Cross Canadian Ragweed has been touring Texas and Oklahoma for nearly a decade. But Cody Canada (lead guitar, vocals), Grady Cross (rhythm guitar), Jeremy Plato (bass), and Randy Ragsdale (drums) have been friends much longer, since their childhood days in Yukon, Oklahoma.

Personal lives certainly have changed over the years, and especially this year, with three of the four band members becoming fathers. But musically, Ragweed remains true to the foundations established when the band formed after high school.

"No matter how much some things change, others somehow remain the same," says frontman Canada from his New Braunfels home. "Overall it's pretty much the same now as when we were practicing in Randy's garage 11 years ago."

That garage band genesis figures into the title of Ragweed's seventh album, Garage (review), available from Universal South on October 4.

"We were born a garage band, and we will die a garage band," says Canada.

Garage is a stronger album than 2004's Soul Gravy (review). This time the band had more time to record and work on its studio sound with producer Mike McClure.

The evolutionary results are evident from the first song, "Fightin' For." Layered vocal tracks yield a more professional, polished sound that reflects Ragweed's place on a major label's Nashville imprint.

Yet it's a sound the band initially was reluctant to adopt.

"I fought that idea," says Canada. "McClure wanted to do it on the last couple of records, but I fought it because we can't duplicate that live."

With more studio time than the band was accustomed to, McClure convinced Ragweed to let him play around with multi-track vocal engineering. "Final Curtain," sequenced seventh on Garage, was the first experiment.

"When I heard the results side by side, I thought, 'Alright, that'll work,'" says Canada with a chuckle.

And the studio experiments weren't limited to just vocals. A borrowed sitar simulator lends an exotic air to the spiritually themed "When It All Goes Down."

But studio tricks aside, Ragweed just rocks on Garage, perhaps nowhere moreso than on "Dimebag," a heartfelt, hard-rocking tribute to two of the band's fallen idols, Dimebag Darrell Abbott and Kurt Cobain.

Ragweed was shaken by Abbott's on-stage murder last year. "It was so brutal and so fucked up," says Canada, who regrets he was never able to meet the guitar god from Pantera and, most recently, Damageplan. "We were always about to meet him, every time we were in Dallas, but something always came up."

Abbott's murder brought back memories of Cobain's 1994 death, reflected in the second verse of "Dimebag." Canada cites Cobain as a powerful songwriting influence.

"Every now and then a musician comes along who says what you feel," says Canada. "Cobain was able to put so much of his angst and misery into his songs. Nothing else has ever touched me musically like that."

The intertwined memories of Abbott and Cobain made "Dimebag" a natural addition to the new album.

"Some songs you reach out for, and some reach out to you," says Canada. "That song, it's like it was already written and just waiting for us to accept it."

Death wasn't the only thing weighing heavily on Canada's mind during the creation of Garage. Various world and personal events converged to inspire a slate of highly personal songs like "Breakdown," "Final Curtain," and "Bad Habit."

"I was going through a lot at the time, trying to balance having my pregnant wife at home and the pressures of having to make a record on a deadline," he says. "I hate to sound too corny, but writing to me is therapy. You just gotta pour into it everything you've got.

"One day you feel like diving into the bottle. The next you feel like diving into the arms of the person you love. And the next you feel like blowing your brains out. That's life."

Besides family, Canada looks to friends and fans to keep him focused on the sunny side of life.

Ragweed has attracted prominent friends in high Nashville places. Country star Dierks Bentley is such a close friend that Canada and wife Shannon named their newborn son after him. Bentley isn't shy about the friendship either, wearing a Ragweed t-shirt on the televised 2003 CMA awards show and frequently sharing the stage with the boys from Oklahoma. California native Gary Allan also has befriended and shares road dates with the band.

While the music of Cross Canadian Ragweed, Dierks Bentley, and Gary Allan may not be an exact match, it's the friendship that ultimately counts. "Music is music, but camaraderie is something different," says Canada. "There's a lot of guys out there, like Dierks and Gary, who support us 100 percent."

Ragweed also maintains an extensive circle of friends within the Texas/Red Dirt music community, including Randy Rogers, Stoney LaRue, and Wade Bowen, among others.

"I think what's going on in Texas and Oklahoma is the same kind of thing that happened in Seattle back in the '90s," says Canada. "We're all doing a similar kind of music together, but we each do it in our own way.

"It's such a strong breeding pool for music, with so much going on in the movement," he adds. "It's an incredibly exciting time in Texas and Oklahoma right now."

Yet despite the record deals and glamorous friends, success ultimately boils down to the fans.

Even with babies back home, Ragweed tours relentlessly to support current fans and hopefully add new ones along the way.

"Whether we lose half our crowd or double our crowd, it's always the same routine," says Canada. "We're going to get in the bus, go to the next town, rock our asses off, and make some new fans."

Families will grow. Friends and fans may come and go. But no matter how much things change, Ragweed plans to remain the same.

"We're going to be the Rolling Stones of Texas and Oklahoma," says Canada. "We're going to keep playing until we die."

Patrick Nichols (email)
This Is Texas Music
September 2005