Trailer Choir photo courtesy of Show Dog- Universal Music.

Big Vinny was raised Vencent VanZant Hickerson in the middle-Tennessee town of Linden. Unlike Butter and Crystal, he comes from a highly musical family. His late father was once a professional guitarist, and he passed his passion for music along to his children.

Big Vinny learned to play guitar in January 2002, and by that March he was writing his first songs. At the time, he was manager of a Sonic in McEwen, TN.

"I worked there 10 to 12 hours a day, usually 8 AM to 8 PM, then came to Nashville every single night. For about a year, I drove an hour and a half each way, every day. I did whatever it took."

Big Vinny decided to make the big move to Nashville in 2006. Fatefully, he rented an apartment next door to Butter. The two began swapping songs, and a friendship was born. Big Vinny started doing frat-house shows with Butter’s band. Butter dubbed the loose-knit group Trailer Choir. Among the group’s most enthusiastic Nashville fans was singer-songwriter Crystal.

Crystal Hoyt was raised on a 2,000-acre farm in Cheneyville, a hamlet of 900 people in central Louisiana, south of Alexandria. From an early age, she was enrolled in singing, dancing, acting and piano lessons.

As a teen, she convinced her parents to let her move to Nashville in 1997. She began haunting Nashville’s music clubs. She particularly enjoyed Trailer Choir’s casual spontaneity and was frequently in the front of the crowd at its club performances. So Crystal was a familiar face to Butter and Big Vinny when she jumped up on their stage and started singing with them in early 2007.

"I just kind of bombarded them on stage. Within about a week, I got a phone call saying, ‘Hey, we have a show. Do you want to come and join us?’ That was the first real show I did with them."

The three had only done four shows together before Toby Keith turned up at another Trailer Choir gig. He signed them to his record label in June 2007. Two days later, they were on tour with him, winning over fans night after night. But the members of Trailer Choir don’t actually use the word "fan."

"You don’t become a ‘fan,’ you become a friend," says Big Vinny. "That’s what we always say. We feel like everybody we meet, we’re friends with, always."