the Ryman Auditorium.

There are people that have been with us that long and that loyalty–I wouldn’t trade it for the world, you know? I think other artists out there reading this, they should cultivate that. They should embrace that. They should embrace those people that spend their money and treat those people with respect. We don’t have a “fan club” fan club, but we sure do. There’s lots of groups out there that plan their weekends, their vacations around either us playing at Red Rocks or us playing here or there.

You’ve been coming to Kansas City or Lawrence or Topeka for almost the entire duration of the band. What makes this area a place you like to return to so often?

I think it’s Midwest. I think it’s a lot of people that connect with country music. It’s poor man’s blues, right? It’s farmer, ranchers, it’s rural. A lot of people that grew up in small towns. The music hits home for a lot of people in all those ways and I think it’s just things people connect to, which is love, the loss of love, struggles, hardship–and having a good time too. I mean, our show’s pretty rocking, so you can come out and dance and spill beer all over yourself if you want. If you wanted to just shake your Fourth of July hangover off, come find me on the sixth.

Randy Rogers Band performs at KC Live! on Thursday, July 6. Details on that show here.