Band Reeves
You can hear tires on the gravel road before headlights ever come into view in the place
Jeramy and Cody Reeves call home. The brothers — respectively married with families of their
own — share a plot of land with their parents in East Texas. The siblings are third generation
construction workers, but that’s just their day job. Their true calling is music, and one they walk
out through the ministry of Band Reeves, a hybrid of acoustic-grounded storytelling and
spiritually fueled country that has taken a surprising turn, buying them a ticket to travel the
country and eventually landing them a label deal with Centricity Music.
When they weren’t spending their childhood outside bowfishing, bowhunting or playing in the
creek, Jeramy and Cody were at church. Their dad was a pastor, and they were a part of the
fabric of that small congregation before they could walk. Music was something they always
enjoyed, but not something they were necessarily serious about.
Cody sang his first church solo when he was three; Jeramy picked up the guitar at 12. Through
the years, the preacher’s kids started leading worship together and eventually writing songs.
“Growing up, we were just so different,” Jeramy says of the relationship he shares with his
younger brother. “In a lot of ways, music was the glue that kept us together. And though there
was friction sometimes, now I consider Cody to be my best friend.”
It was only after Jeramy had a transformational encounter with Christ that the pair decided to
pursue music wholeheartedly. Although he made a public profession of faith at 12, it wasn’t
until he was 23 that Jeramy experienced a real relationship with Jesus. “I made a lot of stupid
decisions as a teenager,” he admits. “I was walking further and further away from what I knew
was true.”
Meanwhile, Jeramy’s wife had a life-changing encounter with the Lord at 18, the same year
they were married. “I just watched God radically change her, and that challenged me in a lot of
ways,” the oldest Reeves brother reflects, “in the way she was living and handling our
marriage, and in the way she could forgive and move forward.”
When divorce entered the conversation, Jeramy found himself at a crossroads. After digging
into the Bible and examining the theology behind different religious schools of thought, he
made a personal decision to genuinely follow Jesus. “I got on my knees at two o’clock in the
morning, put my face in the gravel; and I just told God, ‘I don’t know what happened to me
when I was 12 years old, but I know where I’m sitting right now,’” he remembers. “I asked God
to save me, and when I stood up from that little heart-to-heart with Jesus, God started radically
changing me, and He healed my marriage.”
Today, Jeramy, and his wife have been married for 14 years; and his conversion story is written
into the lived-in lyrics of Band Reeves’ debut song, “Outrun You,” a backwoods-flavored,
harmony-laced first offering. “God is so persistent, even when we are running away from Him,”
Jeramy attests. “Ultimately, you can’t outrun the Lord; you’re always going to continue running
into Him, over and over. I’m just thankful He continued to chase me and Cody, both.”
These days, Jeramy and Cody are chasing kids. Jeramy is the father of eight; Cody is the
father of two. In the midst of loud, chaotic family life, the men have come to recognize the
importance of starting their day in God’s Word. That’s why they wrote “Front Porch Church,” toremind themselves how to recalibrate when life feels overwhelming. “‘Front Porch Church’ is
really based off the idea of starting every morning by having a moment with Jesus, spending
some time reading the Bible, praying and being still before the Lord,” Cody explains.
Meanwhile, “Big Shoes” is a sentimental ode to the Reeves patriarch, a lifelong bivocational
minister and, as “the ultimate outdoorsman,” the man who taught his sons to hunt and fish.
“He made everything adventurous and constantly made us laugh,” Jeramy fondly recalls. “He’s
a very powerful leader; people love him. Gosh, I can’t speak highly enough of our dad. He has
influenced everything about who we are.”
“He’s the man I want to be,” Cody echoes. “My dad modeled what it looked like to be a godly
husband and a godly father, how to take care of your wife and provide for your family. He also
really instilled the value of hard work in us.”
The brothers’ unparalleled work ethic is immediately evident in their tanned skin and calloused
hands, and that same work ethic translates into their ardent pursuit of music. In a sense,
they’re filling their father’s “big shoes,” carrying on his tradition of bivocational ministry in an
unconventional way. Even as signed artists, they work construction full time — a profession
that allows them the consistency to provide for their families and the flexibility to play gigs on
the weekends.
“We’re going to keep dirt, sawdust and paint on our hands in order to make sure we can
continue doing this thing we’re called to do,” Jeramy affirms.
It’s a mindset that’s woven into anchor track “My Country,” an original that readily lays out
their mission. “We want to do what honors and glorifies the Lord,” Cody says. “We want our
country music to absolutely speak Scripture and be biblically based, but it’s also about the
country kind of lifestyle we lead.”
Jeramy adds, “It’s a song that lets people know who we are and what to expect from our
music.”
Fans of both country and Christian music can expect a fusion of complimentary genres rooted
in the brothers’ life on the farm and the faith that sustains them. Their handcrafted songs kick
up some dust with plainspoken language that feels like a favorite pair of scuffed-up boots. A
little bit Shane & Shane, a little bit Florida Georgia Line, Band Reeves is forging their own
unique path on a patch of back 40 dirt where blue-collar living, big family dinners and bonfire
worship all converge.
“We want to write songs about real, everyday life. We’re everyday kind of people, who are
going through the same things in life everybody else is going through. So, I want our music to
be relatable,” Jeramy says. “I want people to know that God wants to step into your everyday
life, your everyday language; and when He does, it radically changes you in the best way
possible.”
He’s radically changed these two brothers, and the evidence is hidden in plain sight in the
songs they’re writing, the kids they’re raising and the lives they’re building. “God uses anybody
and everybody. I mean, we’re nothing special,” Cody offers. “We’re just a couple of rednecksfrom a small town in East Texas, but God’s called us to do this, and He’s opened the doors.
And for us, it’s all an opportunity to share Jesus.”
