Hayseed Dixie
| Hayseed Dixie | |
|---|---|
 Hayseed Dixie performing in Stavanger, Norway, 2008 |
|
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Kerosene Brothers |
| Origin | United States |
| Genres | Parody, Bluegrass, Country, Rock |
| Years active | 2001–present |
| Labels | Dualtone Cooking Vinyl Festival Mushroom Records Råtass Records |
| Website | www.hayseed-dixie.com |
| Members | |
| John Wheeler aka Barley Scotch Don Wayne Reno Dale Reno Jake Byers |
|
| Past members | |
| Kurt Carrick Mike Daly Rusty Horn Jason D Smith Jeff Williams Chad Mize |
|
| Notable instruments | |
| banjo fiddle mandolin acoustic bass |
|
Hayseed Dixie is an American band which began in the autumn of 2000 with the release of their first album, A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC. The band performs a mixture of cover versions of hard rock songs and original compositions in a style that is a unique fusion of bluegrass and rock music and are acknowledged as the creators of the musical genre, "Rockgrass". The band's name is a play on the name AC/DC and was originally AC/Dixie, but they were forced by lawyers from Sony Music to change it. Claiming to hail from Deer Lick Holler, Appalachia, the band has played over 1,000 live dates in 29 different countries since 2001.
While the band initially received considerable morning-show radio play and sold over 250,000 albums in the US in 2001 - 2003, and toured the US club circuit extensively during that time, Western Europe has shown them the most enduring appreciation and they have played almost every major European festival, including a Main Stage appearance in 2005 at Glastonbury. Attesting to their cross-genre appeal, they are the only band ever to headline English festival stages at both Castle Donington Download Festival and the Cambridge Folk Festival. In September 2005 they held their own festival Loopallu in Ullapool, Scotland, which has become an annual event. In June 2007 they appeared on the opening day of the Download Festival[1] and played at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in July 2007.
Continuing to always push boundaries in extreme and often absurd ways, Hayseed Dixie released an album composed almost entirely of songs in the Norwegian language, titled "Sjt Munchs Drikkeklubb Band" on April 11, 2011. The group also charted a single in the Summer of 2011 in Finland, Juodaan Viinaa, sung in the Finnish language.
Among others, BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine is a fan of their work and infrequently plays a tune by the band. The group wrote and recorded the "When you wanna hear great music..." jingle for his daily radio show.
Kerosene Brothers is the band's alter-ego project; they released the album Choose Your Own Title under that name in 2003 on Koch Records.
Contents |
[edit] Current band members
- John Wheeler (credited as Barley Scotch) – vocals, acoustic guitar, violin
- "Reverend" Don Wayne Reno – banjo
- "Deacon" Dale Reno – mandolin, acoustic guitar
- Jake "Bakesnake" Byers – acoustic bass guitar
[edit] Former band members
- Rusty Horn (as Cooter Brown) – acoustic guitar
- Kurt Carrick (as Kletus) – acoustic bass
- Mike Daly (as Wilson Cook) – Dobro
- Jason D Smith – bass
- Jeff Williams – bass
- Chad Mize – bass
- Dave Harrison - percussion
- Nick Buda - percussion
[edit] Discography
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Grass | US Country | US Heat | UK Country | Australia Country | ||
| A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC |
|
14 | 47 | — | — | 1 |
| A Hillbilly Tribute to Mountain Love |
|
8 | 39 | 38 | — | — |
| Kiss My Grass: A Hillbilly Tribute to Kiss |
|
4 | 52 | — | — | — |
| Let There Be Rockgrass |
|
— | — | — | 1 | — |
| A Hot Piece of Grass |
|
6 | — | — | 2 | — |
| You Wanna See Something REALLY Scary? (EP) |
|
— | — | — | — | — |
| Weapons of Grass Destruction |
|
— | — | — | — | — |
| No Covers |
|
— | — | — | — | — |
| Killer Grass |
|
— | — | — | — | — |
| Sjt. Munchs Drikkeklubb Band |
|
— | — | — | — | — |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||
[edit] Videography
- 2006: No Sleep Till Liverpool (DVD) – A 2005 concert tour to support A Hot Piece of Grass. Includes a cover of AC/DC's "Hells Bells", several music videos and a segment about the origins of the band.
[edit] References
- ^ "Hayseed Dixie tour itinerary". 1 April 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-05-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20070516154322/http://www.hayseed-dixie.com/itinerary.php. Retrieved 2007-04-04.
- "THE CHARTS: MUSIC". The (London) Independent. 2005-12-16. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20051216/ai_n15946115. Retrieved 2007-12-04.[dead link]
- Dave Simpson (2005-07-27). "Southern fried metal". Guardian Unlimited. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1536871,00.html. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
- "Hayseed Dixie". The Age. 2005-10-07. http://www.theage.com.au/news/gig-previews--reviews/hayseed-dixie/2005/10/07/1128562986515.html. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
- Troy Carpenter (2003-01-14). "Billboard Bits: Bob Dylan, Hayseed Dixie, Men At Work". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1795925. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Hayseed Dixie collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive.
- "CD Pays Bluegrass Tribute to Rockers AC/DC". NPR. 2002-11-02. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=829699. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
