Cowboy Crush

Since that fortuitous premiere three years ago, the five women of Cowboy Crush have come far, playing festivals and opening for country headliners Travis Tritt and Trace Adkins. Currently recording their debut album for Asylum/Curb, the talented and fiery country rockers expect to release a single in Jan. ’07, followed by the full CD in the summer. “If you’re a country lover, it’s a mix between Charlie Daniels and Aerosmith,” says keyboardist Becky Priest. “We’ve got our country roots, but every one of us also has roots in rock ’n’ roll, and we try to blend those two together.”

Though Cowboy Crush is just taking off, Becky is no stranger to the Nashville music scene, having toured extensively with the likes of Trisha Yearwood and Patty Loveless. Her playing is steeped in both southern gospel and Texas honky-tonk, and Becky draws on a more formal background as well: Originally slated to become a classical pianist, she attended Baylor University on a Van Cliburn scholarship but shifted her focus halfway through. “I come from a really small town in Texas and it really wasn’t who I was,” she says. “I just didn’t feel comfortable playing that type of music, even though I’d been playing it for 14 years. So I got in a country band that was based outside of Austin and just worked my way up to Cowboys in Dallas, which was one of the biggest nightclubs for country music at the time. I was in the house band there for three years before moving to Nashville with my family in 1992.”

Energy and musicianship are important to Cowboy Crush, as is a positive message. “We want to try to make a difference,” says Becky. “We want to be an inspiration to, say, the all-girl country band that’s coming up in the next generation.”