Hayseed Dixie came into being as a novelty outfit whose debut arrived in 2001 with A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC, an album that recast the Australian heavy metal legends’ signature songs as rollicking country and hillbilly numbers. Their playful tone also surfaces in the group’s own account of its roots in Deer Lick Holler, deep in the heart of the Appalachia, where the members had spent their early years steeped in the traditional hillbilly sounds handed down by their ancestors. The encounter with AC/DC’s catalog supposedly occurred when a passing motorist lost his life in a crash near the boy’s hometown, leaving his records to be salvaged by Hayseed Dixie. Members of AC/DC themselves embraced the project, and bassist Cliff Williams arranged for the band to perform at the tour’s closing celebration held at his East Coast mountain retreat in summer 2001. Refusing to abandon the conceit, the group released A Hillbilly Tribute to Mountain Love in 2002, this time subjecting a selection of hard rock tracks to the same bluegrass treatment. Kiss My Grass: A Hillbilly Tribute to Kiss followed in 2003. Cooking Vinyl Records issued A Hot Piece of Grass in 2005, and two years later Weapons of Grass Destruction appeared, presenting covers of songs by the Beatles, Judas Priest, and the Scissor Sisters alongside other material.
