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Last Edit 10/2/2008 10:41 AM
For Fans Of BIG VINNY From tiny Linden, Tennessee, Big Vinny's life revolved around two things: Football and Sonic.
Near the end of his senior year his younger brother taught him to play guitar, something he had resisted despite having a father who was a fairly accomplished touring musician.
"First thing he taught me was the riff to 'Sweet Home Alabama'," says Big Vinny, whose middle name happens to be Van Zant. A family friend helped him with the finer points of songwriting, and Big Vinny took the salary increase from being named manager of a Sonic store to buy office space on Nashville's Music Row. "Turns out, I was right next to Butter's office-slash-apartment-slash-futon."
Leaving the food business to focus completely on music was difficult. "I had been working at Sonic since I was 16. Everything I had in life I had because I worked at Sonic. But as soon as I started writing songs my dream was music. But even now, when I go back to Linden, I go by the Sonic and work for a couple hours. Just to do it."
CRYSTAL Crystal hails from Cheyneyville, Louisiana, a town so small it doesn't even have it's own Sonic. "We didn't even have a real stoplight until the last couple years," she jokes.
Crystal moved from her family farm to Nashville at 19 to pursue her lifelong dream of singing. "I think I'd been watching Oprah and got all inspired, so I walked in to the living room and told my mom I wanted to move," she says.
With one month's rent in her pocket, she got an apartment and a job doing makeup to make ends meet. Every waking moment away from work was spent making contacts and trying to connect the dots on a music career.
Faced with a succession of dead ends in her quest, Crystal came close to giving up on her dream. "I didn't realize I'd have to go so long without money, without sleep, working all day and going out all night every night looking for a way to make it work," she says.
MuzikMafia rekindled her fire and eventually led her to Butter and Big Vinny.
BUTTER Butter was raised in the Northeastern Ohio town of Ashtabula. "I didn't realize I grew up a redneck until I moved down to Nashville," he laughs.
Focused on athletics in high school, Butter took up guitar his senior year and won the school talent show after performing John Mellencamp's "Small Town." "It was the first time I ever felt that," he says.
"I was definitely the class clown. Every class was my stage. But the feeling of that performance has never left my body." But at that point, he still believed a career in baseball was in his future.
"I was starting to understand music," he says. "I figured out theory before I knew how to read music. And I was moving so fast I was learning half songs. I knew 100 songs, but I didn't know one all the way through."
His penchant for goofing off in school carried over to college, until he committed to study recording. "I've got a loan that looks like I should be a doctor, but through it all I kept playing, building up a show and working my way toward this."
Record Label Show Dog Nashville