24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY october 5-11, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com At first glance, Old Crow Medicine Show (founded in 1998) and Shane Smith & the Saints (2012) have no more or less in common with one another than with the 35 other bands that will play during the three days of Rebels & Renegades 2023. However, both bands have developed a sound that transcends genres, making them a great fit for this self-proclaimed “left-of-center country, Americana, folk, outlaw, Texas country, bluegrass and roots music” festival that debuted in Monterey last year. For OCMS—whose song “Wagon Wheel” is the unofficial anthem of all singer-songwriters playing covers in pubs and at wineries—this is the first time at the festival; Shane Smith and his Saints were in Monterey last year and the band had a blast, Smith says. Its members came from all over Texas, but before the group formed, Shane Smith (of Terrell, Texas) performed on his own, starting in 2006. Adding fiddle (Bennett Brown, who met Smith in Austin but is originally from Kentucky), lead guitar (Dustin Schaefer from Victoria, Texas), bass guitar (Texan Chase Satterwhite) and drums (Zach Stover, another fellow Texan) allowed Smith to take his small acoustic concerts to the next level. “The name just stuck,” he explains about the logic behind Shane Smith & The Saints—“the Saints” simply joined later. They have never fully established a firm meaning of the name, but they like the romantic “hint of Catholicism” in it, Smith explains. Singing about the glory of Southwest Texas, and the sadness of small towns and big abandoned spaces, the band has recorded three studio albums to date—Coast (2013), Geronimo (2015) and Hail Mary (2019). In 2021, they released Live from the Desert and that one—freewheeling, spacious—will take you as close as possible to what to expect at the festival (try “All I See Is You” or “Hail Mary”). Smith, who writes the majority of lyrics, lists even more Texans as his songwriting inspiration—singer-songwriters Adam Carroll, Hayes Carll, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Robert Keen. The only non-Texan he mentions is Brandon Flowers of The Killers. “Putting pen to paper in a local Traveling Bands The musical acts at Rebels & Renegades explore the borderlands where country turns into rock, and folk is played with punk energy. By Agata Pop˛eda Rebels and Renegades Texan country group Shane Smith & The Saints, seen here playing at the inaugural Rebels & Renegades Festival in October 2022. @eyesofjem
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