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Cross Canadian Ragweed is crossing the genre line |
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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Thursday, 04 January 2007 |
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 It’s a sound that could only have formed in some dusty, side-street alley inhabited by the ghosts (dead and living) of Jimi Hendrix, ZZ Top, Metallica and George Strait.
Equal parts country twang, southern rock stomp and boogie-blues with occasional heavy metal guitar riffing, Cross Canadian Ragweed uses this platform as a jumping off place for extended head-banging jams, twangy tear-jerkers and out-and-out hard rockin’, foot-stomping boogies.
“Well, we’re very Southern rock influenced,” guitarist and vocalist Cody Canada said during a phone interview, stating the obvious. “We grew up with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker and all that good stuff, but we also had Merle Haggard and George Strait from our parents.
“We also like Hendrix,” he added.
Growing up smack-dab in the middle of the American heartland in Yukon, Okla., almost every form of music was available over the radio. CCR took advantage of that, and formed out of the typical garage jams by kids with little else to do.
However, being friends since kindergarten, their musical link was like some massive multi-Vulcan mind-meld. Everyone was on the same wavelength. It’s evident in their sound and the ease with which they shift gears in concert.
“If we didn’t have that camaraderie we wouldn’t click as well,” Canada said. “I know it wouldn’t happen that way. We’re friends first and foremost. We’re all from the same town and same upbringing.”
Canada explained that the band gigged in Yukon — a “couple of shows, but we were too loud,” before relocating just down the road an hour and a half to Stillwater, a place the young band considered a “hotbed” of musical activity. Considering Yukon, it probably was, and offered enough venues for CCR to cut their performance teeth.
Then the lure of the Texas music scene came calling. “Everybody in Stillwater moved down south, I mean, the whole scene,” he said. ”It was the right thing and right time to do it.”
True enough. The band quickly garnered the attention of music lovers, as much for their hybrid sound as well as their epic concerts that ended only because they were told to stop or the bar was shutting down.
“What’s hard is playing when you have a set time of 30 minutes. That’s what’s hard,” Canada laughed. “Most bars say ‘we have a closing time of 2 a.m., when do you want to play?’ We’ll go on at 11 p.m. and play right up to 2 o’clock. We’ve got seven records, We got a lot to play.”
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TO GO TO THE SHOW
Cross Canadian Ragweed
Show has been postponed.
Aggie Theatre
204 S. College Ave., Fort Collins
482.8300, www.aggietheatre.com
$17
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THIS CCR OR THAT CCR?
Cross Canadian Ragweed’s name is often shortened to CCR, the same initials used by 1960s rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival. Singer and guitarist Cody Canada isn’t worried anyone will confuse the two bands.
“There’s no confusion, but … it’s never negative,” he said. “When it comes to us, there is really only one CCR. It’s a good comparison. I won’t say we’re influenced by them, but we like what they do.”
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ONLY A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY
While CCR does have some country in there multi-dimensional sound, Canada makes it clear the band is not a country outfit, nor have any intention of drifting that direction.
“(Our label) has pushed us toward more mainstream country, but it’s just not how we work … we fight it everyday.” he said. “If one song is a little more country than the last, then we go for it. Maybe radio picks it up, but the next single is probably not going to be that country.
“I don’t want to start naming names, but there is a lot of that country that sounds the same and it doesn’t sound country. There might be a handful of people making what I classify as country music. I think a lot of people are ready for a change, but Nashville doesn’t give a shit.”
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