The Road Hammers photo courtesy of Montage Music Group.
July 7, 2008 — Actor Jason Priestley was surprised to find out how the country music business operated when he got a chance to direct a GAC series for the Canadian band the Road Hammers.
The program, appropriately titled The Road Hammers, had Jason behind the lens while the group relocated to Music City and tried to crack the American market. He started filming the series last summer, discovering that success in another country didn’t necessarily open doors in the U.S.
"I got there as an outsider following this band who had a lot of autonomy in Canada and were basically left alone by their record label and did things how they wanted to do them and were successful," Jason told the Associated Press. "Here I am following them around in Nashville, and they get greeted a lot with, ‘That’s not the way we do it here’ or ‘Let me tell you how we do it in Nashville.’ It was very interesting."
Jason, who earned his biggest acclaim as an actor on "Beverly Hills 90210," had directed a similar series focusing on Barenaked Ladies for another channel during the 1990s.
"I have a lot of friends who are musicians," he said. "I think I’m just fascinated by that industry. It’s just amazing that it works at all. It’s a mess, but it works."
In the next installment of the series, lead singer Jason McCoy questions the label’s support when a photo session takes an unexpected direction. The episode debuts at 8:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.