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Cross Canadian Ragweed has been making music for more than 15 years.
The band has been recording and touring, gaining new fans with each show and record.
The band will take the stage at the Copper Dragon Brewing Company today at 9 p.m.
along with Texas singer-songwriter Seth James as its opener.
Pulse was able to get James and the band’s bass player, Jeremy Plato to talk about their careers and the show.
Plato discussed his group and it’s new album “Happiness and All the Other Things.”
Pulse: You guys just put out a new album, what, if anything, sets it apart from the rest of the band’s catalogue?
Jeremy Plato: I don’t know, I think it’s a little bit different. We kind of did some different recording as far as our process and we had a little time to do it.
We had an A and B studio set up, so we would record part of a song and then the rest in the studio.
Pulse: Did this new process make recording new tracks an easier task?
Plato: It just gives everybody time to figure out what they’re going to do. We always have a pretty good sketch of an idea and go from there; this just sped that part up.
Pulse: I read the new album is dedicated to Willie Nelson’s former stage manager Randall Locke. What was the band’s relationship with the man?
Plato: He was just one of our first contacts with Willie Nelson and that family, and he always took care of us. He never seemed to get cross with anybody unless he had to.
He had this motto we kind of took … “No bad days.”
Pulse: The new record includes 12 new studio tracks, but why did the band decide to also include some covers and live cuts?
Plato: Just to give the fans something a little extra, something they might not hear every day.
I did a Stephen Bruton cut (“To Find My Love”) on there, and for the longest time I didn’t know who wrote that song, and then I found out, and it was kind of ironic. I recorded it, and he passed away two days later.
Pulse: The band has been together for 15 years, is there a secret behind sticking together for such an extended period?
Plato: It helps that we were friends before starting the band. We all met during grade school and high school so we have known each other for a long time.
It seems like we have gotten past all the little ego stuff here and there. We are all in our 30s, and all of that is kind of behind us. We have nothing to prove to one another.
James has spent the last few years writing songs for other country artists. In September, he put out a brand new album, “That Kind of Man,” on Emergent Records.
James spoke with Pulse about working in country music and being a family man.
Pulse: You had a new album come out in September; can you tell me a bit about it?
Seth James: I was in the Artist Protection Plan at Sony for two years and the record I was working on there didn’t come out. I went in on my own, and after about four days, it was done, and I’m really happy with it.
Pulse: I have read it is a little different from your last — a more blues-oriented album. Why the switch up in sound?
James: I think a lot of it was the time making the record.
I had been doing a lot of old blues stuff with heavy guitar, and after a while it wasn’t satisfying. There were no songs for people to hold on to.
Pulse: Do you feel these new songs are ones people will hold on to?
James: I think the subject matter is something somebody is going to relate to. Even though we’re all unique we go through different forms of the same things every day.
This record points at all of those things.
I’ve never seen somebody hum a guitar solo, so melody and lyrical content are very important.
Pulse: You have a publishing deal where you write for other artists. Is there the feeling when you write a song for someone else where you wish you could keep it for yourself?
James: I just kind of write, and sometimes they come out, and sometimes I just can just sit back and tell if it is good for this person or that person.
After I get done, I know if it’s something I want for myself.
Pulse: How do you balance your life on the road and having a family back home?
James: It’s hard.
My wife and I met on the road, as she’s also a musician. She knows what it takes and that makes a huge difference. A lot of music business marriages are strange with the time away.
She’s from this world, and music is part of our lives.
Luke McCormick can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 275
