Randy Rogers Band Crafts the ‘Best Country Album’ of Their Career

Nothing Shines Like Neon is a finely crafted piece of artwork that reflects the Randy Rogers Band and their devotion to country music. Sounds Like Nashville sat down with the band’s frontman, Randy Rogers, prior to the album’s release last week to discuss the delay between this project and 2013’s Trouble, the album’s authentic sound and how the star of Entourage inspired a duet with Jamey Johnson.

“We all had to live a little bit and figure out who we wanted to be,” Rogers tells SLN. “We wanted to make sure we made the right move, so we took some time. When you’re a democracy as we are — a five-piece band that have been together forever — not every decision is made with haste.”

The band left their Nashville label home of Universal Music Group and spent the past few years songwriting, listening to outside songs, deciding how to finance an independent album and choosing the musical direction with which to go forward.

“As much shit as Texas gets talked about it, from Nashville and from people at radio that lump all Texas music into this “well it works in Texas, but it won’t work in our format” thing, part of me wants to sling some guns around and say, ‘ya know what? You’re dead wrong.'” Rogers admits. “And part of me realizes that I’m not the problem, I didn’t create this issue, it’s been there a long time. I do get frustrated at times at getting pigeonholed or lumped into some category but that’s what we do as humans: we put labels on things. I’d rather be lumped into that category than some other subgenres of country music at this point.”

In crafting this album, the band focused on their inspirations. For instance, “Rain and the Radio” could have easily been released by Ronnie Milsap in the late ’80s or early ’90s.

“To me that is different than anything we’ve ever recorded but is still in the same vein as ‘Buy Myself a Chance’ or something that you get up and dance to when you hear it,” Rogers explains. “It’s also a really sexy song and I don’t really do sexy very well. [laughs] Except behind closed doors. It’s kind of hard to stand up there and act sexy. I don’t do a lot of pelvic thrusting or hip gyration on stage these days so that song is kind of hard for me to embody the whole sexy persona thing but it existed in the music I grew up listening to.”

Similarly, “Old Moon New” transports the listener back to another time in country music.

“That should’ve been on the Pure Country soundtrack or something,” Rogers says. “Lee Miller had the idea for that song. I immediately was like dammit this is going to be at someone’s wedding. That’s a two-step and a daddy-daughter first dance. It’s got that thing to it, that sparkle, that ’90s country magic that was to me so cool. Those were the songs I was learning on guitar and singing when I was little.”

The are several special guests on the project, including Jamey Johnson who appears on “Actin’ Crazy,” a song that finds inspiration in the struggling of chasing ones dream’s.

“Adrian Grenier, Vince from Entourage, was at our show at the House of Blues and I just briefly got to chat with him,” Rogers remembers. “I wrote that thinking about how hard it must be for struggling actors to live in L.A., and how expensive it is and how dirty it is and how much traffic there is, and how far away from home it is. I can’t imagine living in L.A. and chasing that dream. He was successful but it’s hard to believe that someone can move there and make it. It seems like an impossible place to make it.”

The variety of the album produces a genuine sound and portrayal of band that has spent nearly 15 years evolving into more than a “Texas” band.

“We set out to make this album sound the way it sounds,” Rogers explains. “We wanted to play country music the best we can play it. We never have done that before. We’ve put some rock songs on some records, we’ve written some rock songs. We’ve written traditional, waltz country songs and put them on an album with songs that didn’t fit that mold at all. As a whole, this is the first time we’ve ever set out to make a country record sound like what we grew up listening to. If we could be the best country band we could be what would that sound like?”

It sounds good, Randy, real good.