Highway 49, a new Southern rock band comprised of five college students formed just before the pandemic. You would think having to cancel their first tour would slow them down, but the band added lead singer and guitarist Layton Sheets to the line-up, took extra time to hone their live set, and came out of the gate even stronger. Now, Highway 49 draw enthusiastic audiences in college towns around Georgia with their polished, crowd-pleasing sets.
Highway 49 are making their return to Barrelhouse South on August 27 for another energetic, entertaining show.
One thing that fueled the band’s rapid rise in popularity is the support of popular venues in their hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia, like Ned Kelly’s.
“They really put us in favorable situations, and we’ve actually been able to keep and retain a small following,” said Sheets. “Small is relative. I mean, it’s a couple hundred people everywhere we go. It’s been really cool, especially in all these towns we get to go into and build the same following. Honestly, I don’t want to say it’s like a dream come true, but it’s definitely something that is happening before my eyes that I didn’t think would really happen like that.”
The rest of the Highway 49 consists of Denson Martin on drums, Nathan Mulling on bass, and Lewis Ashe and Hayden Spohn on guitars.
“We consider them a double lead,” explained Sheets. “We don’t have a rhythm and a lead guitarist, we have two lead guitar players. I think that’s something that separates us. We’ve got two guys that are completely capable of making completely different sounds.”
The five bandmates represent Georgia College, Kennesaw State, Mercer University, and Georgia Tech, making them a sort of Georgia university system super group. The influence of growing up in Georgia and attending Southern schools has certainly influenced their sound with the band churning out quality covers of the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and other Southern rock legends.
“I guess it’s almost a religion, that Southern rock sound,” Sheets acknowledged.
Highway 49 are essentially a cover band, but they have a few original songs that are regular parts of their sets. “We sing ‘Highway 49’ and people sing it back to us which is pretty cool,” said Sheets. “We have a few songs on streaming platforms, but I think our best work is yet to come.”
Highway 49 are developing so fast that they don’t really think their singles represent them as a band anymore and they are looking forward to eventually recording more originals.
“We’re certainly not happy to be in a cover band,” said Sheets. “That is the short term thing. One thing that we have recognized as a quick in, we’re not going to have to sit around and wait for people to start hiring us. With that said, we all mostly live together in Milledgeville and we work on that stuff every day.”
“We‘re trying to create one sound. That’s one thing we’ve been talking about in practices is creating one sound rather than five sounds together, and I think we’re focusing on getting that one sound right before we get back into a studio.”
Highway 49 have multiple “sounds” because their set-lists include everything from country music, funk, and 2000’s alternative rock like Fall Out Boy and the Killers. The band is able to tailor to their audiences, depending on the city they’re playing in, all while still sounding like themselves.
“One thing that’s good about us is we can curate our set-list,” explained Sheets. “We can come up with two or three different sounds.”
“In Savannah, I would say the songs that hit the most are the ones like ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down’ and ‘Mr. Brightside.’ That’s one thing about our early success is we’re not just going in there playing one act. We’re playing several different things.”
Highway 49 are also a capable jam band, when they’re allowed to stretch out, with excellent extended covers of “Whipping Post” and other jam staples that show off their multi-guitar workouts.
“Obviously we get yelled at for ‘Free Bird,’” said Sheets. “That’s always a good one. We play that one pretty well. We don’t put out Joe Shmoe covers of ‘Free Bird’.”
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Highway 49 brings the college rock experience from multiple Georgia schools to Savannah
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