Said The People, Fueled by Love and the Power of Rock, Is Ready To Take Center Stage

On July 16, local band Said the People released their debut album, Years Forgotten. They capitalized on the release with a concert at The Rail in Fort Worth on July 26, headlining a show that included Todaychaser, Torched, Cole Dagen and Arenales.

Logan Leavoy and Colten Lane founded Said the People in 2021. They built themselves up in Denton, feeling their way through the local music scene and expanding to play shows across North Texas. Early on, they were pegged as an indie rock band, a label Leavoy said never quite matched the aspirations they had for their sound. He and Lane saw Said the People embody something grittier, more in line with Southern alternative rock. They wanted to play music in the tradition of bands they grew up listening to, Nickelback chief among them, but informed by the soil and soul of Texas.


Members of the band sat down with us ahead of the show to discuss Years Forgotten and how they reached this milestone. Leavoy, the band’s co-founder, frontman and drummer Dalton Walters and Timothy Bartone, the group’s marketing guru and occasional backing guitarist, were all on hand for the conversation. 
In 2023, on the heels of lineup changes, they found themselves finally shedding the indie rock label. Walters joined, as did a new bassist (since departed, replaced by Owen Mcilvain). They began working with producer David Southern, who helped professionalize and amplify their sound so it would be more in line with the arena rock they dreamed of playing.

Bartone has been a fan of the group for years (he has a Said the People forearm tattoo to prove it). His respect for them is so profound that when Leavoy asked him to play guitar on some songs, he initially refused.

“They’re meant to be great, and I know that, and … that’s why I didn’t want to be a part of it, because I thought that I’d get in the way,” he explained. “Their music does things to people. You get people in a room with them, and they have a live set where they can show their stuff, people are going to fall in love.”

Years Forgotten is the culmination of the work that began in earnest in 2023. The album’s music can be big, bold and in-your-face, basically punk (“Fuck It Up!”), but the band is never afraid to rein it in for a track like “Faithful,*” a poison pen letter disguised as a rock lullaby that builds to a blistering third act.

The emotional climax of the album comes from “Airplanes,” inspired by the passing of Leavoy’s mother in January 2024. Thematically, Years Forgotten is about time and growth, and “Airplanes” is its thesis statement. The track features a voicemail sample of Leavoy’s mother talking about how happy she is to see the sun again after heavy rain. During our conversation, the band spoke about how much the song means to them and how challenging it was to get it right.

“‘Airplanes’ is the one track on the record that scares the ever-loving hell out of me,” said Walters, who considers it their most challenging song to play as a drummer. “We recorded the song without the voicemail. There was … no intention of putting something in that section. So there was a lot of it that was cut and replaced.”

“I had written most of it years ago,” Leavoy said. “And oftentimes I’ll find I’ll write a song, and then two years later find out why I wrote it.”

It ultimately became a metaphor for his mother’s passing, with the first half representing life before she became ill. It then slows down, which Leavoy says represents his realization that she was getting sick. The voicemail comes halfway through, at the moment of release when she passes.

”Right after that is kind of the process of growing through that and moving past it, which is why it’s slower. And it’s ‘just love, be free.’ [That’s] what that’s about.”

Talking through “Airplanes” makes both Leavoy and Walters emotional. At the concert, that emotion spread from the band to the audience. Attendees were visibly affected by the song’s emotional arc, swept up by the message and performance. In a way, “Airplanes” is the perfect encapsulation of what Said the People wants to be: rock gods with pure souls, using their music to make people forget their troubles and remember their loved ones.
The show at The Rail (the first Said the People has ever put on themselves rather than working with a promoter) proved the perfect opportunity for them to demonstrate that. The band is at its best live and on stage.

When they play, Leavoy, Lane and Mcilvain swing their guitars around, leaping across the stage, playing and singing with abandon. Walters becomes one with his kit, pounding away in the background. Raw charisma fills the room, electrifying in its intensity.

At The Rail, Said the People’s music sounded as good as anything professionally preserved on Years Forgotten. In fact, every band that played on the bill sounded great. Rock music, with its explosive percussion and screaming guitar riffs, can be a mixed bag live, but the sound system at The Rail was more than up to the challenge of balancing instrumental bravado with vocal clarity to provide audiences with a clean listening experience.

After the show, friends of the band came onstage with a cake and a bottle of Champagne. Bartone announced that Leavoy’s mother’s birthday would have been July 29, and they wanted Leavoy and his sister Lexi to make a wish in her honor. Someone in the crowd produced a saber (yes, an actual saber) to open the Champagne.

Standing there, awash in the glow of a successful show, brandishing a sword and a bottle of Champagne, Leavoy did not look like a man who needed a wish granted; he looked like someone who had just seen a dream come true.

With the band soaking in the moment before a crowd filled with friends and loved ones, Leavoy honored his mother by bringing the saber down, spraying Champagne and living like a rockstar. Said the People had arrived in full.