The Red Clay Strays — A Mobile, Alabama roots/country-rock band (formed December 2016) known for songs like Drowning and I'm Still Fine, plus their manager Drew. They built a following the hard way, including driving for Uber during COVID before breaking out with a number-one hit in 2024.
The gist
The Red Clay Strays sit down with Joe Rogan to trace their improbable rise from clearing out Gulf Coast bars to a number-one hit, crediting faith, selflessness, and a 'the pack will correct' band ethos for staying together. They discuss making music for a sad, struggling fan base and a fan whose suicide attempt was interrupted by their song. The conversation then sprawls into Joe's signature tangents: penis-enlargement and limb-lengthening surgeries, the Charlie Kirk killing and social-media-fueled cruelty, government surveillance and digital IDs, UFOs and the Book of Enoch, ancient civilizations like Gobekli Tepe, the Shroud of Turin, and moon-landing skepticism. It closes on health and habit-building, IVF, population collapse, and a hoped-for White House gig.
Big reveals
- The band shares that a fan who had taken pills to end her life was snapped out of it by their song 'I'm Still Fine' and called for help.
- They reveal they were driving Uber in Mobile for $100/day during COVID just five years before this number-one-hit moment.
- They pushed their song 'People Hating' to be the first single (out October 3rd) specifically in response to the Charlie Kirk killing.
- The band describes a 'the pack will correct' system where five members hold each other accountable to avoid an Elvis-style downfall.
- Joe and the band discuss a real-world head transplant attempt where the patient died after being kept alive briefly.
- A band member reveals he and his wife are pursuing IVF and were asked if they wanted to 'pick a ginger.'
- The band says their agent has heard there may be a concert aspect to a White House event they want to put their name in for.
Things worth remembering
- The Red Clay Strays formed in December 2016; the guys started touring back in 2018.
- One member is only 29 years old despite the band's long grind.
- A band member did Shotokan karate as a kid and won't return to it because fans already compare him to Elvis.
- One bandmate (Drew) lost 40-plus pounds in about 10 months, dropping 30 just from 16-hour intermittent fasting.
- Joe cites that exercise is roughly 1.25 times more effective than SSRIs/antidepressants.
- Gobekli Tepe in Turkey was found by a shepherd and is only about 5% excavated.
- A Homo sapiens skull in China was reportedly dated to about a million years old, far older than the accepted emergence timeline.
- Joe claims there is reportedly one NGO for roughly every 500-600 people in India.
- They note the Pentagon pizza-order spike is a real informal indicator of late-night crisis work.
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Drowning
The Red Clay Strays
“our song Drowning, Drew wrote that during COVID when we were driving for Uber trying to keep the bills paid.” — guest 00:29:39Find it on Amazon
I'm Still Fine
The Red Clay Strays
“she our song I'm Still Fine came on and it kind of, you know, snapped her out of it a little bit and she started crying” — guest 00:28:36Find it on Amazon
People Hating
The Red Clay Strays
“we had wrote a song about it in April in the studio called People Hating and that's we weren't going to put it out as a single.” — guest 00:49:21Find it on Amazon