When Sherry Woods isn’t rocking educating students in her classroom at Parsons Middle School, you can often find her rockin’ with the band Final Warning, that her and her husband play in at various venues, benefits and festivals around the area.
Terry has been in bands for years, but Final Warning was only created in 2020, giving Sherry her first opportunity to perform in a band.
“My husband and I, when we met back in the 80s, he was in a band. So, he has played off and on all these years,” Sherry said.
For 36 years, she has been along for the ride for practices and shows, supporting her husband and the other band members. Inside though, she had a growing yearning to not just watch from the sidelines.
“I’ve always kind of wanted to be a part of it. I finally stepped out of that comfort zone and gave it a shot. The way that it started is I auditioned for one of my husband’s bands and I made it down to the wire with another girl and she got the singing spot instead of me,” she explained of the band’s majority vote. “My husband had a dream, (actually before that final audition) and said that God came to him and said, ‘You guys are going to do something, but it is going to be for my glory.’ And so that is kind of how it started.”
Terry said he always wanted to protect Sherry from the music business, because it can be “kind of ugly sometimes.” When she said she wanted to audition and give it a try, he reasoned that she has been around the business for years and knows what it is about.
“I thought if she wants to try it, let her try it,” Terry said. “I thought it was pretty cool.”
When she was not chosen by his other band, Terry was encouraging.
“I told Sherry, ‘Don’t get down. Don’t give up. I’ve always wanted to start a Christian based band. Why don’t you come sing for that,’” he said. She agreed and Final Warning was born.
“We decided to ask if one of the guitar players in the other band would be interested in joining us. Then we were looking for a drummer. … Another friend that was in that band said, ‘Hey Brett (Seager), what about your dad? Get pops to dust off the drums,’” Sherry said.
“Pops” is Sam Seager who no longer had a drum set. The Woods didn’t have a drum set, either, but Brett had a cajoh and his dad came over to Brett’s house and played it. All four talked about Terry’s idea, and they decided they were going to give Final Warning a go. As it turned out, Sherry said, right after that Terry won a little bit of money that provided them just enough to buy a used drum set.
“We’ve added a few things since,” Sherry said. “It just kind of rolled from there.”
Singing has always been a part of Sherry’s life in some facet. She sang in church a lot, had been in district choir in high school. When she was in college here, she had classes with the late Dana Saliba. She has also served as song leader at church.
“I had always been told I had a pretty voice and not a rock voice,” Sherry said. “Don’t tell me I can’t do something, I guess. I am a little persistent.”
The group started out playing Christian Rock. “That was our goal. It was all new for all of us. We were learning songs we didn’t know,” Sherry said.
With both the Seagar’s background – Brett having sung with his dad’s band since he was 9 or 10 they decided to add some secular music people would recognize.
“We found a lot of secular rock songs that also have a Christian story to them or a positive story to them,” Sherry said.
Their first show was in Coffeyville in April 2021. They had gigs off and on, not quite once a month that first year. When not working their regular jobs or playing in the band, they would spend time writing when inspired.
“My husband has written music lyrics and put songs together with other bands. I had written poems and stuff like that for years and did write a song for our 25th wedding anniversary and some musician friends put it to music, so I’ve written over the years. So I had a song I had written. It was our first original. It was called “Fate”. We put that together probably around the fall of ’21, so about a year in. In 2022, we went to Wichita to Red Cat Studios and recorded “Fate” and “Rage”, two original songs. So they are on streaming,” Sherry said. “We now have six originals we play in our shows.”
Terry said he wrote the lyrics for “Redemption,” but all of their originals have been a collaborative effort, with all the band members bringing their ideas, and everyone working together to bring the songs to their finished state.
Brett plays lead guitar and sings on some vocals. Sam plays drums, “Our drummer is like 65, but he’s a rocker. He can play those drums,” Sherry said. In May of this year they added Austin Martell as a guitar player, of whom Sherry said was a blessing they didn’t know they needed.
“He is such a blessing. He has been the perfect fit for our little band family,” she said. “He’s a kind soul and just techie, which we’re not, so he brought that element. He plays well and he’s a great guy.” The band plays pretty much anywhere they can. They take off most of November and December because their guitar player works at Timber Creek, and those months they are very busy. They do have one gig this month for the KOAM Toy Box toy drive at the Dirty Mule in Pittsburg Friday, Dec. 1. The rest of their down time, they devote to practice and working on original works so at the start of the year, they have new material to bring to the stage.
Interestingly enough, the group has never played a church yet.
“That started out as our goal. We figured that’s what we’d be doing. Our focus kind of changed when we started adding secular music,” Sherry said. “We thought, ‘Where does the Lord want us anyway? He wants us out in the world. If I had to describe what I hope we project is our faith, our acceptance and God’s love. It’s what it is all about.”
Recently they have played at places like the Big Brutus 60-year celebration, Oswegofest, and Neewollah. They perform at the Women of Rock show each year, that raises money for a different benefit each year. Besides their original music, the band plays favorites from the likes of Bob Segar, Doobie Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Beetles, Montrose, Metallica, Stain, Alice in Chains, ZZ Top and more. Terry said, he has been in different bands off and on for about 40 years, but Final Warning, and working with his wife, is different, and the dynamic has been working.
“It’s been great. I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner. I guess it just wasn’t time yet,” Terry said. “Everything has been working on God’s timing. I have to say, this is the first band in 40 years that I have done this much and had this many opportunities. I really hope somebody gets something out of the originals we write, whether it gets them back into church, or it gets them reading their Bible, or whether it just happens to be the thing they’ve been looking for to make them feel better, and something positive comes out of it.”
Students in Sherry’s class think it is pretty cool they have a teacher in a band. Once in a while she will play their originals in the classroom and the students are disbelieving to learn it is her singing lead. She has earned some young fans, along the way. “One of my favorite moments is, we had a student that had been living at one of the shelters here in town. He was singing along when I was playing one of our original songs. I thought that was so cool because the message in it was a really cool message and for him to be singing along was cool. I said, ‘You know the words?’ He said, ‘I listen to it every morning when I’m getting ready.’ He has it on his playlist,” Sherry said. “I think people can feel our energy and our love for the music.”
(Below: Sherry Woods has her picture taken with former students who came to listen to her when Final Warning performed in Oswego.)
