The Red Clay Strays Are Bringing Fire and Brimstone to Country Music

In the depths of the River Arts District in Asheville, North Carolina, a large tour bus is parked outside the tiny Grey Eagle where the Red Clay Strays are set to play a sold-out show that evening. The band’s coach is so tall that it all but obscures the venue behind it from street view — a visual metaphor for the Mobile, Alabama, group’s rapidly upward trajectory.

That was in October 2023. Fast forward to now, and the Red Clay Strays have just been forced to move their next Asheville concert, slated for April 28, from the 1,050-capacity Orange Peel to the outdoor stage Rabbit Rabbit, cap. 4,200. That too sold out.

Guitarist Drew Nix is nonplussed. “All I see are small goals we’re trying to achieve from here to wherever we’re trying to get to,” he tells Rolling Stone. “It’s never, ‘make it big.’”

Despite Nix’s protestation, that’s exactly where the band finds itself.

Bursting out of the red dirt clay of their home state that gives the Red Clay Strays their name, the band is the musical manifestation of the push and pull between salvation and redemption. Their sound is Delta blues, gritty honky-tonk, and Sun Records rockabilly, shot through with a palpable darkness — call the result “gothic country.” Lead singer Brandon Coleman’s fire and brimstone vocals tie it all together, and hint at the undercurrent of faith that runs through the band.

“God has come through in many different ways. I had faith that he would, but I didn’t know if he would,” Coleman says through piercing eyes. “Boom, this happened. Boom, that happened. It didn’t happen overnight, obviously. We’ve been doing it for years.”

The Red Clay Strays emerged from the ashes of a cover band in Mobile in 2016. That initial group featured Coleman with Andrew Bishop on bass. Nix did the booking. In the fallout, the trio regrouped, bringing in drummer John Hall and guitarist Zach Rishel.

“We’d start out playing anywhere that would take us, play people’s parties, playing covers and sprinkling originals in — more and more people kept listening and kept coming back to shows,” says Coleman.

A towering presence at six-foot-six, the singer commands the microphone like a charismatic preacher at the pulpit. Beads of sweat drip down his furrowed brow. His slicked back hair becomes unraveled, evoking the early, dangerous days of Elvis Presley, a lifelong influence on Coleman.

“When I heard [Brandon] sing for the first time, it was, ‘I’m going to get him in front of as many people as I possibly can.’” Nix says. “He’s got a great voice — it’s pure power and control.”

Listen to “Moment of Truth” from the Strays’ 2022 album of the same name to get an idea of what Nix is talking about. Coleman’s razor-sharp vibrato rattles the melody to its core. “Why do I do all of these things I shouldn’t do?/Why do I stumble when I’m somewhere close to you?” he sings.

“It’s self-expression. I sing every song a little differently each night, depending on the show and how I’m feeling,” Coleman says. “I don’t really jam with the band onstage because I’m locked into the crowd. And that’s how you know when you have a good band — [they’re] holding it down and you can just focus on the crowd.”

The Red Clay Strays independently released Moment of Truth in 2022; now they’re signed with influential indie Thirty Tigers and are heading in to record the follow-up with producer Dave Cobb. At first, Moment of Truth just bubbled beneath the surface. Then the brooding love song “Wondering Why” caught fire on TikTok and on streaming services and gave the band a Hot 100 charting single. To date, the track has more than 60 million streams on Spotify.

In conversation — over whiskey as it happens on this night at the Grey Eagle — the members aren’t shy about talking about the shared spirituality that binds the band. Onstage, however, they let the songs, written primarily by Nix and Coleman’s brother Matthew, an unofficial member of the Strays, do the communicating.

Go back to “Moment of Truth.” “If I can’t be righteous/If I can’t see temptation through/I will face my judgment in the moment of truth,” Coleman sings.

“It’s just soul,” Bishop says. “[A lot of] soul singers are coming out of Alabama. There’s a lot of blues influence in Alabama, as well. It’s one of the most religious Christian states. There’s a lot of gospel and that’s where Brandon came up from — he was born with it.”

Those roots are what make Coleman such a powerful vessel for delivering Nix’s lyrics, which are often rife with turmoil.

Nix says he’s actually a happy guy. “[The songs] take me back to those times where I was in a bad place,” he says. “One day, I decided I don’t want to be [there] anymore. So, you write about it. It’s a bonus when other people can feel that way, and feel like they’re not alone.”

Fans are clearly connecting with something in the group’s brand of country and rock. Shows continue to sell out, and festival appearances are on tap for the summer (they captivated the crowd at Under the Big Sky Festival last July). They’ll open for Turnpike Troubadours at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, in May, and headline the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in September. Tickets for the Ryman show disappeared so quickly that the group added two more nights, which also sold out.

“We all feel super led,” Rishel says. “This is what we’re here to do — there’s no other purpose more important in our lives than making this band the biggest and best thing it can be.”

Exiting the tour bus, the Red Clay Strays enter the Grey Eagle’s green room through a back door, as rowdy yells and foot stomping begin to take over the low-ceilinged, sardine-can space. The band’s “must-see” reputation has gotten around. 

“We’re just looking for somebody paying attention,” Coleman says.

Right now, a whole lot are.