Lowdown on the Locash Cowboys

If you have never heard of Locash Cowboys, heard their music, or seen one of their shows you are truly missing out. Locash Cowboys are newly signed to Montage, an independent label. The duo of Chris & Preston have a long career ahead of them and put on one of the best shows I have seen in a long time. They are not only great musicians they are both very down to earth and funny.

Nora: Before becoming musicians what other jobs have you had?
Chris: Theme parks. I worked at Six Flags, Kings Dominion, Paramount, Bush all of them.
Preston: We both have extensive singing backgrounds prior to this and prior to that choreography. We were choreographers all over the country.
Chris: First job Mister Bulky's candy store.
Preston: I worked at Ben Franklin.

Nora: For anyone who hasn't heard your music before how would you describe your sound?
Preston: Funkabilly. One thing that I have realized, they don't classify Shania as country. They don't classify her as pop. They classify her as Shania. I kind of feel like Locash is moving into that realm. We are a lot of different things sometimes I hear southern rock, country, bluegrass, gospel, rock n roll, straight up rock, hip hop all kind of stuff comes in. I think it's like becoming it's own little thing like the Locash sound. Right now we're going to kind of go back inside the box of country music and get down to the roots of our record contract.
Chris: The first album will be more southern rock.

Nora: Where did the Locash name come from?
Preston: I was in a gang called Locash Money Boys and we didn't have any money, we were just a bunch of high school dudes that were afraid to commit a real crime. I don't know what constituted calling them a gang; we were more like a crew of guys that didn't have any money. We found that the best memories and the best things in life came from moments that we had to create. It was our little crew and it lasted through college and after college all those guys kind of stayed together. Then I met Chris and we were looking for a name and we couldn't decide what to go with so we went with Chris & Preston for a long time. We inducted Chris into the Locash Money Boys and we were like you've got to be Locash with us.
Chris: I'm on the board now. I'm higher than everybody except for the godfather.
Preston: We were sitting around and Chris said man we should just be the Locash Cowboys. And so we went with it and it stuck. A lot of people said that name sucked and it would never work, it would never fly in Nashville. So we stuck with it and we were like no matter what we're sticking with Locash. Now 2 or 3 years later everyone thinks it's the coolest name in town. Even the people who said it was horrible are now saying ya know there was something about that name I loved and we're like yea whatever.
Chris: It wasn't about money it was about having a good time.

Nora: When did you realize you wanted to try your luck at a music career?
Chris: Well when regular jobs just weren't cutting it. You find out you have a talent and you have a very supportive family. Both of us have very supportive families. My uncle pushed me to Nashville and I was just singing around little honkytonks and mom used to run karaoke and I did the theme park thing. Then I realized the dream all my friends had babies, had gotten married, good jobs, $60 to $70,000 a year and I wouldn't be happy with just some job behind a desk. It's something I have always wanted to do.
Preston: I was in a bunch of different music projects and like Chris there were various different things going on in my hometown Kokomo, Indiana. I had all these offers to do R&B projects, hip-hop projects. I was doing all of them thinking it was going to lead to Motown or wherever I was headed and all along and every time it failed my mom would tell me to go Nashville. I was going to give myself a year in Nashville. In the first two weeks I met Chris and in the first six months we had met Tony Conway, got signed to Buddy Lee Attractions, we had a management company with Kitty Moon Emery and Lawrence Mathis and we had a deal with DreamWorks. I called my mom and told her you're never going to believe this and she said yes I will and she said I told you so.
Chris: I guess I had to pay my dues in Nashville for 10 years before I met this punk.
Preston: If you try to line the stars up it will never happen, you can't make those things happen. I remember in those days as well as now that the stars just kind of lined up out of our control. It was happening all around us. It really feels like magic and destiny.

Nora: You are both great dancers, have you ever taken any lessons?
Chris: Well I grew up in the streets of Baltimore break dancing that's probably it. Being the only white guy in Baltimore basically dancing. Baltimore is just a variety of people black, white, Chinese, everybody and everybody got along really well and they helped me to break dance. I came here to Nashville and started teaching choreography at a studio and Preston was teaching choreography at high schools for show choirs. So we haven't really had training but we kind of knew what we were doing.
Preston: The only dance lessons I ever had in my life was my friend Duane Paterson who when we were 15 said try to do the Roger Rabbit, you're going to need to know this for the high school dances, chicks dig guys who dance. I tried the Roger Rabbit and I fell down and Duane said there was no hope for me. I tried again and finally I got it, I nailed it and it felt so natural. He said try another dance and I did and he said try another and I did and from that day forward anything that I saw on TV or somebody else do I could just pick it up without trying.