Red Clay Strays Bring Swampy Gospel to Macon
The Southern Circuit Lives On
Some sounds don’t just carry — they testify. You know it when you hear it: a voice so full of Southern soil and Sunday morning gospel you half expect the roof to lift clean off, even if you’re standing under an open sky.
That’s what most folks hear when Brandon Coleman steps to the mic — hair brushed back like he’s hanging out in a Sun Records recording booth, black shirt and pants crisp as a promise, that pompadour catching the spotlight the way Cash’s once did.
If you squint, you can almost see Johnny and Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis nodding from the next booth over, raising a glass to the kid who’s brave enough to bring it all forward, even the fashion.
Brandon Coleman of the Red Clay Strays lets it rip, turning a guitar break into a full-body Southern sermon.
Photos throughout by Matthew Coleman (📸 @mccoleman98) unless otherwise noted.
But here’s the thing about the Red Clay Strays: they don’t sit still in a recording booth and they don’t sit still in any one genre. They’ll tell you themselves — they’re not really country, even if they’ve got a Country Music Association award on the shelf. They’re not strictly rock or blues, either. They’re what happens when Mobile, Alabama, gospel collides with swampy rock… and a voice splits the difference between a backwoods preacher and a juke joint sinner.
The band’s spiritual backbone comes honest — Brandon cut his teeth behind a drum kit in a little Pentecostal church, learning rhythm from sermons that left the walls sweating. Andrew (Andy) Bishop grew up Catholic. John Hall was raised Southern Baptist. Drew Nix, meanwhile, came up with a steady diet of Skynyrd, Prine, and Isbell, and you can hear it when he leans into a harmony like he’s got ghosts backing him up.
The Red Clay Strays with their real headliner: a sea of fans who turned their songs into anthems: Zach, Andy, John, Brandon, Drew, Sevans.
Those roots stretch wide — gospel, country, outlaw, blues, soul — but they all dig into the same dirt. So if you absolutely must label it, it’s Southern rock.
The Strays wear their Southern Rock like a second skin — like the South itself stitched to the hem of their dungarees. They’re part gospel tent revival, part roadhouse riot, and their sound reminds us quick that state lines on a map don’t mean a thing when the roots of Roots Music run wild.
The guys proudly call themselves country boys—Turnerville, Alabama, some of them born and raised. That unincorporated pocket of Mobile County, barely a whisper beyond Mobile’s city line, was their first stage and playground. Brandon Coleman grew up on Coleman Hill, the old family land his grandfather settled and where his father Ralph Coleman still resides in the very house he grew up in. Brandon’s wife, Macie, was practically a neighbor—her childhood home just around the corner from the Coleman property—so their lives were woven together from the start, even if they didn’t know each other in childhood.
Turnerville, AL, and Macon, GA — same dirt, same people, same stories passed down through songs that know how to shout on Saturday night and kneel down on Sunday morning. When you grow up here, the real borders are rivers and railroads and piney woods — not some sign nailed to a post at the state line.
Stick a pin in Mobile/Turnerville, AL, and Macon, GA, and then wrap a string from one to the other. Then stick a pin in Jacksonville, FL, and string it up, too. In this triangle, as is tradition for southern rockers like Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band, the Strays love to jam. And we all know the best way to experience jamming is in person, feeling what they’re putting out.
Southern Roots, Rock Revival
And that’s why this fall, when the Strays roll into Macon’s Atrium Health Amphitheater for a one-night gig — under our October stars, families sprawled out on blankets, kids dancing barefoot in the grass — it’s not just another show. It’s an experience.
A revival.
Because this city has always known how to hold the door open for the bluesy gospel sound: Little Richard’s wail echoing down Broadway, Otis’s heart cracked wide open at the Douglass Theatre, Duane Allman’s guitar… making a generation believe that maybe the Holy Spirit could live inside a Marshall amp.
When Brandon roars “If you’re looking for a prophet, I’ll tell ya I ain’t…” — well, we know better around here. We know that sometimes the best prophets are the ones humble enough to say they ain’t one. And maybe that’s why the gospel’s still loud, still swampy, still rolling up I-75 from Mobile to find a place on the Southern Circuit like Macon, where our good soil and our good people are always waiting for the next song to take hold.
Sounds Like Home
Describing a band’s sound can be tricky. Much easier is describing the feeling their sound stirs up.
I can’t listen to the Strays without feeling the Ocmulgee River pullin’ at my ankles — wide and muddy, running through Macon and past my Granny’s house in Lumber City, GA. Nights at her place moved to a rhythm all their own: frogs hollerin’ from the banks, crickets chirpin’ backup, and the gospel choir from that little Black church back in the pines, windows flung open, spirit spilling out into the trees. That sound rode the river, slipped through our screens, and landed in our laps like a blessing.
We were listening to all of it.
That’s what the Strays do to me. They pull me back to being a kid in south Georgia — not just to the place I stand now, but to the rowdy, holy, half-wild past and half-wild people who raised me. Their music is bootlegging and baptism, sin and salvation. Heck, my Granny, a founding member of Lumber City Baptist, bootlegged whiskey from her china hutch while Pappy snuck swigs when she wasn’t looking.
Good people doing bad things and bad people doing good things. It could be confusing but it was The Way back then, and sometimes still is in a Strays song.
The sounds the Strays carry aren’t borrowed — they’re inherited. Like a good pocketknife or a battered hymnbook, these songs pass down from hand to hand, from one Saturday night sinner to the next Sunday morning choirboy. That’s the Strays’ secret that’s not-so-secret… once you listen: they don’t play at Southern tradition, they live in it. Their melodies carry whiffs of Delta blues and echoes of rockabilly revival tents. And every fan can feel their authenticity.
So don’t tell me these boys don’t carry a little sacred and a little profane in every song.
Their Southern gospel roots keep them grounded — that faith, the “blessing from God” line, the “do the work, dig the hole” work ethic. That doesn’t mean they’re immune to the temptations that come with that road life, though. It just means they’re carrying an extra shield, and they know the danger is there. They’re choosing to do things differently than the bands before them — the ones who met the road’s demands with a bottle or a pill to soften the ride.
“It’s not the ’70s anymore,” Andy says to Theo Von. “The whole sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll thing is a stereotype. We all recognize that we’re doing something bigger than us.”
Self-less, not self-ish, they’ll say, because they feel something more powerful moving through them. It’s what holds them steady and keeps them in harmony, on and off the stage.
Faith doesn’t cancel flash, though, not when the spotlight hits and the spirit moves.
Brandon’s voice, like his stage presence, is part inheritance and part improvisation. He grew up mimicking artists he admired—Tracy Byrd, Waylon Jennings, Jay Roddy Walston, and Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes.
In fact, the first song Brandon ever sang? Tracy Byrd’s “We’re from the country and we like it that way.” He was four or five, toting around a Toy Story cassette player like he was listening to the Grand Ole Opry. Years later he’d start practicing his vibrato, one element of his singing that grabs most folks’ attention, and then they’ll give his vibrato a slow nod of solid appreciation.
“I get that Holy Spirit on stage,” Brandon says. “It depends on who I’ve been listening to.”
Their sound rolls like the river’s rumble, hums like a highway at dusk, and whistles like a train calling you back home — down South, whether you were ever there or not.
As for looks, not just sound, Brandon might shrug off the comparisons to Johnny Cash or Elvis, but come on — when he starts shakin’ that right leg, guitar cocked just so, I half expect the ghost of Tupelo’s favorite son to wink from the wings. It’s not copycat — it’s heritage. These boys aren’t borrowing old sounds. They’re carrying ’em forward like heirlooms in a guitar case.
The Strays don’t hide their faith — not from the crowd or stage lights or songs. Their aura is blues-soaked and rockabilly-sweet — asking big questions of themselves, of God, and of everyone in the crowd.
“I’ll never shy away from mentioning God,” Brandon has said, “but I respect how other people see Him, too.”
There’s no conversion agenda at a Strays show — just gratitude, humility, and a whole lotta grace. You can feel it in the music. Not the push of dogma, but the pull of something bigger, and sacred.
Back Roads to Ballroom
Long before the sellout crowds and festival slots, before they grew up together into men, they went by the Coleman Mason Band — a cover band so rough in the early days they don’t even like to talk about it, and often joke how they could clear a room faster than last call.
The Strays started out in 2015, also playing covers in little joints where the crowd might be five folks and a bartender.
Legend has it — and Brandon tells it as one of those things they can laugh at now — that a low point came at the Purple Buffalo in North Charleston. They had no clue they had been booked to play after three punk bands, and when “our country bumpkin butts got up there,” as Brandon puts it, the punk crowd made a fast exit. The room emptied out.
So what did they do? Brandon sat down at a table in the empty room and sang to the band like they were the only souls that mattered — and maybe they were. The bartender kept pouring them drinks, which seemed like a silver lining, until the end of the night… when he slapped them with a tab they couldn’t afford. No payout, no cash, and they were then scrounging for change under seats and in gear bags to settle up the tab before limping back to the van.
They didn’t make money that night — but they earned something else: insight, humility, and one hell of a story to tell now that they’re packing arenas.
The Strays have climbed the ladder the slow way — from barrooms to ballrooms, nightclubs to festivals, and now arenas with fans hollering back at them. When Brandon sings to a crowd, it’s ten-thousand-strong — not his own bandmates and a bartender with a bill.
Back when it was just five against the world — the Red Clay Strays and their trusty tour mule, The Breeze, ready to roll wherever the music called.
In those early days, they didn’t have a fancy rig — just an old Ford van they called The Breeze. She was a rattly, beloved beast with six bunks that hauled their gear, their dreams, and their exhausted bodies from one dive bar to the next. They still laugh about the miles they logged in that van; the breakdowns, the fast food, and the sleep-deprived delirium that only a band on the come-up understands.
“We’re practically diesel mechanics,” Andy jokes to Theo Von, alluding to those days when there was no safety net; no one to call to rescue them on the road.
And yet, they’ve mostly blazed their own trail — Elle King is the only artist they’ve toured behind. Otherwise? It’s been their name on the marquee, earning every crowd from the ground up.
These days, they’ve graduated to transfer trucks and a luxury Prevost motorhome — well-earned comfort after years of trudging — but The Breeze still holds a sacred place in their story. She was more than a tour van.
She was proof that movement itself was holy.
From The Breeze to the big rigs — the Strays roll in style these days, with a custom Kenworth and a Prevost motorhome carrying their gospel of swampy Southern rock far and wide.
The Strays’ songs hit different because they’ve lived every mile between broke and breaking through. In those early days, they played for tips — just enough for gas money and maybe one hotel room to split five ways.
The guys will tell you, although the road might be hell, you can’t skip road-dogging it and playing empty rooms. You’ve gotta earn that experience. It taught them how to work a crowd, how to make it all come together. How to write songs, and perform them.
These days, Brandon, Drew, and Brandon’s brother Matthew Coleman spend a week each January tucked away in Nashville, writing songs — a tradition they’d like to do more often. But the real testing ground? The stage.
The band tries out new material live, watching the crowd like a mirror and making changes based on what they see reflected back. Or what they read in social media comment sections.
One of their latest songs, Walking Away, takes fans on a different kind of journey — a little slower than their usual tempo, but no less powerful. Every instrument adds just what’s needed and no more, with a teeny-tiny whisper of the Beatles at points, some soul-soaked anguish in Brandon’s delivery, and a closing jam that builds until the whole crowd can’t holler for more.
Matthew is the band’s songwriter, videographer, and social media guru who put “Wondering Why” on TikTok in 2023 and created a firestorm.
And now they’ve got the hardware to show for all that hard work — their soul-stirring single I Just Wanna Be Loved went platinum this summer. That milestone isn’t just a streaming stat — it’s a sign that their blend of vulnerability and swagger is cutting across age, genre, and geography.
Even sweeter? I Just Wanna Be Loved was written by Dakota Coleman, the youngest of the three Coleman brothers tied to the band. Brandon fronts it, Matthew films it, and Dakota now steers their merchandising… and hopefully he’ll write more songs. In other words, I Just Wanna Be Loved is more than a hit — it’s a band, and a family, victory.
Platinum and proud — The Red Clay Strays hold the proof that Dakota Coleman’s “I Just Wanna Be Loved” hit big.
And just when you think their accolades couldn’t stack up any higher, along comes Billy Bob Thornton — Academy Award winner, front man of the Boxmasters, road-tested and no stranger to Southern Rock royalty (he’s a huge fan of the Allman Brothers Band). So, when Billy Bob decides to drop not one, not two, but a whole mess of Stray songs into his new Paramount+ series Landman, well… that’s what you call a Southern Seal of Approval.
In Episodes 6 and 7 of Landman, you’ll hear the Strays slipping into the story like they’ve always belonged there: “Sunshine (Western AF Version)” closing one, and a triple hit of “She’s No Good,” “Wondering Why,” and “Moment of Truth” in the next. That’s not background music — that’s a handshake from Billy Bob himself, saying, Boys, welcome to the big leagues.
And as for their fan base, it’s not just growing — it’s spreading faster than kudzu. Facebook and Instagram fan groups have tens of thousands of members who post daily, flooding timelines with concert clips, front-of-stage selfies, and enough praise to make a Baptist preacher blush.
Matthew runs the official Strays accounts on both platforms, so those pages are ground zero for band news — birthdays, new tour dates, big announcements — and they rack up thousands of comments in no time. Which makes sense because the Instagram official band account has more than a million followers. Those accounts also contain Matthew’s spectacular videos and photos (seen throughout this article), so follow the Strays on Instagram and Facebook to see where they are and what they’re up to.
John Hall, driving the Red Clay Strays like a runaway train.
That kind of fan engagement via social media has to be a little overwhelming for the guys, but there’s no mistaking what it means: the band is on the cusp of blowing up even more. Tumblin’ past that tippin’ point into mega-stardom. If they keep up this pace, they might just hit Elvis-level devotion — which is saying something, considering how crowded the digital stage is these days.
But the Strays aren’t chasing fame — they’re chasing truth, and that’s something you can feel in every note. And see in every award.
They may be young and wired into the digital age, but they’ve got old souls.
Their debut album Moment of Truth was crowd-funded — modern as can be — but they cut the tracks the old way, self-produced on analog gear that hums with warmth, static, and spirit. Not the kind of spirit that sells slogans, but the kind that shows up in bare feet and sweat-soaked Sunday dresses, shouting hallelujah in a wood-sided church on a dirt road.
Still, don’t mistake them for complete throwbacks — the Strays have their own app, giving fans instant access to tour news, merch drops, and community convos. That’s the balance they’ve struck: old-school sound, new-school savvy.
But it’ll always be the analog heart that drives the Strays’ digital bus.
More Than the Sum of Their Parts
Here’s the truth: each Stray is a talent in his own right, but together? They’re something bigger than the sum of their parts. It’s not math — it’s magic. They feel it, too, even if they sometimes scratch their heads and wonder what all the fuss is about. To them, they’re just doing their thing, and doing it the best they can.
What makes it more tender — and tricky — is that every one of them is still under 30, and most have been playing for audiences nearly half their lives. That’s a long time to be onstage and in the public’s eye. Fame can be a funny beast — it lifts you up but also crowds you in, sometimes too close for comfort.
So let’s give these guys — and the women and families who love them — room to rise without sticking them up on a pedestal. Room to make hits and make mistakes. They’re figuring out the world the same way the rest of us are: day by day, sometimes with applause in their ears, sometimes with the quiet questions that come after the lights go down.
If we idolize them, we risk dehumanizing them. What they need is what any artist needs: fans who love the music and love the humans making it, giving them the grace to grow in their own skin and at their own pace. They seem to be doing that very well so far.
While Brandon’s voice may lead the charge, the band’s heartbeat is a group effort. And since you can’t talk about the magic without naming the magicians, here’s a roll call — the flesh-and-blood, boots-on-the-ground bunch who make the group what they are.
The lineup - Tight and sharp as barbed wire on a fence line
Brandon Coleman - Front man, rhythm slinger, and the voice that can lay a crowd flat or lift it clean off the ground. Onstage, he’s equal parts preacher and troublemaker, with a leg shake that ought to come with a warning label. Offstage, he’s the same humble, big-hearted Alabama boy who’ll hold the door, ask about your Mama, and mean it.
Andy Bishop – Bass that rumbles like an Alabama storm. Smart and quick with a wry grin, Andy loves to fish, owns a boat, and lives near the water in Daphne, AL, with his wife Taylor. If you’ve heard him on the Theo Von podcast with Brandon, you know he’s got wit for days.
John Hall – Firestarter behind the kit. Animated and sweet, John endears himself to crowds with his earnest playing and joyful gestures — arms raised high, sometimes even standing on his kick drum like he’s testifying. Folks who’ve met him say what you see onstage is exactly who he is offstage.
Drew Nix – guitarist, harmonica player, harmony singer, songwriter. Drew’s penned or co-penned some of the band’s most beloved tracks, including “Wondering Why” (written for his wife Laurie Anne, who’s also a songwriter) and “Good Godly Woman,” which found its way into the 2019 film Dr. Sleep. A Mobile transplant from Hoover, AL, he’s written more than 100 songs since 2017, played everywhere from Red Rocks to the Ryman, and picked up an Artys Award from the Mobile Arts Council along the way.
Zach Rishel – Electric guitar, shredding with a style that sneaks up on you. Zach has just the right touch with his notes, not too many, not too few, just freakin’ soulfully right. He’s private by nature, known for his playing more than his press, and happily so.
Sevans Henderson – Keyboards that haunt, holler, and hold it all together. Sevans met the band while they were touring with Elle King, blew them away with his keyboard feats, and the chemistry was instant. He’s the newest member and now a fixture, splitting time between Nashville and the road.
Matthew Coleman – non-band-member, songwriter, videographer, social media mind, and documentarian. He’s usually the one catching lightning in a frame — one show, one post, one perfect backstage moment at a time. This blurry beauty (photographer unknown) is what happens when Matthew isn’t behind the lens. (wink, wink)
Calling the Strays “salt of the earth” doesn’t even begin to cover the band and team. These are ordinary Southerners with extraordinary gifts — polite enough to say “yes, ma’am,” and “no, ma’am,” grounded enough to know where they came from, and determined not to let success make them doubt people.
From the Ground Up
Covid knocked the wind out of their sails for a spell, but they came back swinging. Grinding. Giving folks from every walk of life something bigger than themselves to believe in.
In the quiet stretch when live music disappeared, Brandon sold roofs along the Gulf Coast. After a string of hurricanes when insurance didn’t cover the full costs of damaged roofs, and the company he worked for lost money on the jobs, Brandon’s now quick to admit, with a grin, “I’m not a good salesman.”
Meanwhile, Andy picked up work with an insurance adjuster, trying to help people pick up the pieces.
They did what they had to do, trading guitars for clipboards — not for glory, just to get by. That working-class backbone still shows in every chord they play.
When the lock-down lifted, the Strays set out to be the hardest working band in America — and in 2023 alone, they played 150 shows to prove it.
Drew didn’t even know how to play guitar when he first joined years ago — they just wanted him onstage for backup vocals. So he fake-strummed through the early gigs... and then learned for real. Boy, did he learn!
Along the way, they built a discography that charts their rise — from indie beginnings to major-label firepower to a live show so good it had to be recorded.
Let it be… comfortable.
Discography
• Moment of Truth (2022, Indie) - Self-produced
• Made by These Moments (2024, RCA) - Produced by Dave Cobb
• Live at the Ryman (2024, RCA) - Produced by Dave Cobb
They’ve gone from playing for tips to opening for the Rolling Stones in May 2024 (just after performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) — a leap that didn’t happen overnight, but sure as hell happened.
And no band just stumbles into the Ryman Auditorium. You get there by earning it — by road-dogging it, learning to read a room, build a moment, and hold a crowd. Learning how to turn a restless room into a roaring one. And when the Strays walked out on that Grand-Ole-Opry-haunted stage, the audience could feel every mile they’d traveled to get there.
If you listen closely to their Live at the Ryman album, you’ll hear the voice of fellow Alabama artist Taylor Honeycutt — a longtime friend who came up alongside them and joined them on that sacred stage. They love inviting kindred spirits to sing onstage.
And then, just last week, they found themselves shoulder-to-shoulder with Willie Nelson — the Red Headed Stranger himself, a man whose weathered voice and outlaw spirit have shaped the sound of American music for more than six decades. It’s the kind of moment that cements a band’s place in the story they grew up hearing, a musical story built by legends and passed on by kin. And make no mistake — with the Strays, “kin” isn’t just a figure of speech.
Sharing the stage with Willie Nelson — the outlaw poet whose songs have carried America’s stories for more than sixty years — is more than a milestone. For the Strays, it’s a thread woven into the fabric of music history.
As with most Southern families, kin runs deep in the Strays’ world — the kind of deep where you know who your people are and you show up for ’em, no matter what.
Step inside Ralph Coleman’s place, father to the Coleman boys, and you’ll see his devotion on full display — concert posters covering the walls, frame by frame, each one a mile marker in the band’s journey. He’ll run out of wall space one day, but don’t worry — the ceiling’s next, and he’ll use it. Proud father of five grown kids and a loyal fan of the Strays, Ralph shows up to see them play as often as he can.
And if those posters are mile markers, then the road ahead is wide open — carrying the Strays from Turnerville’s red clay to the biggest stages in the country, proof that no matter how far they travel, they’re still made of the same dirt and raised by the same kind of people who’ll always save them a seat at the table.
“We weren’t rich,” Ralph says of raising his children, “but we had a roof and food.” And they had each other. Still do.
Brandon adds another layer to the family story. He says his great-great-grandmother was “straight-up Cherokee,” a thread in the tapestry passed down — not written down, but remembered. And like most stories in the South, it’s not about paperwork. It’s about what lives in the heart, in the bone, and in the telling.
In Turnerville, those stories run through the red clay like a hidden spring — quiet, steady, and part of what keeps everything alive.
So when young musicians ask Brandon for advice, he doesn’t talk about chasing record deals or viral fame. (Though having a social media guru like Matthew can’t hurt one bit.)
“All you need is a manager and a booking agent,” Brandon says. “We only signed with a label so we could play Europe — and they came to us.”
It’s a confidence rooted in more than just business sense. They’re not a church-going bunch, but they’re spiritual to the bone — each member carrying echoes of the pews they grew up in, whether Southern Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or nondenominational.
“God gives you talent and drive,” Brandon says, “and then gives you a platform—and you raise Him up.”
That reverence, along with a dose of humility, is what keeps them grounded and close, even when the road gets long. They might not pass the plate, but they don’t forget who gave them the stage.
You can feel their spirit — that hidden spring, ancient, still running under their boots and their chords, feeding their camaraderie and their sound. Always the sound.
Brandon Coleman reaching & preaching the gospel of high-octane, heart-on-sleeve Southern Rock.
Catch the Revival in Macon
The Strays kicked off their Get Right 2025 Tour over Fourth of July weekend at The Wharf Amphitheater in Mobile, AL — practically their hometown, at least their stomping grounds, and one of the few places that still earns a rare three-day run. Fireworks overhead, family in the crowd and backstage, and longtime fans singing every word. They’ve learned to pace themselves on the road — no more back-to-back-to-back shows — but coming home? That was worth the three-gig stretch.
Fireworks weren’t the only thing making folks misty-eyed at The Wharf that July night in Mobile. Brandon stepped up to the mic and told a story that could hush a crowd. Back in 2017 or maybe 2018, they’d just played down the road at The Intercoastal when they heard Chris Stapleton was headlining The Wharf. Trouble was, they didn’t have two nickels to rub together for tickets.
So they did what any music-starved, broke-as-a-busted-guitar-string band would do — they moved to the closest outer-limit they could find, just outside the fence, and listened hard. Couldn’t see much, but they sure could hear, and that was enough to light a little fire they’ve carried with them ever since.
“And now this,” Brandon said, standing on The Wharf stage, looking out at the vast field of faces — their vast field of faces — packed into that seaside amphitheater, the very place they couldn’t afford to get into just a few years back. Maybe there were even some up-and-coming musicians in the outer limits, behind the fence that night, listening hard to the Strays and taking in lessons for their own climb.
“Now this,” Brandon said, marveling at the thousands of faces turned toward him.
Makes a gal wanna’ cry for their success and those struggles that got ‘em here… and for having just played with no less than Willie Nelson to boot!
That’s the kind of full-circle moment the Strays don’t shrug off. They keep those lean years tucked in their back pockets like lucky rabbit’s feet, never letting the shine of the stage blind them to the shadows they came from. Maybe that’s why folks love ’em so much — the Strays remember what it felt like to be shut out, and they play every show like they’re throwing the doors wide open for the rest of us.
“Now this,” Brandon might say at every gig these days.
This October, they’ll bring that same fire to Macon, GA.
Come October 9, when the band hits The Amp stage under our Macon stars, don’t think too hard about what to call it. It’s something older than any label, something born of backroads and hard work, dancehalls and good intentions. It’s the Southern Circuit, still alive and well, priming the next generation and the next.
If we know what’s good for us, Macon’ll open the doors for the Strays at historic Grant’s Lounge, show them into Studio A at Capricorn, and claim them as honorary Macon sons while we still can. I mean, one might swear with all earnestness that the band sprouted up from the muddy bank of Macon’s own Ocmulgee River.
So bring your neighbor, your mama, your babies, and your lawn chairs (though you probably won’t sit for long). Bring your heart wide open, too. Because some sounds don’t just carry — they testify.
And the Red Clay Strays are about to raise up a little righteous revival right here in Macon, GA, Where Soul Lives.
Red Clay Strays Starter Pack
“I Just Wanna Be Loved” – Their platinum-certified heartbreaker
“Wondering Why” – The TikTok firestarter
Moment of Truth – Their raw, analog-cut debut
Made by These Moments – Lightning, caught twice
Live at The Ryman – Their live, rootsy altar call
Want more? Dive into their official site, download their app, or hit play on any track—but brace yourself…
…You’re gonna’ feel it.
All photos by Matthew Coleman (📸 @mcoleman98) unless otherwise noted.
Bonus Videos:
Check out the Red Clay Strays at the Ryman Auditorium singing I’m Still Fine.
Listen to Wondering Why, the song that ticked up on TikTok and started the group’s fast ascent.
🎟️ Tickets for the Macon show at The Amp (Oct 9) are available here.
Red Clay Strays with Wilder Woods at the Atrium Health Amphitheater
Macon, GA, Thursday, October 9 @ 7pm.
About the Author
Cindi Brown is a Georgia-born writer, porch-sitter, and teller of truths — even the ones her Mama once pinched her for saying out loud. She runs Porchlight Press from her 1895 house with creaking floorboards and an open door for stories with soul. When she’s not scribbling about Southern music, small towns, stray cats, places she loves, and the wild gospel that hums in red clay soil, you’ll find her out listening for the next thing worth saying.
