SPEEDTRUCKER

Layout Provided By FreeCodeSource.com - Myspace LayoutsThe band is officialy broke-up! Kinda! We're all doing other projects, but reunite a few times a year for the hell of it. One word... high-velocity-honky-tonk. That's the way Speedtrucker's lead singer Michael Cox describes the band's style. Now signed with Arlington-based label, Aaron Ave Records, Cox, 29, along with guitarist Josh Davis, 28, bassist Kirk Richardson, 33, and drummer David Mitchell, 35, released the band's third and first full original album, The Curse, on Oct. 25 at The Curtain Club in Dallas. But the band hasn't always been able to attract a bar-full of feisty fans. "There were times we thought it was never going to work," Cox remembers. "We had some gigs and literally cleared out the room because we were the wrong band for that venue." "We're too country for the rock people and too rock for the country people," says Cox. Classifying the genre of music spit out by the heavy metal-looking band wearing cowboy hats is the much-dreaded question. "We just play what we play and hopefully people will dig it," says Cox. "But whatever it is, we play the living hell out of it." Still clueless? "Picture David Lee Roth fronting Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings," describes Cox. The initiative rock show backed by country outlaw music all began Oct. 4, 1999. "Ten-four", as truckers would say, when Speedtrucker first shattered the conventional country image and eardrums at Muddy Waters in Dallas. But the four-year ride hasn't been a smooth one. Cox, originally from Yukon, Okla., moved to Dallas in 1996 but didn't know a soul or much about the location. Growing up in a fairly strict Christian home, Cox listened to gospel albums released by Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, but soon stumbled into their outlaw country style. And at the age of 17, he fell for rock legends The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Who. Cox met Mitchell, the Irving-dwelling drummer, in a bar and soon formed Too Tall Paul with a bassist and guitarist from another band. Three months into it, the original guitarist quit and the band hired Davis, an Arlington resident who really knew how to tease the strings of his telecaster. Shortly after, original bassist Rocky Garza was let go and Linda Garner took his place. Garner stuck with the band until June of this year contributing to four of the songs on The Curse ("Strike A Ride," "Hard Living," "Bitch" and "Poor Irene") before she was replaced by Richardson, the solid-bellowing bass player from *****. The outlaws came up with name Speedtrucker after taking a trip to see a band play at the VFW in McKinney. On the drive home, trying to come up with a band name and listening to the midnight trucker show on AM 820, a diesel truck flew by and Dave spit out, "Speedtrucker," and it stuck. That's when the booze and sweat began to drip off of every lyric and note.The members started out rearranging obscure covers to play at happy hour gigs at Muddy Waters. When the fan base formed, the band moved the show to Thursday nights at the Greenville Bar and Grill in Dallas, a larger venue, "packing the place completely out," adds Cox. But after the Greenville Bar and Grill shut down, Speedtrucker moved the Thursday-night show back to Muddy Waters. While the band had a crowd, they cut their first live full-length CD, Live at Muddy Waters, including only one original song. The album has become the band's key to popularity, selling more than 3,000 copies. It was after the release of their debut album that Speedtrucker started writing more of their own tunes. Every member pitched in on the band's second release, Another Roadhouse Girl and 50 Bucks, a 12-song album, half originals. Speedtrucker's sound and style evolve with each release, as blood-dripping fingertips rewrite the conventional book on outlaw country music. Josh comes from a blues background. Dave is a roots-movement kind of guy. I bring a country element. If you take all of that and put it together, that's how it comes out," says Cox. "A DJ once classified us as, without a doubt, the best live band in Dallas. It's hard to get our show across on CD, but The Curse captures the way we are live." The Curse also captures the sweat-tears-and-alcohol-drenched memories over the past couple of years, including the breakdowns and the fights. "We take three steps forward and five steps back," says Cox. "Each one of us has our own problems. I've lost two girlfriends because of the band. Josh is torn by his passion to play and being with his daughter." But with or without the heartaches, "there's no one member of the band we could live without," says Cox. "The puzzle fits together perfect. You can't take a piece out of it." Speedtrucker plan to have major distribution in January, when they will hit the road coast-to-coast