LoCash Cowboys photo courtesy of Stroudavarious Records.

It was April of 2008, and the LoCash Cowboys were doing what they do best—rocking a packed house. They were at Nashville's Wildhorse Saloon, where the two of them—Preston Brust and Chris Lucas—had met a few years earlier. The amped-up crowd was living, screaming proof that they had put the time since then to good use. They had been criss-crossing the country, honing their craft on stages large and small, developing one of the most dynamic live shows in any genre of music. Along the way, they had sold more than 60,000 copies of their homemade CD, earned endorsements from the likes of Budweiser, shared bills with artists including Charlie Daniels and ZZ Top, performed at halftime of NBA and U.S. Olympic team basketball games, and earned television appearances ranging from Tanya Tucker's reality show "Tuckerville" to "Pageant School: Becoming Miss America," writing the theme songs for both.

They had also attracted their share of support from those in the industry who recognized just how much of the total package they had—great vocals, world-class dance moves, a unique look and charisma to burn, as well as a wealth of experience and a work ethic that impressed everyone who dealt with them.

On that warm spring night, the final piece of the puzzle would fall into place. Jeffrey Steele, one of Nashville's biggest names in songwriting ("The Cowboy In Me," "What Hurts The Most," "My Town") and producing (Montgomery Gentry, Keith Anderson) was working his way through the crowd.

"Everybody's screaming and he can barely get to the stage," says Preston. "He was almost crowd-surfing his way to the front. He grabbed hold of me in the middle of a song and yelled, 'I get it! I want to work with you!' It was a monumental moment."

Steele, like so many others before and since, had caught the LoCash vision, and he signed on as songwriting partner and producer. After building and gathering strength for years, earning a growing legion of fans inside and outside the industry, the LoCash Cowboys saw their momentum become a perfect storm.