NAME:
Cross Canadian Ragweed
ABOUT
For over a decade Cross Canadian Ragweed, a wildly influential indie country rock band from Stillwater, Oklahoma, dominated the touring circuit with sold out shows from coast to coast, amassing millions in touring revenue and sharing bills with some of the biggest names in music. The band released 5 studio albums and 3 live albums during their reign and charted several singles on the Billboard charts and hit videos on CMT. Their fan base grew vastly beyond all borders, genres and demographics to what might be considered a cult following that included rockers, cowboys, hippies, executives and college crowds. It became a well-known and shared opinion that if Ragweed was coming to your town, that was where everyone was going to be. The onstage chemistry between Cody Canada, Jeremy Plato, Grady Cross and Randy Ragsdale was a recipe cooked up from childhood, a captured lightning bolt that shocked the system of every person in the crowd stunning them into a reverie. The love and support from fans were so enormous that you could almost hear hearts breaking when they disbanded in 2010, playing their last show at Joe’s on Weed Street in Chicago, Illinois. For the last 15 years those familiar stages have been void of that “thing” that only Ragweed could deliver, but their loyal bevy of fans and peers has continued to carry their torch. Frontman Cody Canada recently received a huge dose of that sentiment when he stood on the legendary stage of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville listening to a packed room sing Ragweed favorites back to him. That kind of love and loyalty for a band that has not been together for so many years could no longer be denied. It was clear to Canada that it was high time to give back to the people who have given so much to them.
On September 15, 2024, the Stillwater band reactivated their social media pages for the first time since 2011 with a cryptic image that sent fans into a frenzy immediately sparking rumors all over the digital landscape of a possible reunion show. With this official confirmation the excitement has reached a deafening clamor, fans overwhelmed at the chance to not only see, once again, one of the most notorious bands to ever come out of the renowned Red Dirt music scene, but also to lose themselves completely in the pure nostalgia of it all. On October 1st, the band publicly confirmed a reunion show co-headlined with longtime friends Turnpike Troubadours at the Boone Pickens Stadium on the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the birthplace of the Red Dirt music genre. The media storm fueled a frenzy that led to 180,000 tickets being sold within hours, and a one-night event quickly turned into 4 sold-out stadium shows. The shows in Stillwater in April of 2025 turned out to be the most historic event in the town's history, and Cross Canadian Ragweed was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame on stage at one of the shows. The band soon after announced another stadium show at Baylor University in Waco, Texas on August 23rd. The show is also a sold-out event.
From Dierks Bentley’s song “Free And Easy” in 2006 where he sings "Ragweed's rockin' on the radio" to Koe Wetzel’s 2019 song “Ragweed” where he sings about missing the band to the 2021 album The Years: A MusicFest Tribute to Cody Canada and the music of Cross Canadian Ragweed to references to the band’s music in two different Stephen King novels, the deep impact of the band’s music and influence has never been allowed to fade, rather it has been memorialized and preserved for the existing populous of fans and the coming generations who will no doubt one day discover the band that “smells like country, tastes like rock n’ roll.”
“I have covered Ragweed for 25 years, and I feel as qualified as anybody to say nobody in Red Dirt saw this coming, but we all should have. Everyone who watched Ragweed win over Texas dive bars and Nashville A-listers and country music legends saw first-hand how they won over the most loyal fan base in all of music, and now they get to take four victory laps. We all did this week what the music world has done from the start-we underestimated Ragweed. I bet we don’t do it again.” -Josh Crutchmer/Rolling Stone Country
"I've been in the business for 31 years. I've been part of some major projects, and I have never witnessed anything like this before. I was part of the Guns N' Roses reunion tour, I did their stadium show in New Orleans, and this is beyond that."- Russell Doussan, President of Doussan Music Group.
ExpandOn September 15, 2024, the Stillwater band reactivated their social media pages for the first time since 2011 with a cryptic image that sent fans into a frenzy immediately sparking rumors all over the digital landscape of a possible reunion show. With this official confirmation the excitement has reached a deafening clamor, fans overwhelmed at the chance to not only see, once again, one of the most notorious bands to ever come out of the renowned Red Dirt music scene, but also to lose themselves completely in the pure nostalgia of it all. On October 1st, the band publicly confirmed a reunion show co-headlined with longtime friends Turnpike Troubadours at the Boone Pickens Stadium on the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the birthplace of the Red Dirt music genre. The media storm fueled a frenzy that led to 180,000 tickets being sold within hours, and a one-night event quickly turned into 4 sold-out stadium shows. The shows in Stillwater in April of 2025 turned out to be the most historic event in the town's history, and Cross Canadian Ragweed was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame on stage at one of the shows. The band soon after announced another stadium show at Baylor University in Waco, Texas on August 23rd. The show is also a sold-out event.
From Dierks Bentley’s song “Free And Easy” in 2006 where he sings "Ragweed's rockin' on the radio" to Koe Wetzel’s 2019 song “Ragweed” where he sings about missing the band to the 2021 album The Years: A MusicFest Tribute to Cody Canada and the music of Cross Canadian Ragweed to references to the band’s music in two different Stephen King novels, the deep impact of the band’s music and influence has never been allowed to fade, rather it has been memorialized and preserved for the existing populous of fans and the coming generations who will no doubt one day discover the band that “smells like country, tastes like rock n’ roll.”
“I have covered Ragweed for 25 years, and I feel as qualified as anybody to say nobody in Red Dirt saw this coming, but we all should have. Everyone who watched Ragweed win over Texas dive bars and Nashville A-listers and country music legends saw first-hand how they won over the most loyal fan base in all of music, and now they get to take four victory laps. We all did this week what the music world has done from the start-we underestimated Ragweed. I bet we don’t do it again.” -Josh Crutchmer/Rolling Stone Country
"I've been in the business for 31 years. I've been part of some major projects, and I have never witnessed anything like this before. I was part of the Guns N' Roses reunion tour, I did their stadium show in New Orleans, and this is beyond that."- Russell Doussan, President of Doussan Music Group.