Coming soon to YouTube, another installment of little known facts bout ‘merica! Here’s a little preview of this episode’s location. Thanks McCoy for taking awesome pictures

Kansas is a long way from Austin. If you walked without stopping it would take you 9 days. We rode the bus and it still took most of one day. I went to bed last night somewhere north of Austin and woke up somewhere south of Topeka. Yesterday was TCB day at home. Yard work, laundry, errands, taking dirty clothes out of a suitcase and putting clean ones in, all that really fun rock star stuff. Today, watching trees and fields and farmhouses, truckstops and towns and crossroads all fly by the window, until we finally land. Sometimes when you’ve been on a long enough ride and you step off the bus, it’s a lot like stepping off a boat that’s been out to sea. Your legs wobble a little and you can still feel the ground moving to the rhythm of the highway. If you’ve ever been on a day trip deep sea fishing, you know what I mean.
Then you land. Switch gears. Where the hell am I? Where’s the bathroom, where’s the food, where’s the shower or the load in ramp or street I should avoid if I don’t want to get mugged? Living on the road is a constant gear switch because you are very rarely in the same place twice, so most of the first part of your day is consumed with just getting your bearings. Once you get that down, your day is pretty much wide open until sound check happens, dinner, showtime, and not much longer til another ride.

Wide open for about, um, 3 hours.

Ah, life on the road. So glamorous. We don’t get paid to play music, we get paid to be away from our homes, dogs, favorite Mexican restaurants, familiar faces, beds, and families. But it’s a great ride most of the time and if we can make someone’s day a little better with a good tune, it’s worth every mile. Thanks for listening and keeping us on the road everybody. I think I hear the engine starting up now…

P.s. I forgot, RIP Steve Jobs, without which a lot of our music would have taken much longer to create, if it at all. His innovation has made those of us who couldn’t speak “pc” much more computer savvy and honestly just more productive. The entire music world owes him a debt of gratitude. Every laptop I’ve seen on this tour has an apple on it, and most of the ones in studios we have worked in do too. Its thanks to his tenacity and vision i am able to write this blog, easily record all kinds of musical ideas and better keep in touch with loved ones far, far away. He was a true innovator and will be sorely missed.

It’s that time of year again, time for me to start carving up some pumpkins. Usually Brady has a competition, hopefully this year he will too. I plan on winning even though my first pumpkin here is a little janky. He’s supposed to be darth vader but looks more like Peter chriss (the cat guy from kiss). Anyhow, Halloween here we come, hopefully our band will continue it’s tradition of having awesome costumes for one of our shows again this year! Ive got some good ideas but don’t ask, itll be a surprise…

It’s a hard, cold lonely world out there. Especially when you don’t have any family to warm you through the hard times. I just jumped from one family to the next, which is one helluva lucky thing to have, if you can handle it. My grandparents, who i was lucky enough to spend the last several days with during a break from the road, are pushing 80 and still go out and grab life by the horns every day. I brought a guitar over and it was like the second coming of sliced bread. PaPa even said, “Hey, maybe I should join the band!” while posing for this pic. I hope I still have that kind of enthusiasm at that age. I wouldn’t normally bring my family into “the business” but something occurred to me while watching Miranda’s set tonight. About halfway through her set, she stopped the entire show to let the entire 6000 people in the arena know that her grandma, who was seated just off stage with a great view, was celebrating her 75th birthday and just wanted to know if anyone would help her sing Happy Birthday. So 6000 total strangers made one lady’s night with a few bars of the oldest song in the book. Talk about respecting your elders.
So it made me think about MY family.
At home and on the road, in the bus, behind the consoles, behind the drums, mics, guitars and wheels, we make up a family for each other too. We sing happy birthday to each other and for the most part, treat each other at least as good as second cousins on the worst days. And we are damn lucky to have each other. So listen up out there! Hug your grandmas, papas, mee-mas, nanas, aunties, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces dammit! They may not be here forever and some people don’t even have them.
I sure am glad to have mine, wherever they might be.

Does anybody remember EPs? If you don’t then let me refresh your memory and if they were before your time, allow me to educate you.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when people wanted to listen to their favorite music they went out and “purchased”(maybe I’ll explain that term later) what were referred to as “records”. These records came in a few different forms, originally pressed onto vinyl disks in either “singles” or “45s” or “albums” or “LPs” which came in neat packages with cool artwork or at least some deeper info about whoever was recorded on the “record”. You may know them as their later forms of “tapes” or “CDs.” I know it sounds crazy, but it actually happened! Singles or “45s” were two songs, one on each side of the record with one being the “single” which was marketed to radio and the other being a bonus, just to thank the purchaser for laying down their hard earned dollar for some tunes. I guess back then they thought it would be a rip off to sell one song and leave the other side of the record blank. Times sure have changed.
“LPs” or “Albums” consisted of an entire group of 8-12 songs assembled by an artist or group and represented a complete group of work, sometimes following some sort of loose theme or sometimes just a grouping of their best stuff. These were a little more expensive but you could own a good chunk of tunes and listen to them at your own pace.
Stay with me here, I’m almost to the point.
Enter the EP, which was essentially a sampler containing more music than a single but less than an album, kind of like a musical brunch. In the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of length. Which brings me to my point. While we are out sharing the stage with Miranda Lambert and Justin Moore, we have been allotted a 25 minute set. Coincidence? I think not. It looks like the EP is making a comeback, and the RRB is bringing it to you.
For those of you who are already fans and were hoping to see an entire live show, I apologize, but think of it this way: you are getting a condensed, straight to the point no frills version of the RRB in addition to FULL sets of Miranda and Justin, all for one ticket. We are just the warm up out here and for most of these shows, we are the new kids in town. Which is fine with us because it gives us a great opportunity to reach a whole new crowd, who may never have heard of us. Instead of shoving an entire platter of RRB right at them, we give them just enough to hear who we are and hopefully leave out enough so that they will want to explore more in the future. Who knows, we might just turn a few people on to a lot of other great artists out there too. Long live the EP!

Oh and on a side note, Aden, Miranda’s bass player is my new hero. Some bassists need 5, 6, 7 or heck, I’ve seen 8-string basses. Myself, I’m a 4 string guy to my bones. But not Aden. This guy only needs 3! And he rocks em better than most guys do with double that. Cheers to doing more with less, I’m going to start practicing…

First show of the tour is in the books, and I cant think of a better place to start. They say the blues were invented in Mississippi, Elvis Presley was raised in a two room shack here and the RRB started a new tour with the always rockin Miranda Lambert here too. Perfect.
Speaking of the king, I guess it’s a little know fact that he was born and lived his formative years in Tupelo. When I asked for a ride to go see his house, I was asked, “isn’t it in Memphis? That’s like 40 miles away.” Well I’m here to tell you, the king didn’t grow up in Graceland, he had to earn it. Sadly I didn’t make it to the site, but we were granted a consolation prize, the Tupelo automotive museum, located right across the street from our bus parking and thanks to Mary who was very kind to us and worked the desk, was free of charge!
It’s true, they really don’t make em like they used to. They had everything from some of the first cars ever made in the 1890s that looked like bicycles with lawnmower engines to one of only 51 ever made (and none sold) of the famous “Tuckers” to some classic Cadillacs, Camaros and mustangs. Interesting and unexpected spot for sure. The entire collection was donated by one guy who was a pioneering electrical engineer who helped bring about some of the first TV broadcasts from the White House. Some people are just born overachievers I guess. Anyway, it made us all wish we had cooler rides.
That about wraps it up, Miranda is finishing up right now and soon we’ll be headed for some fun in the sun on the beaches of sunny Florida. See y’all down the road!

Oh, and I forgot to mention,we met some real nice folks we hope become future fans and rocked our little corner of the stage pretty damn good tonight. Yeah that whole music thing…

Tupelo Mississippi here we come! We’re Just a short 12 hour bus ride away from starting our much Anticipated (at least by me) tour with Miranda. Arenas vs. Honky tonks? I dunno, I might miss playin our usual smokey beer joints..I bet it won’t take long to get used to though. And, since we play at 7:30, I guess I could still make it to the dancehall afterwards. The rrb game of the week: washers. If you find Brady or I wandering around your city and you wanna lose, let us know. We brought the boards and will probably play. Check out @rrbgeoff if u wanna, I’ll be sure to keep the posts comin!

30 days in the month of September. This is the month of Labor Day weekend, ACL and the first day of fall. On this specific day in history, September 21, Benedict Arnold was convicted of treason, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and Billy The Kid was arrested for the first time.

As for current day history…the Randy Rogers Band is packing up to hit the road with Miranda Lambert for our own history in the making. Yup…it’s our first major tour and we can’t imagine being out there with anyone else. She is the bomb. I think it was after the release of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” that Esquire magazine named her “Terrifying Woman of the Year.” Hahahaha…that was back in 2008. And look at her now. I guess it depends on who you are as to whether you should be terrified or not. We’ve known Miranda for a lot of years…played a lot of the same spots down here in the Lone Star State. We’re not scared…we’re proud. Click here for tour dates.

In other news…we just taped an episode of The Texas Music Scene with Ray Benson at the Gibson Showroom in Austin. Should be airing in the next couple of months but you can find listings here. If you don’t live in any of these markets, clips from the show are all over YouTube…just do a search for “Texas Music Scene TV.” It’s a great show…lots of interviews, performances and spotlights on legends. Check it out!

Finally, we just want to thank everyone for a spectacular summer. We could not have asked for better fans and friends on this road we travel. Your support, your commitment to live music…all that you guys do does not go unappreciated. Without you, there’d be no us.

That’s all for now. Look for more blog updates from all of us on the road. We love to hear from you either on our guestbook or our other social sites. Like us on facebook for daily updates, contests, tickets and more. Or follow us on Twitter…@rrbchoir, @rrblawless, @bradyrrb, @RRBGeoff, @RRBChops. Be safe out there…