USA/FILE: Country-rock crossover sensation Big & Rich ready to take their motto "No Prejudice" to the world stage

Big & Rich were the single biggest story in country music last year. The pair, made up of former Lonestar member John Rich and rock musician Big Kenny Alphin, had generated a huge buzz in the wake of their weekly Nashville jam sessions with fellow up-and-comer Gretchen Wilson. Then their debut album, "Horse of a Different Color," went multi-platinum and rose quickly up the country and Billboard pop album charts. A tour followed, and the duo have just released their sophomore disc "Coming to Your City." But it wasn't easy for the pair to find a label willing to give them a chance - mostly because their combination of pop, rock, country and hip-hop didn't fit within any established musical genre. And even now, John Rich says he doesn't feel that the industry fully understands his approach. "I think we frighten a few people in the music industry," he said, "because they don't know how you come up with that kind of music. They see it sell a bunch of records, and it's successful, and they don't know how to duplicate it because you can't duplicate what he and I do, it's what we do. I think it freaks people out a little bit that if enough acts come out with things you can't duplicate, if they're selling all these records and you can't duplicate it, that might mean somebody's job might be in trouble," Rich explained. Big & Rich have made waves both with their groundbreaking musical fusion and their high-octane, party-oriented sideshow atmosphere - visible in their live show as well as their music videos. The themes and imagery are sometimes controversial, but the pair aren't too bothered by the occasional critical backlash. "We've just got to be patient with people because they're not always going to understand," Rich remarked. "You throw a 102-mile-per-hour curve ball at them, it's a little hard to hit the first time, you might have to throw it three or four times for them to actually get a bat on it." "We focus a lot more of our energy, as a matter of fact all of our energy, on those people, those fans. And I mean, why even worry about somebody that doesn't like something, that's fine. They don't like it, they don't have to listen. Listen to whatever you want," Alphin added. Despite a gruelling touring schedule (including more than 70 dates with country superstar Tim McGraw) in the last 18 months, the pair are looking to keep the momentum going. This week, Big & Rich opened up the CMA Awards in New York City with a live performance, and are set to play nine more dates with their colleague Gretchen Wilson before the end of the year. But beyond its U.S. fan base, the duo hope to introduce contemporary country music to a worldwide audience. "We were just over in Vietnam a month ago, working on this documentary for one of the songs on the [new] record, '8th of November,'" said Alphin. "The last night we were there we ended up jamming in Vietnam, in this little club. Four hours, I left there at 2 or three in the morning, we go walking back down the street. But those people were just out of their minds, having fun with the music we were making." "I'm as amazed at how far we've come as I'm amazed how far we've still got to go. It's such a big world out there and there's so many people. And it seems like every time we get in front of an audience we win new fans. We've toured in front of millions of people but there's a whole lot more millions of people still to get in front of," Alphin added.

ITN Source | November 23, 2005

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