Songfacts®:

• The Jeep motor vehicles company asked Interscope Records if they could come up with a song to promote their Jeep Renegade SUV model in an advert. Producer Alex Da Kid gave them a nearly completed tune that he'd been working on. The track was "Renegades" by X Ambassadors, and it proved so popular that it became a Hot 100 hit.
  
  It became clear that the song had widespread appeal when data came in showing that lots of people were Shazaming the song from the commercial.
• X Ambassadors is signed to Alex da Kid's KIDinaKORNER label, which is under the umbrella of Interscope Records. This is the first solo entry for the New York rock band on the Hot 100. The act previously visited the tally in 2014 with "Jungle" a collaboration with Jamie N Commons that reached #87. That song's success was also due to its placement in a commercial, in that instance a promotional advert for Beats by Dre's Solo 2 headphones and the 2014 World Cup.
  
  Also lead vocalist Sam Harris co-wrote Rihanna's hit tune "American Oxygen."
• Sam Harris told Radio.com about the experience of writing the hit song: "Dude, it is the craziest thing," he said. "I mean, the song just kinda came about with myself and Alex da Kid. He and I are constantly writing stuff. We're always going back and forth. Sometimes he'll send me stuff and I'll write it all on my own. Sometimes he has ideas that he brings to me. This is one of the latter."
  
  "He called me up and said, 'I had an idea to write a song called 'Renegades.' Start writing,'" Harris added.
• The song originated with a phone call made by Alex Da Kid to Sam Harris where he said he had an idea to write a song titled "Renegades." Harris recalled in a video track by track: "We went through about six different versions of the chorus, just him and me bouncing ideas back and forth. We built the track from there and Alex laid out the fundamentals instrumentally and then the rest of the guys came in and added their parts to it. It's kind of a song about people who defy the odds and who embrace what makes them different."
• The song reached #1 in Poland and also topped Billboard's US Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, US Adult Top 40 and US Rock Airplay charts. Billboard ranked it the top song of 2015 on the US Rock Airplay listing.