Drummer Randy “Keech” Rainwater said there’s a reason why his award-winning country band, Lonestar, named its current outing the “Keeps Getting Better” tour.
“We just worked up the brand-new show about a month ago,” he said. “We rearranged some songs and added some new ones, and I think this is the best show we’ve ever put together.”
Lonestar will perform Aug. 7 at Canyons Village with an opening set by Park City’s own award-winning singer, songwriter and composer Mary Beth Maziarz.
The show lands smack-dab in the middle of the Park City Performing Arts Concerts on the Slopes’ Country Weekend that starts with Mark Chesnutt on Aug. 6 and ends with Walker Hayes on Aug. 8, and Rainwater looks forward to performing at the open-air venue.
“Outdoor shows have great vibes, and there are a lot of kids running around and being introduced to our music,” he said.
Many of those children’s parents could probably remember the first time they heard Lonestar, known for the hits “Amazed,” “Mr. Mom,” “No News” and “My Front Porch Looking In,” and Rainwater can’t believe the band, winner of three Academy of Country Music awards and a Country Music Association award, has been recording and touring for 34 years.
“I think it’s a great feeling you get to go to work every day with your best friends who are coworkers,” he said. “We have a great band and a great crew, and to be able to make our own music and play it for fans who have made it a part of the soundtrack of their lives is just — I mean who gets to do a job like that? Every day I thank my lucky stars that we get to do what we do.”
Still, there are challenges, and one of those is putting together a set list of the hits, the fan favorites and the new tunes, according to Rainwater.
“It’s a good problem to have,” he said. “We’ve had 10 No. 1 songs, not to mention other hits like ‘Tequila Tallkin’, our first release, which went to No. 4. So, trying to fit that many No. 1 songs and our hits in a set list can be challenging because you want to talk with the crowd and you have other songs you want to play.”
The band — Rainwater, keyboardist and guitarist Dean Sams, guitarist Michael Britt and vocalist/guitarist Drew Womack — solved that musical puzzle with medleys.
“We put little pieces of one song together with another and then roll in one more and another,” he said. “That way people can hear some of the songs they love and that gives us room to add in other songs.”
Speaking of the 10 No. 1 hits that include “Come Cryin’ to Me,” “Everything’s Changed,” “Smile” and “What About Now,” Lonestar decided to pay tribute to those tunes and rerecorded them for the 2023 release, “Ten to 1.”
Rainwater remembers how much fun he had recording that album.
“Normally when you go into the studio, you feel a lot of pressure because you have brand-new songs that no one has heard before and you have to play them perfectly,” he said. “In this case we went in with full confidence. We already knew the songs because we’ve been playing them for years.”
The band also tweaked some of the arrangements.
“We had fun changing things up a little bit to make the songs more lively, kind of like our live shows,” Rainwater said. “We changed the intro to ‘Mr. Mom’ and made it a little funky, so you’re like, ‘What is this?’ until you hear those familiar notes come in afterwards.”
Last year, Lonestar released “Iconic, Vol. 1,” a five-song extended play of the band’s takes on songs by legendary female artists— Adele, P!NK, Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics and Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie.
The project started with lead singer Womack during a preconcert soundcheck, according to Rainwater.
“Drew was strumming his guitar and started singing ‘Time After Time,’ by Cyndi Lauper,” he said. “Then I started chiming in, and Michael started to play. The next thing you know, we were all playing it as a band, and a lightbulb went on.”
The band had already decided to make a new record but didn’t know which direction to go, Rainwater said.
“We were wondering if it was going to be a live album or something else,” he said. “After the soundcheck, we thought it would be fun if each guy in the band picked their favorite iconic song by a female artist, and it didn’t matter what genre or decade.”
Once the band solidified the songlist, it spent a day tightening up the arrangements to make the songs sound like Lonestar songs.
“Then we laid them all down in the studio,” Rainwater said.
The musicians enjoyed the project so much, they decided to record “Iconic, Vol. 2.”
“The only criteria for this record was that the songs had to be ’80s iconic songs from 1980 to 1989,” he said. “For some reason, the songs we chose, including Van Halen’s ‘Panama,’ just happened to be by male artists.”
The instrumental arrangements for “Vol. 2” have already been recorded, Rainwater said.
“All we need to do is put down some vocals,” he said.
Rainwater’s path to playing drums and cofounding Lonestar started when he was a kid.
“This is going to sound weird, but when I was young, I just knew I could play drums,” he said. “I knew that my right hand had to do this and my right foot would have to do this and my left foot would do this and my left hand could do this. So I knew structurally how to play a drum beat.”
Rainwater would listen to music and figure out complex rhythms before he even had a drum set.
“In my naivete, I thought everyone could do that,” he said with a laugh. “But I found out that wasn’t the case when I was in grade school.”
Although Rainwater wanted to play drums for the school band at that time, the instructor told him there were too many drummers.
“So, I decided to play trumpet because my dad played trumpet, and during class, I found out some of the drummers didn’t have the coordination, and it kind of encouraged me.”
Although Rainwater played the trumpet, he saved his money, borrowed money and begged his parents for a drumset.
“When I got my drums, I would come home, put my headphones on and play to Boston,” he said. And then I started listening to complicated and jazzy stuff. That would challenge me, and I would learn those things and figure out how to do them.”
Rainwater, who cited Tommy Aldridge and Vinnie Colaiuta as two of his main influences, began playing with rock bands in high school.
“Once I saw bands would sit together and work out songs on their own, it was like a bomb going off in my head — in a good way,” he said. “And I’m still doing it.”
Park City Performing Arts Concerts on the Slopes: Lonestar
- When: 7 p.m. Friday
- Where: Canyons Village
- Web: parkcitypa.org and lonestarnow.com