The Road Hammers" Debuts On GAC

The Road Hammers photo courtesy of Montage Music Group.

June 12, 2008 — By the time the public becomes familiar with an artist, that act has usually gone through a difficult process of finding its way through a maze of deals and negotiations, and even then, the journey has just begun. One band’s attempt to crack the U.S. market is the subject of a new series, "The Road Hammers," which debuts tonight on GAC.

The band — Jason McCoy, Clayton Bellamy, Chris Byrne and Corbett Frasz — is already successful in its native Canada, but the guys moved their families and their business to Nashville to get a toehold in America. The series follows them through the high points and the disappointments as they scrape and claw to gain attention in the U.S.

Fellow Canadian Jason Priestly directs the eight-part series, providing an inside look at the dynamics of the star-making process.

"I was immediately taken by their music," Jason says. "When you say country music, I think that people don’t expect such hard-driving, rock-based — like hard-rock — country music as they deliver. I mean they really are very hard-rocking, [a] straight-ahead rock’n’roll country band, you know. That’s really what attracted me to them, and to this project, was their music. And I was really fascinated by how they would be accepted, being outsiders now and having the success that they had had in Canada. I was really fascinated to see how they were gonna fit in."

The Road Hammers were on hand for the GAC Kick-Off Breakfast before the CMA Music Festival in Nashville last week, and they showed quite a bit of that trademark driving edge. Playing acoustic instruments, instead of their usual electric models, they still filled the lobby at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum with sound. As rock-influenced as they might be, the band was still heavily country; in fact, they covered a pair of classic tunes in their set: Jerry Reed’s 1977 hit "East Bound And Down" and Del Reeves’ 1965 chart-topper "Girl On The Billboard."

The Road Hammers premieres tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET.