The Sit Down with Shane Smith and The Saints
Off the back of three studio albums, Shane Smith & The Saints finally make their maiden voyage for shows across the pond in 2023 where they performed at The Long Road Festival in Leicestershire. Less than a year later the quintet from Austin, Texas returned to the UK to perform at London’s world renowned Royal Albert Hall to play Highways festival, shortly after the release of their acclaimed fourth studio album “Nother” which marked their first release in five years.
With new single “Live Free (See Me Running)” recently released, the band returned to Europe for British shows in Glasgow and London along with a string of dates on the continent for their “Transatlantic Reunion 2025” tour, where Jamie spent some time with Shane and Bennett Brown before the show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
The last time I saw the band on stage was in November as they opened for Kaleo as Wembley’s OVO Arena where apart from the interesting cardboard cutout that the artist who performed prior to them had behind them on stage, the thing I really took away from the show was that I finally got and understood why Shane and his boys are a band that everyone is talking about in high regard. The arena at Wembley, which plays host to over ten thousand people is one of the largest in the capital and across their visits to these shores they have played a variety of different sized spaces from festivals, small rooms like Bush Hall and also one of the world’s most iconic venues. “It was so cool. I am so thankful that we got to do that and I was having this conversation with one of the guys yesterday, where I think of every career musician, like people who retire as musicians, I bet that eighty to ninety percent of them never get to play that room. It felt full circle, when you are in the thick of it, grinding, playing small club after small club, you’re so deep in the weeds, you don’t necessarily pick your head long enough to think about if we were going to have a fanbase over there or whatever. You’re so caught up in the grind, then you pick your head up and all of a sudden, you are getting to play Royal Albert Hall.”
Whilst the Royal Albert Hall is such a bucket list venue on this side of the Atlantic, there is a venue back in the States that you hear time and time again from artists as also being right at the summit of this list. The rock formation that is a freak of nature near Morrison, Colorado known as Red Rocks Amphitheatre is somewhere that music fans across the globe have been in awe of as they watch videos on YouTube or hear live albums. As a permanent outdoor performance venue, there is nowhere that artists hold in such high regard. Bennett depicted the natural phenomenon to great effect: “It’s unbelievably unique, there’s no other stage in the world like it. You’re really nestled in with the cliffs on either side creating this perfect natural amphitheatre. The green room is basically a hollowed out cave, where the walls are raw rock with water seeping down and ferns, then of course everyone in the world has played there.”
With new single “Live Free (See Me Running)” recently released, the band returned to Europe for British shows in Glasgow and London along with a string of dates on the continent for their “Transatlantic Reunion 2025” tour, where Jamie spent some time with Shane and Bennett Brown before the show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.
The last time I saw the band on stage was in November as they opened for Kaleo as Wembley’s OVO Arena where apart from the interesting cardboard cutout that the artist who performed prior to them had behind them on stage, the thing I really took away from the show was that I finally got and understood why Shane and his boys are a band that everyone is talking about in high regard. The arena at Wembley, which plays host to over ten thousand people is one of the largest in the capital and across their visits to these shores they have played a variety of different sized spaces from festivals, small rooms like Bush Hall and also one of the world’s most iconic venues. “It was so cool. I am so thankful that we got to do that and I was having this conversation with one of the guys yesterday, where I think of every career musician, like people who retire as musicians, I bet that eighty to ninety percent of them never get to play that room. It felt full circle, when you are in the thick of it, grinding, playing small club after small club, you’re so deep in the weeds, you don’t necessarily pick your head long enough to think about if we were going to have a fanbase over there or whatever. You’re so caught up in the grind, then you pick your head up and all of a sudden, you are getting to play Royal Albert Hall.”
Whilst the Royal Albert Hall is such a bucket list venue on this side of the Atlantic, there is a venue back in the States that you hear time and time again from artists as also being right at the summit of this list. The rock formation that is a freak of nature near Morrison, Colorado known as Red Rocks Amphitheatre is somewhere that music fans across the globe have been in awe of as they watch videos on YouTube or hear live albums. As a permanent outdoor performance venue, there is nowhere that artists hold in such high regard. Bennett depicted the natural phenomenon to great effect: “It’s unbelievably unique, there’s no other stage in the world like it. You’re really nestled in with the cliffs on either side creating this perfect natural amphitheatre. The green room is basically a hollowed out cave, where the walls are raw rock with water seeping down and ferns, then of course everyone in the world has played there.”
There isn’t just the fact that it is a natural wonder, the venue is very steep so has similarities to witnessing events in the ancient Roman or Greek times to make the audience feel almost on top of you. In addition to being at altitude and the top of a hill, meaning it can provide a great workout to jog up and down the steps, Shane shared the appeal of this as a performer where “You also have the element of it being a conundrum, where you are playing in front of eleven thousand people when it is sold out but it feels like an intimate show, where how else do you do that? Typically, if an amphitheatre is an eleven thousand cap, it is an amphitheatre that is going far away and the people in the back are a long way away from you, whereas this one is such a steep wall that they feel closer to you.”
Artists love to play it and fans almost see it as a pilgrimage and travel there specifically for shows as I told them that prior to our chat I had met a guy from Italy in the pub who had not only flown over to London specifically for this show but had also been to see them at Red Rocks. The band have now been across to Europe consistently for the last couple of years which coincides with the rapid growth or boom in country and Americana music over here, then they are due to head to Australia for the first time so it is apparent that international growth is a key part of the bands forward planning. “It’s just recently become a reality that we can actually sell some tickets in these markets. We’re in a bus for the first time over here and I think this is our fourth time coming over so it’s very much part of our planning for the year with our touring and our routing where it’s like ok, when are we going back to Europe? I also hope that it becomes an annual thing for Australia and I have a feeling, they seem like the type of demographic that is going to go well, they remind me of Texans.”
For the benefit of our friends down under, Shane was very aware about their fascination with the tradition of drinking from a boot for a celebratory shoey which he felt was another reason why they would fit in down there. More fans in mainland Europe were recently given the opportunity to see the band for the first time as they visited more cities outside of the UK and Scandinavia for the first time to show that this commitment is paying dividends. Whilst Shane and his family proudly root for the Dallas Cowboys, a lot of their growth is partly thanks to the depiction of cowboys of a different kind. I am not the best of television watchers and have not actually watched an episode of Yellowstone myself but the use of “All I See Is You” both musically and as an episode title in season 3 of the Taylor Sheridan created drama was more than helpful for widening the appeal of the band – it even led to the song having the great accolade of being number one on Shazam for a couple of weeks which Bennett and their manager felt was a brag that they should make a lot more of.
As to how it came about: “We didn’t pitch anything, we were just really fortunate, Andrea von Foerster who is the music supervisor for a lot of Taylor Sheridan’s work, reached out and I’ll never forget our manager calling me. He said, you’re not going to believe this but the music supervisor for Yellowstone wants to licence “All I See Is You” for two episodes and we had never been featured on anything before. The first one out of the gate was that and they named the episode after the song which was crazy but that is how that went down. Then we couldn’t talk about it or tell anybody for months, I think it was April when thy reached out and it aired in November so we had to wait that entire length of time. I didn’t even tell my parents because I took it serious as shit because I was scared that they would pull it. She (Andrea) was the one that said that Taylor is very sensitive about this and if someone starts posting that you are going to be featured on it and it gets out, he might pull it and put something else on it. It was incredible though when it all came out.”
Artists love to play it and fans almost see it as a pilgrimage and travel there specifically for shows as I told them that prior to our chat I had met a guy from Italy in the pub who had not only flown over to London specifically for this show but had also been to see them at Red Rocks. The band have now been across to Europe consistently for the last couple of years which coincides with the rapid growth or boom in country and Americana music over here, then they are due to head to Australia for the first time so it is apparent that international growth is a key part of the bands forward planning. “It’s just recently become a reality that we can actually sell some tickets in these markets. We’re in a bus for the first time over here and I think this is our fourth time coming over so it’s very much part of our planning for the year with our touring and our routing where it’s like ok, when are we going back to Europe? I also hope that it becomes an annual thing for Australia and I have a feeling, they seem like the type of demographic that is going to go well, they remind me of Texans.”
For the benefit of our friends down under, Shane was very aware about their fascination with the tradition of drinking from a boot for a celebratory shoey which he felt was another reason why they would fit in down there. More fans in mainland Europe were recently given the opportunity to see the band for the first time as they visited more cities outside of the UK and Scandinavia for the first time to show that this commitment is paying dividends. Whilst Shane and his family proudly root for the Dallas Cowboys, a lot of their growth is partly thanks to the depiction of cowboys of a different kind. I am not the best of television watchers and have not actually watched an episode of Yellowstone myself but the use of “All I See Is You” both musically and as an episode title in season 3 of the Taylor Sheridan created drama was more than helpful for widening the appeal of the band – it even led to the song having the great accolade of being number one on Shazam for a couple of weeks which Bennett and their manager felt was a brag that they should make a lot more of.
As to how it came about: “We didn’t pitch anything, we were just really fortunate, Andrea von Foerster who is the music supervisor for a lot of Taylor Sheridan’s work, reached out and I’ll never forget our manager calling me. He said, you’re not going to believe this but the music supervisor for Yellowstone wants to licence “All I See Is You” for two episodes and we had never been featured on anything before. The first one out of the gate was that and they named the episode after the song which was crazy but that is how that went down. Then we couldn’t talk about it or tell anybody for months, I think it was April when thy reached out and it aired in November so we had to wait that entire length of time. I didn’t even tell my parents because I took it serious as shit because I was scared that they would pull it. She (Andrea) was the one that said that Taylor is very sensitive about this and if someone starts posting that you are going to be featured on it and it gets out, he might pull it and put something else on it. It was incredible though when it all came out.”
Whilst Nashville is the globally recognised hub of country music, Austin where the band hail from is also a universal music centre and Texas has its own thriving country music scene that has typically been viewed is very different to the more commercial sounds coming from Tennessee. However, as the genre grows particularly as we view from afar, it appears there is more alignment and almost acceptance between one and the other where artists like Cody Johnson and Parker McCollum see success across all markets so we talked about whether the gap was indeed narrowing. “The genre walls have definitely been tumbling down for some time now so there is that element of it and also I think the accessibility of music through streaming has made a huge difference. For a long time, it was independent radio stations in Texas that were what like built the red dirt scene up as they were who would play the music which created this big network of fans that were specifically down in Texas Oklahoma and Kansas. That radio station may get a syndication going on where they are getting broadcast in North Carolina or over in California or whatever where you got pockets of fans up there. It’s definitely been a rollercoaster of a fanbase but I do agree with you that in the last five years, there has been a big change. A lot of our buddies are finding a lot of success commercially that scrapped it out just like we did and together really. COJO was a great example and we’ve started to do more shows with him again but we used to tour together in vans. It’s really interesting to see but it seems like the genre walls have tumbled down in a big way although there is still that network of fans down there, it’s just everybody is listening to a lot of stuff nowadays where there was a time that it was all that those people would listen to.”
In terms of what people are listening to, last year saw the band release “Norther” which was their first album in half a decade. This was followed later in the year by a live record that was recorded at their Red Rocks show and more recently the first taste of what is next arrived in the shape of “Live Free (See Me Running)” just over a month ago. The final topic which we discussed and is probably of most interest to fans is where they are in terms of the next project and whether this latest track would form part of it along with thought towards albums in the current market as we all know they are expensive to make, there is a greater focus on touring for bands like theirs and also how consumers are constantly demanding.
“Exactly. It's so different now and yeah, I think that to answer your question, like, will “Live Free” be a part of something bigger, you know, like as a record? It probably will be included on a record, I would imagine but right now, we're just focussed on continuing to write and more or less demo songs that have been written or are halfway written. That’s what my big goal is right now, to continue to demo out these new songs until there's a catalogue of ten or so that could be joined with “Live Free” potentially if it sounds like it pairs well. It is difficult, though. I'm not going to lie, it's very difficult to muster up the willpower to put a record together these days, because you know, you put so much effort into a full-length album and then all of a sudden it's like, fuck, we should have just released this one song at a time over the course of six months as people's attention spans are so short now, that in a way, you would probably get better traction by doing that. At the same time, it kind of goes against everything that you love about a record and like the surprise of an album. What's going to be on this one? Oh, my God, it's coming out in like two weeks, I've been waiting two years for this. Then, you know, it's like you have to have at least, I would imagine nowadays, what is it? Like, you've got to save at least four or five songs that no one's heard, I guess, but it's a lot of work for people to just kind of move on after a couple weeks of it.”
The latest single “Live Free (See Me Running)” from Shane Smith & The Saints is out now and available HERE. To Keep in touch with the band, you can follow along with them socially over on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK X and FACEBOOK.
In terms of what people are listening to, last year saw the band release “Norther” which was their first album in half a decade. This was followed later in the year by a live record that was recorded at their Red Rocks show and more recently the first taste of what is next arrived in the shape of “Live Free (See Me Running)” just over a month ago. The final topic which we discussed and is probably of most interest to fans is where they are in terms of the next project and whether this latest track would form part of it along with thought towards albums in the current market as we all know they are expensive to make, there is a greater focus on touring for bands like theirs and also how consumers are constantly demanding.
“Exactly. It's so different now and yeah, I think that to answer your question, like, will “Live Free” be a part of something bigger, you know, like as a record? It probably will be included on a record, I would imagine but right now, we're just focussed on continuing to write and more or less demo songs that have been written or are halfway written. That’s what my big goal is right now, to continue to demo out these new songs until there's a catalogue of ten or so that could be joined with “Live Free” potentially if it sounds like it pairs well. It is difficult, though. I'm not going to lie, it's very difficult to muster up the willpower to put a record together these days, because you know, you put so much effort into a full-length album and then all of a sudden it's like, fuck, we should have just released this one song at a time over the course of six months as people's attention spans are so short now, that in a way, you would probably get better traction by doing that. At the same time, it kind of goes against everything that you love about a record and like the surprise of an album. What's going to be on this one? Oh, my God, it's coming out in like two weeks, I've been waiting two years for this. Then, you know, it's like you have to have at least, I would imagine nowadays, what is it? Like, you've got to save at least four or five songs that no one's heard, I guess, but it's a lot of work for people to just kind of move on after a couple weeks of it.”
The latest single “Live Free (See Me Running)” from Shane Smith & The Saints is out now and available HERE. To Keep in touch with the band, you can follow along with them socially over on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK X and FACEBOOK.
