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Lee Goodwin, left, Nathan Palmer, Jeff Faulkner, Glenn Jones and Mike Elder -- otherwise known as Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) -- are heading abroad next week to take the band's honky-tonk sound to France. |
| Jim Stratakos - The Herald |
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Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) pops into gear for French tour
By Rebecca Sulock - The Herald
Who knew the French loved honky-tonk music?
Members of one Rock Hill-based band will capitalize on that affinity when they cross the pond for a stint in Europe.
Tonight, local hard-drivin' honky-tonk outfit Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) plays the Long Branch saloon in Rock Hill. Next week, the group begins its tour of France at a pub in St. Simeux. The band will play five dates, including two festivals, Cripple Creek and Tarascountry.
"They like Americana music" in Europe, said lead vocalist Nathan Palmer, referring to a category that includes varying degrees of blues, country and roots music. "We're stars over there right now," he joked.
This from a band whose "South Carolina 2003 Tour" T-shirt includes such venues as the Pillow Fighting Championship in Blackstock and Phil's Port-a-John Palace in Traveler's Rest.
How do you go from Rock Hill's Tropical Escape Café to a French music festival of thousands? Two years ago, Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) played a show at Puckett's Farm Equipment in Charlotte, where they met Liane Edwards, a Concord, N.C., native, now a country musician in France.
"I think she's kinda big there," said Glenn Jones, rhythm guitarist.
Edwards liked the band's sound and helped members organize the tour.
"I saw the guys on stage in Charlotte and thought they were really fun," Edwards said in an e-mail from her home in France. "I thought they would go over well here, and decided to organize something for them." In return, the guys are going to hook her up when she comes to play the Southeast.
Right now, members of Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) have ambitious aspirations of their own. "We're going to dominate France," said Jeff Faulkner, the group's bassist.
Could it be true? Their song "Double-Grave," from the newly released CD "Cowboys and Engines," shares the playlist of Radio Winschoten in the Netherlands with Loretta Lynn and Jack White's "Portland Oregon" and Dwight Yoakam and Ralph Stanley's "Miner's Prayer." The playlist is downloadable and is shared by several European radio rings. Check it out at www.radiowinschoten.nl. Some of the English text on the site is pretty funny, colorful enough not to be reprinted here.
"Country music is doing pretty well, but we don't get a lot of media coverage," Edwards explained. "Lots of French people love the States and everything represented by that: Harley Davidson, country music, western mount, etc."
Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) credits its European success to the boldness of the radio overseas: DJs aren't afraid to play songs that haven't been spoon-fed to them by record companies.
And the band's sound is unusual . . . just don't call the band country-rock, they said. Or rockabilly. "Rockin' like Dokken," Harper suggested. "Amped-up country." "Buck Owens on steroids," offered lead guitarist Lee Goodwin.
Members pepper their live shows with covers like "Sam's Place" by Buck Owens and "Mama Tried" by Merle Haggard, but as the CD attests, the boys can write their own songs pretty darn well. Recorded at Hyperactive Studios in Rock Hill, "Cowboys and Engines" features 11 songs of unadulterated honky-tonk aesthetic. Meaning, songs about women and prison and fightin.'
Truckstop Preachers (4 on the Floor) adds its droll take to the tradition, though, with lyrics such as "No gas, water, sewer or phone, I had to get a title loan," from the song "Broke, Locked Up or Dead."
"Cowboys and Engines," released Wednesday, is available at Woody's Music on Charlotte Avenue, where a number of the band's members work. Better get a copy before the Frenchies snap 'em all up.
Rebecca Sulock • 329-4076 • rsulock@heraldonline.com
| Getting down |
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Requirements for the honky-tonk atmosphere? Songs about fightin,' a stint or several in prison, and plenty of evil women.
Some highlights:
• "Down, Down, Down." Danny Guyton, an instructor at Woody's music, plays banjo on this one -- he also helped produce the album.
• "Broke, Locked Up or Dead." This song has hilarious lyrics. "We want never to take ourselves too seriously," Faulkner said. "We're not the sad songwriters," Jones said. Another song with laugh-out-loud moments is "Hit'N'Run..." with instructions on how to never lose a fight. During live shows, Harper has been known to take off running into the parking lot, Jones said.
• "Highway 9" is slower and moodier. The highway runs from Lancaster County to the beach, Faulkner said, and he wrote the song five years ago when he lived there. It's purty.
• Banjo brightens the darkly-themed "Double Grave," currently on the playlist at Radio Winschoten in The Netherlands. It's wild to hear the DJ introduce the song, Glenn said, "he's speaking Dutch and it's 'blah-blah-blah-blah, Four on the Floor, blah-blah-blah-blah, Rock Hill, South Carolina." To check it out, visit www.radiowinschoten.nl .
Author's note: I'll attest to the CD's power as truckin' music. I put it in for a Labor Day weekend roadtrip, and it kept my fingers tapping on the steering wheel the whole time. Can it be truckin' music if you drive a sedan?
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