Trailer Choir 'Off The Hillbilly Hook' album

Popular music occasionally yields songs that capture an idea on the cusp of cultural consciousness. "How Do You Like Me Now?!” “Walk This Way.” “Hey Good Lookin’.” These catchphrase concepts immediately become part of the American lexicon or, perhaps, already were and are just graced with better publicity. Chicken-or-egg conundrum aside, it's a rare convergence and one that seems to be a special gift of new Show Dog Nashville trio Trailer Choir.

The band's debut single "Off The Hillbilly Hook" not only contributed to lead Show Dog Toby Keith's decision to sign them to his label, but has become the lead single for the soundtrack for Keith's upcoming feature film Beer For My Horses. And there are more where that comes from. "Rockin' The Beer Gut" gives definition to the growing and curious cultural phenomenon of tiny-tees and tubby tummies. "My Next 5 Beers" gives voice to anyone looking for a respite from life's long term responsibilities.

Quotable lines and good time songs only touch on the Trailer Choir experience, however. Full effects can only be felt live and in-person, where we find master of ceremonies, comic ringleader and front man Butter, smooth and soulful Louisiana girl Crystal and worm popping small town big boy Big Vinny. Because you just haven't lived until you've seen a 400-pound man do the pop worm in the middle of a country show. Hey, when a band's list of influences includes Garth, Tammy, Oprah, David Lee Roth, Elvis and the Sonic Drive-in, expect the unexpected.

Trailer Choir started as a loose association of musicians and singers, usually including Butter and Big Vinny, traveling the Southeast playing private parties and frat houses. They'd cover everything from "Dust On The Bottle" to "Friends In Low Places" and, when Crystal joined them, "I Will Survive." Over time, they added a few originals.

"We started playing songs we could slip in during these parties that would fit in and keep people listening and dancing," Butter says. "That's why so much of the writing takes the tone that it does. It's not wrong to play your own stuff at a cover show, unless you start losing the crowd. And we never wanted to do that."

So Butter and Big Vinny figured they were on to something good, but never really equated it with their ultimate ambitions. In fact, Trailer Choir wasn't originally intended to be their Nashville play. It was their let's-make-money, let's-find-gigs, let's-have-fun play. And a funny thing happened on the way to the next paying gig: They had so much fun that folks started to notice. Most notably a man who understands better than most that being what Nashville wants you to be doesn't exactly translate to success in the heartland – Toby Keith.

"We decided to put together an in-town show that was four to six songs long," Butter says of the decision to pull the covers from the show when playing Music City. Local Nashville music promoter Billy Block gave the band a platform for their original set, and word spread quickly. One of their earliest fans made an unusual demand.

"I jumped on stage with them one night," Crystal says. "I was getting frustrated because one of their songs really needed a female harmony so I just took over a microphone."

"Once Crystal locked in with us, it was clear," Butter says. "She brought everything to the table. She looked great, she sang great. You know, she..."

"She looked great, she sang great," Big Vinny smiles.

"At that point we started counting on her and she started counting on us," Butter adds.

"We even started rehearsing," Crystal laughs.

"I'm not sure we've rehearsed three times since we started this thing," Butter says, explaining the band's fun-first mantra. "We like to rehearse it in front of people."

"Butter always changes things when we get on stage anyway," Big Vinny says. "What's the point?"

Their lineup solidified, momentum began to build for Trailer Choir. One night after a show, Toby Keith introduced himself to the band. That meeting led to another planned showcase for Keith and Show Dog Nashville staff in the spring of 2007. They were offered a deal on the spot.

Within days, the band was on a tour bus headed out on Toby's Big Dog Daddy tour, where they played side stages, beer stands, parking lots – anywhere they could find fans to listen. "Toby said get your stuff, get a band, just get out there introduce yourselves and play," Butter says. "He told us, 'I don't have a plan for this; nobody has a plan. You guys have to make it work.'"

"That was a great time for us, because we relished being in the parking lot," Big Vinny says. "They let us in the door and we hustled like you'd expect someone to. I was averaging 50 pop worms a day."

"It was the three of us in a golf cart riding around with a PA system Butter rigged to run off the battery he took out of his car when we left for the tour," Crystal says.

"That was a blessing for us, because it put us in the environment we're built for," Butter adds. "We got to meet hundreds of thousands of people because we were walking around with an acoustic guitar, eating hamburgers and drinking beer with them."

The tour was an education, in more ways than one. "We realized a little too late that if you need a golf cart from the venue, send Crystal," Big Vinny admits. "Me or Butter walk out there like, 'Hey, can we get a golf cart?' And they're all, 'Naw, we ain't got any.' Send Crystal and it's, 'We have three carts. You need a driver?'"

Still touring regularly with Keith, Trailer Choir are also working on their debut album, which Toby is producing. They're applying everything they've learned about moving an audience to the project and, most importantly, having fun.

"We're very serious about our songwriting, even though our songs are about having a good time," Butter says. "And there will come a time when a deeper side of what we do will come out. But the way this band started and the world this music came out of was the mindset you feel when you're tailgating. You can pile all your stress up somewhere else for an hour and come hang with us." And you just might pick up a few one-liners in the process.

Trailer Choir biography
Who are Trailer Choir? Are they the fun loving entertainers who rocked thousands on Toby Keith's tour, or three seriously determined entertainers who've poured everything into their careers? Are they emcee Butter and pop-worming Big Vinny or two serious and committed songwriters? Are they the beautiful and charismatic Crystal or the small town Louisiana girl with the big voice? Are they the party anthem "Rockin' The Beer Gut" or the heart-wrenching "What Would You Say?"

Yes. Yes they are.

For Trailer Choir, the last 18 months have been a frenetic introduction to the national stage. From their signing with Show Dog Nashville to being named About.com's Best New Country Duo/Group, the trio made a notable impression on country music without seeming to pause for so much as an extra breath. But as they release their self-titled debut, Butter, Big Vinny and Crystal know their story will be told only as the full spectrum of their music unfolds for all to hear. Sheer energy got their foot in the door, but it is their heart that will help them take the room. And through it all, everyone stands to have one serious good time.

Butter, from Ashtabula, Ohio, grew from the class clown with dreams of a future in baseball into an unexpected devotee of music after winning a school talent show. His focus quickly became singular, leading him to Nashville despite the financial difficulties of starting a life in music. "I had a student loan that looked like I should have been a doctor, but through it all I kept playing, building up a show and working my way toward this," he says. "As Big Vinny and I got deeper into Trailer Choir and saw our fan base grow, we started to allow the thought that this might be bigger than the sum of its parts."

That total grew exponentially when one of their earliest fans made an unusual demand. "I jumped on stage with them one night," Crystal says. "I was getting frustrated because one of their songs really needed a female harmony so I just took over a microphone."

The Cheneyville, Louisiana native left her hometown at 19 with a potent voice, but only a month's rent in her pocket. Her Nashville experience started in a familiar way – long on struggle, short on just about everything else. "I didn't realize I'd have to go so long without money, without sleep, working all day and going out all night every night looking for a way to make it work," she says. Meeting Big Vinny and Butter, and quickly developing a musical connection with them, put Crystal – and Trailer Choir – on a much different course.

The group's building momentum reached new heights when, after yet another packed show, Toby Keith introduced himself. "And then it was off to the races," Big Vinny says. Trailer Choir were soon on a tour bus headed out on Toby's Big Dog Daddy tour, where they played side stages, beer stands, parking lots – anywhere they could find fans to listen. "Toby said get your stuff, get the band, just get out there and introduce yourselves and play," Butter says.

Keith's fans enthusiastically embraced the band and their good-time sound. Songs from the album "Off The Hillbilly Hook," including the title track, "My Next Five Beers," "Rollin' Through The Sunshine" and "Rockin' The Beer Gut," as well as their "did you see that?" stage show, led to a multitude of accomplishments.

These included 49 shows opening for Keith, performances at the CMA Music Festival and National Finals Rodeo, "Off The Hillbilly Hook" featured in the movie and soundtrack of the feature film Beer For My Horses, and the original song "Last Man Standing" used by ESPN & ABC in a national NASCAR promotion. And as 2009 broke, words Butter told a Nashville journalist almost a year prior began to look prophetic: "We're very serious about our songwriting, even though our songs are about having a good time," Butter said at the time. "And there will come a time when a deeper side of what we do will come out."

The manifestation of that statement is "What Would You Say," a song that opened a deeper vein of communication between Trailer Choir, country radio and their ever expanding fan base. The song evolved from a conversation Butter had with his father about the Sago, West Virginia mine collapse that claimed the lives of 12 miners. A few of the men had been able to write short notes to their loved ones as the oxygen dwindled in the shaft. "Dad asked what I would do in that situation, knowing my chances were fading," Butter says. "’What would you write in that note,' he said. 'What would you say?’” And, with the help of Big Vinny, a song was born.

Instantly striking an emotional chord, the song was another affirmation of Trailer Choir's ability to condense a grand idea into a simple phrase, if on the opposite pole from their lighter fare. As a powerfully direct query that gets to the very core of the human value system, "What Would You Say" speaks the same language as "Off The Hillbilly Hook" with its instantly recognizable imagery. "She’s rockin' the beer gut" or telling someone about plans for "my next five beers" are similarly adept at putting thoughts and phrases into the lexicon with such ease it seems they've always been there. Except for the fact that before Trailer Choir, no one had quite voiced them that way.

All of which made "What Would You Say" the perfect and completing final piece for Trailer Choir’s 2009 debut release, "Off The Hillbilly Hook." "We're really proud of this group of songs," Big Vinny says, "because they really show what we're about ... and what we're capable of."

"This has been pretty much a nonstop ride that's gone so fast it seems like a blur half the time," Butter says. "But having these songs come together the way they have really gives a picture of where we're coming from and where we're going. Because we're not slowing down."

On the contrary, Trailer Choir are putting more energy than ever into their music and, as they see it, job one: earning each and every fan. And to that end they are continuing to write prodigiously, tour recklessly and perform enthusiastically. Whether it's opening for Toby Keith, playing their own dates in honkytonks, bars and fairs nationwide or visiting with a few listeners and staffers in a radio station conference room, they're in.

"It's been a good start," Crystal says. "Actually, no. It's been a great start. Because every time we played in an amphitheater parking lot, every time we hit a stage, every time someone buys this record, we have a shot to introduce ourselves and let them know what we're all about. And getting to see that response, that recognition that they've been moved a little bit – whether it's a little shimmy during 'Beer Gut' or a hard swallow during 'What Would You Say' – let's us know they're glad to meet us. That's what keeps us going."

extra Trailer Choir information
From tiny Linden, Tennessee, Big Vinny's life revolved around two things: Football and Sonic. Near the end of his senior year his younger brother taught him to play guitar, something he had resisted despite having a father who was a fairly accomplished touring musician. "First thing he taught me was the riff to 'Sweet Home Alabama'," says Big Vinny, whose middle name happens to be Van Zant. A family friend helped him with the finer points of songwriting, and Big Vinny took the salary increase from being named manager of a Sonic store to buy office space on Nashville's Music Row. "Turns out, I was right next to Butter's office-slash-apartment-slash-futon."

Leaving the food business to focus completely on music was difficult. "I had been working at Sonic since I was 16. Everything I had in life I had because I worked at Sonic. But as soon as I started writing songs my dream was music. But even now, when I go back to Linden, I go by the Sonic and work for a couple hours. Just to do it."

Crystal hails from Cheyneyville, Louisiana, a town so small it doesn't even have it's own Sonic. "We didn't even have a real stoplight until the last couple years," she says. Crystal moved from her family farm to Nashville at 19 to pursue her lifelong dream of singing. "I think I'd been watching Oprah and got all inspired, so I walked in to the living room and told my mom I wanted to move," she says. With one month's rent in her pocket, she got an apartment and a job doing makeup to make ends meet. Every waking moment away from work was spent making contacts and trying to connect the dots on a music career.

Faced with a succession of dead ends in her quest, Crystal came close to giving up on her dream. "I didn't realize I'd have to go so long without money, without sleep, working all day and going out all night every night looking for a way to make it work," she says. MuzikMafia rekindled her fire and eventually led her to Butter and Big Vinny.

Butter was raised in the Northeastern Ohio town of Ashtabula. "I didn't realize I grew up a redneck until I moved down to Nashville," he laughs. Focused on athletics in high school, Butter took up guitar his senior year and won the school talent show after performing John Mellencamp's "Small Town." "It was the first time I ever felt that," he says. "I was definitely the class clown. Every class was my stage. But the feeling of that performance has never left my body." But at that point, he still believed a career in baseball was in his future.

"I was starting to understand music," he says. "I figured out theory before I knew how to read music. And I was moving so fast I was learning half songs. I knew 100 songs, but I didn't know one all the way through." His penchant for goofing off in school carried over to college, until he committed to study recording. "I've got a loan that looks like I should be a doctor, but through it all I kept playing, building up a show and working my way toward this."

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Trailer Choir - Off The Hillbilly Hook