Kent Nixon, Russ Carl, Luanne Carl and Scott McKnight have decided to retire Renegade Station after 20-plus years of making music and performing live.
It’s incredible how a quick phone call from the Ag Society in 2003 about needing a band could evolve into an award-winning country band.
In that show in 2003, they called themselves damnedifiknow (because Kent Nixon didn’t know what to call the band). That show didn’t have Luanne or Scott in it, but they joined the next show.
The name damnedifiknow evolved into Domino. They called themselves Domino for many years before changing their name to Renegade Station.
Early on, they travelled to play gigs and visited places they’d never been. They loved seeing shocked faces in the crowd as they showed off their harmonies. “I guess they didn’t think we’d be that good,” Kent admits.
The group would record multiple albums and go on to win country music awards as well.
As Domino, they were CMAB’s (Country Music Alberta’s) Group of the Year award winner twice (2015 and 2016) and Fans Choice Award winner once (2015). As Renegade Station, they were CMAB’s single of the year for “Who’s Gonna Love Me Tonight” (2019) and “Every Now and Then” (2023).
They went on the road a lot and there were some entertaining moments. Kent shared that once on stage, Luanne stepped on her skirt and got stuck. She had to play on one leg before someone saved her and avoided a wardrobe malfunction.
The song, “One More Kiss” really got things going for the group, as program directors started to see that this group from Stettler was serious.
Who’s Gonna Love Me Tonight” made it into the top 50 across Canada and was their highest charting song, with “Free, Free, Free”, “Along For The Ride” and “Every Now and Then” also doing well on the charts.
Thanks to Kent Nixon for helping with this article. He concluded by saying, “It’s tough for me, to not be playing regularly with my three best friends. We made a lot of incredible music and memories in the past 20 years.
We built an incredible repertoire of music, that we can be immensely proud of, and grateful for.
The memories of those times are the greatest gift. So…Luanne, Russ and Scott, I never imagined that we would take this band as far, and as long as we did. And, I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else.”
Author: Alex Mykyta
Alex is the owner of Hometown Productions and Media. He has worked in media for over 10 years.
