It was around 1980 when a young Cody Canada was with his father at a steakhouse in Oklahoma City seeing George Strait perform.
While he knows his music is different from what Strait does, Canada says that performance would help inspire him to become a musician later in life.
“I was five or four years old when I saw a George Strait performance at a small club in Oklahoma city. That’s what made me want to do it. I know my music is far from what George Strait does but that’s what really gets it all started for me.”
It wasn’t long before he learned how to play guitar.
Over 40 years later, Canada is still doing what he loves, playing what is known as red dirt country music. Today, he is the lead singer for Cody Canada and the Departed who lives in New Braunfels.
The group will soon make its way to Monahans for the Red Dirt Roadshow.
The event is scheduled for 6 p.m. May 13 at Ward County Arena.
The evening’s concert will also include country musicians Stoney Larue and Tanner Usrey.
Playing alongside Canada in the band is bass player Jeremy Plato and drummer Eric Hansen.
Together, they’ve performed songs that blur the lines between hard-edged country, rock ‘n’ roll and all the gritty sounds in between.
The Departed formed in 2011, shortly after the breakup of Cross Canadian Ragweed, a wildly influential band that headlined the red dirt scene for about a decade in which Canada was the front man for.
It’s been four years since the group released its last album titled “3” which is named after the number of members in the band.
However, Canada will admit that a lot has changed with the record industry.
“It’s gone from CDs and full-length albums to singles and that’s been weird to adjust to,” Canada said. “When Ragweed split up, I went to a six-piece band because I thought, the bigger the better and now it’s a three-piece band because you don’t need to have all of that. If you know how to play guitar and you know how to sing and everybody else is doing the same thing and everybody plays their part, then you don’t really need flash. All you need is the music and that’s really what the 3 record was about. We were proving to everyone that we can do this as a three-piece.”
Talking about songwriting influences, Canada says he’s always been a fan of Neil Young and Willie Nelson.
When it comes to the music portion, he brings up the grundge music era of the early 1990s.
“I was a child of the 90s,” Canada said. “My parents split up when I was 12 and that’s right when the grundge movement happened. It was tailor made for me because I was angry and had anxiety and touch music always has a place in my heart. The old country music, I quit listening to country about 15 years ago, but the old stuff, along with the 90’s and 70s stuff, that stuff drove me and I still listen to all of that and find hidden gems from time to time.”
A year ago, The Departed recorded their latest single which was a cover of “If you Want it That Much” by The Great Divide.
“I heard that song about 20 years ago,” Canada said. “I was on tour with the Great Divide and I thought one day, I was going to record that song. … During the pandemic, while locked in a studio, I started recording the songs that I always wanted to record and that song was number two on the list. It just felt like an old pair of shoes. I’m glad that I got the opportunity to record that song and it felt like it was the right time.”
Recently, The Departed finished re-recording “Soul Gravy” which was the second studio album Cross Canadian Ragweed recorded on Universal South Records back in 2004.
While the original album did peak at number five on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart and feature the singles “Sick and Tired” and “Alabama” both of which charted on the Hot Country Songs charts, Canada was not a fan of the album.
This re-recording featured the songs the way Canada wanted them done.
“It was really fun because number one, I didn’t get to record the original the way I wanted to,” Canada said. “I remember being really busy and rush the recording. We recorded it on a line six pod that you can use to make it sound like anybody and the first couple of days, I didn’t want to do it. But then I realized that I wasn’t going to win this battle and we had to get a record out and make everybody happy. We recorded it and the record was a hit with fans. But it still bothered me. It wasn’t perfect to me.”
Because Canada was so busy and doing 250 shows in 2004, he had to compromise and get as many recordings out as possible and then go back to writing the next song.
“It was a busy, busy time,” Canada said.
However, with the re-recording, it was done on his own time and in his own studio.
“We brought in people to play,” Canada said. “My boys and kids helped. It’s not oversaturated with musicians but it was exactly the way I wanted it done the first time.”
It didn’t take long for Canada to re-record the album, saying that it only took a week. The new version featured Lee Ann Womack singing.
“It’s easy to re-record when you’ve been playing the songs for 19 years so it was easy,” Canada said. “I don’t think there was a difficult part. … It was tougher to sing because I’ve gotten older but we had some students who managed to sing the (crap) out of it.”
Today, Canada continues to be on the road doing shows left and right but not as much he used to.
“In 2004, I was doing 250-275 and that was with no kids and my wife was with me on the road all the time then,” Canada said.
He finds a way to balance everything today with his wife and kids.
“Now I have two kids and a music school and the pandemic and I’m doing about 150 a year which is still a lot for a lot of people but it’s pretty comfortable for me,” Canada said.
His old band Ragweed lasted from 1994-2010. The band was formed in Yukon, Okla.
When talking about that band’s breakup, he described it as a “sinking ship.”
“(Ragweed) was in trouble two years before we called it quits,” Canada said. “It was a lot of pressure. There are a lot of bands that go through that. It was a lot of pressure. Two guys in the bands didn’t want to play as much and they wanted to choose bigger shows over more shows that meant more to me. They wanted to do openings for Miranda Lambert and I like Miranda, she’s a friend and everything but that’s not my thing. I don’t want to go on stage and perform for an hour, I want to go a town and play for two hours. So things started getting rocky.”
Once he knew it was over, Canada started recruiting other members including Plato who played alongside in Ragweed.
“Jeremy and I went to grade school together,” Canada said. “We did a lot of things together.
Other members would come and go over the last decade and Hansen, who is a longtime friend of Canada would join The Departed three years ago.
“I called Eric to fill in for a couple of gigs and soon he wanted to stay on and that was all I wanted him to say,” Canada said. “He’s the best drummer I’ve ever known. He dove in.”
The Red Dirt Roadshow has been on tour going to different cities in Oklahoma and Texas.
The recent stop was at Freedom, Okla. and the next stop will be in Monahans in a few weeks.
The show is put on by JNP Productions.
Senior Director of Operations at JNP Productions Dan Baus said the company was drawn to Monahans due to its location and the Ward County Arena.
“We were made aware of this nice facility that was just built and they were wondering how it could be put to use and we were planning on going to other markets but we thought it was just feasible to take a shot at this new market,” Baus said. “There really isn’t a lot of entertainment coming through. Bands play in Midland and Odessa but it just seemed like a nice venue. The bands were available that particular weekend. We’re taking a shot and we’re going to see if it works and if it does, we’re going to definitely have more shows there.”
With the lineup of musicians along with Canada and The Departed, Baus is eager about putting on a good show in the Permian Basin.
“Stoney is so prolific and dominant as far as Red Dirt music goes,” Baus said. “You can call these guys the statesmen of the scene. In the last couple of years, there’s been so many new faces and new acts and they really owe a lot to Stoney and Cody. So when we got a chance to pair them together, people were coming out of the woodworks, saying this was going to be a great show. Tanner is probably one of the hottest young acts on the bill. There are a lot of young and upcoming artists on this bill. It gives the audiences a chance to see where Tanner’s music is coming from and its influences like Cody and Stoney.”
As far as the future of The Departed, Canada says the band is going to keep moving forward.
“We’re going to keep going and keep playing,” Canada said. “I’m 45 years old so I have enough left in me.”
If you go
- What: Red Dirt Roadshow.
- When: Doors open 6 p.m. May 13.
- Where: Ward County Arena in Monahans.
- Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/2s3m7me9
