2 minute read
Saints Can Lie
Back on April 26, 2013, Howe High School student John McDonough was killed in a car accident on Bennett Road. He was the vocalist and guitarist of a band that featured other Howe alumni. The group was formed in 2012 by Bryce Garland (HHS Class of 2014) and currently includes Hunter Shaw (Class of 2014), Jake Shaw (Class of 2016), and John Herold (Van Alstyne High School Class of 2015).
“Young and heartbroken, but determined nonetheless, we carried on in order to pursue our dream together to honor the memory of our bandmate, but more importantly our brother, rather than hang it all up,” said Garland.
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Coming from Howe, not known for producing a large rock/metal fanbase, the group known as “Saints Can Lie” have recently gone viral on the platform TikTok as well as Instagram where one of their songs has been viewed over two million times in less than four weeks. Their top two songs have been streamed over 100,000 times each. This has led them to be asked to perform at one of the biggest music festivals in the nation.
The band used to rehearse in the First Baptist Church youth building every week and give credit to Wes Robertson and Jonathan Coleman for the access of the facility.
“Hunter and I both played and served our community in that church every week. Both Shaw brothers and I did concert band/marching band with Julie Cook, Angie Liss, and Michael Marsh as integral figures to our development as musicians at the high school,” said Garland. “We made it to State for Marching Band both years we were eligible to qualify.” The video for the song “Dear John” was filmed six years ago inside the sanctuary and youth building at First Baptist Church in Howe as well as the Van Alstyne Cemetery in honor of their former bandmate McDonough. They also filmed a video for their song “Persevere” in Chicago.
Saints Can Lie will perform at the SoWhat?! Texas Music Festival May 27-29 in Arlington.
“We may not be a household name, we may never be, and yet we’ve taken this further than anyone could’ve imagined, and we did so ourselves thanks to the support from our closest friends, families, and mentors from Howe,” said Garland.
