When Triggers & Slips’ frontman Morgan Snow was growing up, he and his older brothers spent their days and nights camping and fishing, hunting and barbecuing. No matter what the activity was, their soundtrack was always predetermined: all Waylon Jennings, all the time.
Snow’s band, Triggers & Slips, will perform a tribute night of Waylon Jennings’ music at The State Room on Sunday, June 15, 2025, at 8 p.m.
That music became ingrained in him as he grew older and became a musician in his late 20s. When his band of 15 years started prepping for their Waylon Jennings tribute show months ago—gathering dutifully to rehearse a couple times a week—they already knew 10 of his songs by heart. By the time they play Sunday, they’ll have doubled that number, landing on ways of channeling all the grit, attitude, and character of the late Grammy-winning country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and finding ways of making his songs their own.
Their mission in paying tribute to Jennings is two-fold: helping those who love his music remember how incredible it was while allowing those who’ve never heard his songs to understand how iconic that music ultimately still is.
“The sad reality is, if you turn on the radio, you’re unlikely to hear any Waylon,” Snow says. “The opportunity for people to hear a single song is next to none. You have to seek him out or know what to be listening for,” Snow says.
The concert was initially set to happen at The Garage on Beck, now defunct after 17 years. It’s where Snow was in January when he decided this long-considered tribute finally needed to happen. The light bulb moment that set it in motion was simple enough: he discovered Waylon “Hoss” Jennings’ 88th birthday would happen on Father’s Day, June 15. It’s the same day he needed to make this happen.
Tributes aren’t new territory for Snow. He was attached to nights of music celebrating Justin Townes Earle and Bob Dylan earlier this year and even did a countrified take on the Alice in Chains catalog in 2019, spending over six months practicing to get it right.
But Sunday’s show will likely feel more personal than those others. One reason: when he started writing music, his songs came out sounding like Waylon songs. That was hardly planned for, but it wasn’t a huge surprise, either: Waylon is, after all, one of his biggest musical influences. Sometimes the late singer even pays visits to his subconscious.
Snow wrote a song called “Old Friends” in 2012, the result of a dream he had where he found himself on Waylon’s tour bus. They were joined by Snow’s recently deceased buddy, too, who was killed in Iraq. It made sense, as that friend had taught him guitar when he lived in Myrtle Beach. The bus was either going to Heaven or Hell or both. Snow says the song had a Waylon vibe; the recording sounded like how he believes he would have done it.
“It’s authentic what they were doing then. There’s never going to be another Willy [Nelson] or Waylon. That era is done. It’s not possible to recreate it,” Snow says. “But we can still be inspired by them. They can remind me to keep finding ways of continuing to be me and allowing that to find its way into the songwriting.”
- WHAT: Waylon Jennings Tribute Show
- WHO: Triggers & Slips, w/ special guests J-Rad Cooley, Dylan Schorer, Kate LeDeuce, Jerry Cochran, Rick Gerber, Michelle Moonshine, Megan Blue + others
- WHEN: Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 8 p.m.
- WHERE: The State Room
Read more of our music coverage and get the latest on the arts and culture scene in and around Utah. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your curated guide to the best of life in Utah.
