Rogers has been there ever since.
ButRollercoasterchanged the trajectory of the group and of a states country music scene.
The story ofRollercoaster, Rogers tellsRolling Stone, isnt the album.
The Randy Rogers Band today. Twenty years ago they released the influential album ‘Rollercoaster,’ which they revisit with a new anniversary edition.Annie Loughead*
Its everything thats happened since then.
We trusted each other, he continues, and its all the same people Im working with right now.
Randy sent me a bunch of songs, and I listened to them, Foster tellsRolling Stone.
He tells me it took him a year to write them.
Welcome to the big leagues.
Rogers took Fosters advice to heart and came back with more and better songs.
Of the 11 tracks on the album, Rogers wrote or co-write nine of them.
Richardson wrote Ten Miles Deep and the late Kent Finlay penned They Call It the Hill Country.
This Time Around was another Canada co-write that made it onto RagweedsGaragerecord.
Another, Lay It All on You, was co-written with Wade Bowen and appeared on BowensLost Hotelalbum.
So, we had literally four days that we could record this whole record.
Well, you know how sometimes, when youre under pressure, youre better?
Thats what happened to us.
We just said, Lets get in there and hold each other accountable.
There was no real time for reflection about whether this was a good solo or not.
We just had to go and do this.
Lawless:It was in the time in our career where there were no rules.
Our influences were all over the board at the time.
Me and Geoff were kind of Nineties grunge.
Chops was more punk.
Randy was the country songwriter guy.
We had no expectations.
We werent trying to sound like anything other than ourselves going in there and playing.
Richardson:I was kind of intimidated.
It definitely felt like the most real project Id ever done at that point.
Id been in the studio a couple of times, but it was real garage-y.
Hill:It was our do-or-die.
Foster:Some of it was, we fell in the luck bucket.
But I think the performances are engaging.
Theres a playfulness due to the fact that they werent yet session-quality guys.
But no new band is.
Thats true of the Beatles.
How charming are those first few recordings?
Obviously Randy and the guys dont sound anything like he Beatles, but theres a charming element to it.
In the studio, there were long conversations about production and songs and arrangements.
It was the first time an outside force Radney was involved in the creative process for RRB.
He challenged them in ways they hadnt been challenged before.
Rogers:Radney showed me how the business worked.
He was just so smart, because he had been through it and done it.
I could see that he was somebody who needed to be my mentor.
He probably hated it, because I was a little bit creepy.
But he taught us how to be a band.
That was the turning point.
We realized that we had something.
Black:For that Billy Bobs show, we drove 19 hours, all night from Steamboat, Colorado.
None of us had showered.
And we walk in, and it was a packed-out show the biggest wed ever played.
Then, people started singing the words back to us, and that was a Whoa!
Foster:I felt like Id done my job.
They had made another record before, but it was not this lineup.
So, I always say that I made the first Randy Rogers Band record.
Ive got the crowds.
That was when I knew we were on to something.
It was getting traction, and people couldnt fucking figure it out.
All of a sudden, people from Nashville were flying in.
We were entertaining record labels.
All that because of one song.
Foster:When that record was breaking, they worked their asses off.
When we went in to make the second record, they were twice the band they were before.
Thats what 250 gigs and a lot of craziness will do for you.
They have a gig somewhere tonight, and they will kick ass.
They will blow people away.
They are seeing now what I saw from my career.
The 20-year-olds in the crowd now are the sons and daughters of their first fans.
Rogers:Wade and I were young buckaroos.
We were a little bit different.
I thought Cody was a god.
I thought Pat was.
Those guys, to me, were untouchables long before we came along.
They outlasted the guys that they used to open for.
For guys who are 45 now instead of 25, thats astounding.
I felt like he reined us in.
That record is why Im here.
