Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers

“Hereʼs to life!” Fans around the world can be found singing the chorus of the Roger Clyne-penned fan favorite “Mekong” and toasting their glasses in unison to celebrate life through rock-n-roll. But the inspiration for the song dates back to the time Roger went to Taipei, Taiwan, as a college student to teach English during the day and busk with his guitar at night for money.

Today, as Clyne prepares to record his 11th studio album, he continues to transform his life experiences, inspirations, observations and his own muses into timeless music. And whether heʼs wearing his Converse high tops, boots or sandals, Clyneʼs blend of punk rock, country-western and mariachi influences have made him, drummer PH Naffah, guitarist Jim Dalton and bassist Nick Scropos – collectively known as Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers – one of Americaʼs best live rock-n-roll bands.

Starting with the seminal Tempe quartet, The Refreshments, Clyne and Naffah put the fun in rock during the 90s grunge era with a sense of humor. They also started what would become a trademark sound on all future albums by adding mariachi horns, something Clyne was influenced by while in college studying Cultural Anthropology with an ethnography study of mariachis during a three month immersion stay with a local family in Ensenada, Mexico.

The Refreshmentsʼ debut album, “Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy,” became a cult classic. It produced the alternative radio hit “Banditos” which also had significant airplay on MTV and earned The Freshies an appearance on The Conan OʼBrien Show. Clyne then penned and performed the theme song for the Mike Judge animated TV series, King of Hill. In 2017, Hereʼs to Life: The story of The Refreshments, was released. The feature-length documentary was a hit with fans and critics alike.

Changes within their record label and internal band issues resulted in Clyne and Naffah going on a vision quest of sorts in the Whetstone Mountains near the Clyne Ranch in Southeastern Arizona. It was there that Clyne found inspiration in the rolling hills and the jukeboxes of small town taverns that still played Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash – music he had shed from his youth in favor of bands like Camper Van Beethoven & They Might Be Giants. But after reconnecting with those old country records, Clyne and Naffah wrote and recorded under a new moniker what would become Roger Clyne & The Peacemakersʼ debut album, “Honky Tonk Union.” The album was the perfect combination of classic rock and twang, and fans immediately connected with it. Their independent release, “Honky Tonk Union,” debuted at No. 1 on Billboardʼs internet sales chart in 1999 prompting a call from a Billboard exec to their Manager demanding, “ Who the hell is Roger Clyne and why is he #1 on my chart?!” beating out much better known artists.

RCPM released eight more albums that landed in the top ten of Billboardʼs Internet Sales Chart, including a No. 1 debut for their third album, “Americano!” – all without the backing of a major record label and while flying under the radar of commercial radio.

In 2019, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers were inducted into the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame, joining the likes of fellow Arizona legends Alice Cooper, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt and Waylon Jennings.

Later that fall, RCPM was invited by a man who, like Roger, also knows a little something about tequila and throwing big parties in Mexico. The band headlined Sammy Hagarʼs Cabo Wabo Cantina on the eve of Hagarʼs weekend birthday celebration.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers have curated their own annual music festival, Circus Mexicus, in the sleepy beach town of Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, which draws thousands of fans from around the world. The festival not only has a major impact on the local economy, but charity events hosted by the band and fans alike help raise money for a local orphanage, support local youth sports and help feed shelter animals.

Clyne not only sings about life in the border-lands, he also produces his own ultra-premium spirit, Mexican Moonshine Tequila (soon to be re-named Canción Tequila). Owned by the entire band, it was the official tequila at the Arizona Diamondbacks Chase stadium in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Started in 2011, the award-winning spirit is distributed in multiple states as well as Sonora, Mexico.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers have toured all over the US and achieved a faithful following through hard work and great music. They have done this all while being independent, without the safety net of a label or a labelʼs radio promotion department. Dubbed “The Springsteen of the Southwest,” by the Asbury Park Press. The band delivers exciting live performances that garner declarations like the one from emcee Jay Peterman of the Seinfeld TV show at Alice Cooperʼs annual Christmas Pudding event, “Young man, you light that stage a-flame!”

Leave it to Andrew Leahey — frontman of Andrew Leahey & the Homestead, lead guitarist for Elizabeth Cook, longtime singer/songwriter, and award-winning music journalist — to become a cornerstone of America's busiest music community. Hailed by Rolling Stone for their "celebratory mix of sharp storytelling and fist-pumping rock & roll swagger," Andrew Leahey & the Homestead are a classic band for the modern age, rolling a decades-spanning wealth of influences — the highway-bound hooks of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the sweeping guitars of George Harrison, the concise power-pop of Cheap Trick, the piano craft of Harry Nilsson — into a contemporary sound. Over the course of four studio albums, they’ve become hometown heartland-rock heroes in Nashville, celebrated for their own performances as well as their all-star benefit shows — curated by Leahey and featuring collaborations with artists from across the musical spectrum — that raise money for Nashville-based non-profits and global social rights organizations. Collaboration has been a consistent thread throughout Leahey's career. Raised in Virginia on a mix of rock & roll and classical music, he initially made his mark as a classical vocalist, winning national awards as a teenager before singing with the Juilliard Choral Union in New York City as a young adult. By 23 years old, he had already performed at world-class venues like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. "Those rooms were amazing," he says, "but I missed playing with the bands I'd formed during high school and college. When you're a classical singer, you're executing someone else's music with precision, and you perform the same song the same way every time. Rock & roll is more adaptive than that. It allows you to be flexible: to react to the crowd, to the unique acoustics of the room, to the context of the world on any given night. To me, classical music felt like a monologue, but rock & roll was more like a conversation. And why would I want to talk at people when I could talk with them instead?" The conversation continues with Leahey's newest project, American Static. It's an expansive double album, recorded with bandmates Jay Dmuchowski and Dan Holmes — both of whom also appeared on Andrew Leahey & the Homestead's international breakthrough, Airwaves, in 2019 — and stocked with the widest-reaching music of the group's career. Released in two volumes, American Static bounces between Oasis-sized rock bombast ("Caught Like A Fire"), lyric-driven Americana ("Stay Awake"), and Beatles-inspired classic pop ("Sign of the Times"), its diversity glued together by a band that has never been afraid to blur the boundaries between genres. Leahey, who wrote all 18 songs, showcases his multi-instrumentalist skills throughout both volumes, from the amplified guitar riffs that drive "Hot House" to the upright piano that stands at the center of retro-minded ballads like "Hanging Heavy" and "Carry a Weight." Much of the music that comprises American Static, Vol. 1 (released in October 2021) and American Static, Vol. 2 (released in May 2022) was debuted during the Homestead's multi-year "Live & Online" livestream residency, which found the band playing more than 55 weekly shows throughout the Covid-19 era. "We knew we couldn't play the same songs week after week and expect our audience to keep showing up, so we forced ourselves to fill each show with new material," says Leahey. "We worked up more than 400 covers — everything from Bruce Springsteen to Benny Goodman — and began playing the original songs I’d been writing since we released Airwaves. As the weeks piled up, so did the new material." Those shows became a Thursday night tradition for thousands of fans, landing Leahey a spot in the Top 40 of Pollstar's Livestream chart along the way. By the time "Live & Online" came to a close, the band's livestreams had been watched by more than 100,000 viewers. For Leahey, it wasn't the first time he'd turned to music to maintain a sense of perspective during a health scare. Years earlier, he'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor that rested on his cochlear nerve, jeopardizing not only his hearing, but his survival, too. The life-saving operation to remove the tumor took 12 hours; the recovery took more than 12 months. When Leahey returned to the road, he did so with a renewed purpose, crafting rock & roll anthems — including his first Top 50 Americana radio hit, "Little in Love," which appeared on his 2016 debut album Skyline in Central Time — that celebrated life, longevity, and everything he'd previously taken for granted. Years later, it’s that same sense of purpose — entwined with twin electric guitars, stacked vocal harmonies, keyboards, and expansive production from Jon Estes (Steelism, John Paul White) — that powers American Static. "This project came together while we were all stuck at home," says Leahey, "I certainly felt like a static American, shut indoors for more than a year. But there's a real sense of movement to that title, too. Imagine a radio dial that's being turned, with static occurring between stations. That static is simply the noise you have to hear before you find something better. To me, American Static represents both sides of the coin. These albums are immobility and transition — about the things that linger in our way, and the paths we take past them."