By Arden Berry | Arts & Life Editor
Not long ago in a house on Second Street, the Graham St. Clair Band would move the furniture out of the living room and jam for hours.
“[We would] get together and just make the neighbors mad for four hours straight,” Graham St. Clair, lead vocalist, said. “You know, we weren’t very good, but we thought we sounded OK. And we just practiced and practiced and practiced.”
While many alumni from all over come to the sidewalks and stands to observe homecoming festivities, the Graham St. Clair Band, made up of Baylor alumni and formed at Baylor, are coming to the stage.
The band will perform 15 minutes after the football game ends Saturday at the Baylor Backyard Live stage outside McLane Stadium.
The band performed at a previous one-off tailgate concert September 2025 before the football game against Arizona State, and now the band returns as part of the Baylor Backyard Live concert series. St. Clair said the band received the offer a few months ago.
“We were super excited,” St. Clair said. “We are some big Baylor Bears, big Baylor fans, and I am psyched. It feels like a real honor to be asked to come back and play homecoming.”
Sean Douglas, lead electric guitarist, said the band would not have met if not for Baylor.
“I mean, it’s the place where we started,” Douglas said. “ … So it’s pretty special to us.”
These connections began when Jackson Wright, rhythm electric and acoustic guitarist, met St. Clair through St. Clair’s older brother.
“Graham’s brother said, ‘Man, you got to meet my little brother,’” Wright said. “’Y’all got to play guitar.’ Sure enough, we did. We hit it off real quick. And yeah, we just spent a lot of time playing guitar. And that’s what we did.”
When the band needed a bass player, Wright said he remembered the first friend he had made at Baylor three years earlier: Raymond Spell.
“He was playing guitar one day, and I said, ‘What’s up?’” Wright said. “I think it was move-in day or something … I was like, ‘Hey, I think I think I might know a guy.’ And Raymond was him. And so yeah, Ray is the best musician we know.”
St. Clair was living next door to their drummer, Jackson Cossey, at the time, and Douglas met Wright and St. Clair their sophomore year.
“I told [St. Clair] that I played a little bit of guitar, I think, when we first met,” Douglas said. “And they’re jamming one night. I was at one of the houses listening to them. And they asked me, they’re like, ‘Sean, you want to strum along’ or something. And that literally started a three-hour jam sesh. And I was like, ‘Holy smokes these guys can play.’ And I think I think I got their approval, too, because here we are. But that was a good night.”
For their sixth band member, the band had heard rumors about someone on campus who could play pedal steel guitar.
“We couldn’t believe it because it’s not very common that you’d find a 20-year-old pedal steel guitar player,” St. Clair said. “So we had to track him down. We looked and looked and looked for that guy. He was supposed to be playing a gig on Fountain Mall, and we showed up to the gig to try to poach him from whatever band he was in, and he wasn’t there because he had broken his wrist. And so we were: ‘Must be a myth. He must not exist.’”
Eventually, the band found Stiles Clements on Snapchat and invited him to band practice.
However, the band did not come together in earnest until St. Clair was asked to bring a full band to a show opening for Cameron Allbright in San Marcos.
“We had all played together just for fun, but we had never played a gig,” St. Clair said. “ … So then I called all these guys, decided to get it together. And we worked our tails off. We had about two weeks.”
The band has many favorite memories from their time at Baylor, including road trips, shows and late nights on a balcony on Bagby Avenue.
“We would just play and play and play up there,” St. Clair said. “And sometimes we’d get people hollering at us from the street. Sometimes, you know, we would end up with 15 people out on that tiny little balcony. Sometimes it would just be two of us or three of us just playing until late into the morning hours. And we had so much fun up there.”
Though the band members now live all over Texas with their own jobs and lives, St. Clair said they still play together on weekends and at shows around Texas, much like when they were undergraduates.
“When we get to the show, we can hang out all day,” Wright said. “And whether we have 60 minutes or 90 minutes, that time on the stage is just, let’s go have as much fun as we can and put on the best show as we can. Something Graham’s been saying to audiences is ‘Thank y’all for coming out and spending this free part of your week. This is our favorite time of the week,’ and it truly is. I think we get to enjoy it just as much as the crowd.”
While coming home might not mean returning to a cleared out living room in that house on Second Street, the band has many places they like to visit in Waco. Douglas said he stopped at Memorial Dining Hall the last time he visited Waco for a cookie, but he also loves Schmaltz’s Sandwich Shoppe.
“That’s actually the first spot J-Wright and I, we had a class together,” Douglas said. “We’d go to like lunch or something every Thursday or something and he took me to Schmaltz’s once and I fell in love with it there. I didn’t know sandwich could be that good.”
Wright said he and St. Clair have a standing tradition at Shorty’s Pizza Shack.
“I think Graham and I have watched the Texas Rangers’ opening day the last three years at Shorty’s for lunch on Thursday,” Wright said. “So hopefully we can keep that thing going.”
As for Saturday’s show, the band said there may be some guest appearances from other Baylor alumni.
“We’re going bring a good show to y’all because this is our home,” Douglas said. “… Just get ready to party.”
St. Clair said being invited back to these tailgate shows is encouraging.
“I think it’s also a testament to what the Baylor family means to how much they care about not just their current students, but the alumni post-grad,” Douglas said. “It was pretty cool to get a call back because I’m sure they could pay a billion other bands a lot more and, you know, get a lot more people at shows, a lot bigger bands. But it’s amazing they chose us and that we can make that happen. I think it’s just a testament to the Baylor family and how much they take care of everyone that’s involved.”
