Is Cross Canadian Ragweed Reuniting? Here’s What We Know About Their Split and String Of Cryptic New Teasers

The former Red Dirt band known as Cross Canadian Ragweed seems to be keeping a major secret. Earlier this month, the group updated their official website and social media platforms for the first time since 2011, leading fans to believe that a big announcement is on the way. 

Band members, Cody Canada, Grady Cross, Randy Ragsdale, and Jeremy Plato formed their group in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1994. Their music was pivotal to the Red Dirt movement and the rise of country rock that paved the path for many of today’s artists. Unfortunately, the beloved group began battling some internal challenges that have never fully been detailed to the public, leading them to announce a split in 2010. 

When the news first broke, fans were made to believe that it was just going to be a brief hiatus from touring in order to allow the band’s drummer and founding member, Randy Ragsdale, to stay at home in Oklahoma and help take care of his special-needs son. It appeared that all was well between the members at the time, however, two years later with still no return to the stage, lead guitar player Cody Canada revealed there was more to the story. 

“When Ragweed played our last show, Randy came up to me and said, ‘You know, my family isn’t 100 percent of the reason for this. I just didn’t want the band to go out like that,’ which I knew,” Canada told the Dallas Observer. 

“So I said, ‘Here’s how we should say it: If we say it’s a break-up, then it looks really bad, and if we say it’s a hiatus, people will think one day, we’ll get back together.’ But that’s not how it was, or how it is now. We just wanted to protect the name of the band.”

He went on to say that there was actually quite a bit of “friction” between the members that was caused by one person in particular who he chose not to name. 

“There was one person who wasn’t happy from an artistic or business perspective,” he explained honestly. “We decided that in order to press forward as individuals,

we should just split it. I’ll just say that the person in question was uncomfortable, and it was time to move on. It’s not fun to play music when one person from the band isn’t into it.”

Fans had come to terms with the fact that the group would likely never get back together as Canada and fellow member Jeremy Plato went on to form another band called, Cody Canada and the Departed. Plus, he confirmed that their demise was permanent during a 2020 interview with Radio Texas, LIVE!

“I was really pissed off. It was coming, we saw it coming. If you watch any band that breaks up you can see the date that they split and go backwards and see it coming… When it did go down it went down in a heated argument. There was a lot of anger, and then the next day I was kinda scared… Sixteen years is a good run… getting back together will never happen.”

Despite his confidence regarding the state of the band, something unexpected happened a few weeks ago that contradicts his previous statement. On September 16, Cross Canadian Ragweed’s official Facebook page updated its cover photo to an old snapshot of the group on stage and changed their profile photos to a digitized image of a red cloth with a single spotlight on it. 

A few days later, a gold bow and a gift tag were added to the photo with the words “To: Koe From Ragweed” written on it. Fans have speculated that this could indicate they have something in the works with current country sensation, Koe Wetzel, who happens to have a popular tune titled “Ragweed.” They sent fans into even more of a frenzy today (Sept. 30) when they posted another throwback image of the band across Instagram and Facebook with the caption, “Who’s down?”

It’s unclear what this cryptic message is alluding to. It could be anything from a reunion tour to a new collaboration with Koe Wetzel or something else entirely unexpected. All we know for now is that fans are itching to learn more. Any further announcements will be made on the band’s official social media platforms.