Like the music that country rockers Rick Hays & American Steel have been playing along "The Sagebrush Circuit" for more than a decade, there is much more in the mix than meets the eyes and ears.
Country music has always pulsed with serious misunderstandings; complexities buried beneath the twangy surface-image of homespun outlaws in cowboy hats singing their aching hearts out over lost loves and missing mutts, an image perpetuated in the 1990s, perhaps, by the belief of some fans that Garth Brooks could, in fact, fly.
The same complexities are certainly true of Hays.
The classically trained vocalist will doff the cowboy hat and western duds on Monday in favor of his Nevada National Guard uniform to perform a capella versions of The National Anthem and "God Bless America" as part of the kick-off to the 2005 Legislature.
Hays sang the national anthem for President George W. Bush when he came to Las Vegas during a campaign stop last year. "Nervous, ain't the word for it," he recalls with a laugh.
The country artist has been on active duty with the guard since 1990.
After graduating a year early from high school in Reno, Hays turned down a music scholarship at the University of Nevada, Reno because he wanted to travel.
"So I joined the military," he said, speaking via phone from San Antonio, Texas, where he is on a training mission dealing with stopping hackers from infiltrating secured government Web sites.
Hays & American Steel are active with local charities like the Boys and Girls Club and are the house band for radio station Cub Country 94.5 FM. They are currently in the studio working on their next album, "Nevadatude," to be released the first week of the Reno Rodeo.
With a new fiddle player and a new drummer, Hays says the band's energy has never been at such heights.
He lists his influences as God, Willie Nelson, Rush, The Police and The Beatles.
As for getting a call to go overseas, Hays is ready.
"But every time I volunteer to go, there's four or five people in front of me," he said. "That tells you a lot about our country."
- Contact reporter Peter Thompson at pthompson@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1215.
ON THE NET
Rick Hays & American Steel
www.rickhays.com
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