HOT GIG ALERT (11/22): Shane Smith and the Saints bring the south up north
If you happen to be a fan of Yellowstone, you’re probably familiar with a few songs by Shane Smith and the Saints, their music has been featured on the show multiple times. But long before they were featured on one of television’s most popular shows, the group were doing the ground work of an independent band, playing virtually every bar and club gig they could get.
“If you spend 10 years playing dive bars and small clubs almost every single night, and you go to the merch booth after every show and hang out with the fans until the staff literally kicks you out, you get to turn those fans into friends,” says Smith, who grew up in Terrell, Texas, before launching his band in Austin. “That’s how we built this thing. We’ve done as many as 240 shows in a single year. We’ve worked so hard to get there, and that hard work has created a beautiful, meaningful audience.”
While that ground work hasn’t brought the group up north too often, their latest visit comes with a lot of anticipation. Originally scheduled to take place at Off the Rails, a smaller music venue next door, it was upgraded to the much larger Palladium. Their latest album, Norther, has exposed them to an even larger audience than before.
Norther is an album that reflects the bandmates’ road-warrior chops. “We’d be on the road doing shows, and there would be a 48-hour gap where we’d fly into Dallas and try to record everything we possibly could, then fly right back to wherever the bus was,” says Smith, who tapped producer Beau Bedford to helm the album. “It was like that for the entirety of the recording process.”
There’s always new territory to explore however and that’s what the group is doing on their latest run of dates. “It’s like you can’t help but feel like you’ve paid your dues to get to a certain spot, but once you get there, you realize you’re just starting to touch the surface of the bigger picture,” Smith admits. “At the end of the day, it still feels like we’re getting discovered. But maybe that’s what it’s all about.”
:: Shane Smith and the Saints play The Palladium (261 Main St., Worcester, MA, 01608) on Friday, November 22nd. Tickets start at $26 + fees and are available – HERE. ::
Featured images by: David Wells
