In the small town of Louisa in eastern Kentucky, there are a pair of highschool sweethearts who will soon celebrate not only their 41st wedding anniversary, but also their long earned retirement from teaching.
It would be a safe assumption that the loving pair would find a hobby or a vacation home to live out the rest of their days quietly but for David and Teresa Prince, their future includes rocking and rolling around the world as their avant garde rock duo
Laid Back Country Picker. Laid Back Country Picker will return to Houston for a night of heavy guitars and slamming drums as they join Louisiana legends
Dash Rip Rock at
The Continental Club for part of the October
Mid Main First Thursday Block Party all around the club.
“We are just overjoyed and I'm tickled to death to be coming back,” says Prince speaking on his planning hour at Lawrence County High School where he teaches civics and where he met his lovely wife so many years ago.
Students often cannot imagine their teachers outside of the school setting, as if they only exist in the classroom and confines of the dynamic they see on a daily basis, but for this couple, their life outside the classroom that began with a photo has taken on a life of its own.
Many years ago, both David and Teresa were on tour with Teresa’s band
Luna And The Mountain Jets and David playing with Rob McNurlin when after a long night on the fourth of July weekend in Needville, Texas Teresa snapped a quirky picture of David.
Behind the green tinted aviators on David’s tilted cowboy hat wearing head one can see the wild eyed expression of what would become the laid back country picker, a nod to the character in the Waylon Jennings song.
The photo was something the couple and others would laugh about and eventually turn into a T-shirt as others seemed to gravitate toward the image as well. After David’s former student and musician friend
Tyler Childers wore the shirt, even donning it to meet Texas god
Willie Nelson , the interest grew.
Prince went beyond just slinging funny t-shirts and became the persona in the image on stage. “All that story is true,” says Prince. “That's absolutely how it went down. We thought it was funny but we didn’t do anything with it and then it took on a life of its own.”
The usual progression is form a band, make music, sell T-shirts but as they continue to prove since their beginnings six years ago, Laid Back Country Picker is not your usual band.
On a weekly basis, David transforms from high school civics teacher to Motörhead western shirt, cowboy boots donning front man to play guitar licks that practically create steam they’re so hot and ferocious.
Simultaneously, Teresa metamorphs from a mild mannered and sweet faced preschool teacher to the permafrown, hair rollered, house coat wearing drumming machine “Honey,” a character loosely based on her mother.
“It’s really pretty liberating,” says Prince of having an alter ego discussing the comparison to Alice Cooper, the subject matter of their song by the same name. “I don’t know if that's what Alice says about it but Laid Back can do things that I wouldn't do. I can almost think about him in third person. I can talk him up and be a little bit of a braggart about him.”
David grew up in a musical family which focused on bluegrass and traditional country, making it a priority to expose their son to a variety of stringed instruments.
“It’s hard for me to imagine a time when I couldn't play so and I’m not fishing for a compliment, I oughta be a lot better than I am because I've been playing for a long time,” says Prince humbly.
And there is the distinction between the man and the myth, humility, but the truth is Prince lays it down on the guitar and somehow all of his country roots melt into hard ‘70s rock, a big influence in his playing and life.
“I think about Motorhead and the way they approach music and it's not so much playing guitar solos but just playing very powerful strong, songs that really drive and I've moved a little in that direction where maybe it's more important to play rhythm parts and drive the song along than it is to be noodling on lead parts. I'm trying to find that happy medium in between.”
Since the band began, their sound has definitely shifted to a more booming rock band sound with not only Prince’s guitar work taking it up a notch, but Teresa shifting from playing rhythm guitar to drums with the encouragement of her husband.
David describes how Teresa denies knowing any technical things about playing drums but simply plays like she’s dancing, making her a natural and providing the driving rhythm to their heavy songs.
“To me it’s just so ironic now that I'm called Laid Back Country Picker and if you come and see us, there’s not a lot of country going on. It’s a rock show but I will continue to bill as Laid Back Country Picker just because it's funny,” he says.
The happy and inspiring couple plans to finally be able to record an album that reflects their new direction and two piece set up and be able to tour for longer stretches once they get out of the classrooms next summer.
Prince describes how he walks that hard line in songwriting for the project where he doesn’t overproduce in the studio making the songs impossible to replicate live or leave too much empty space with only a two piece saying, “There's a lot of cliché things you can do as a two piece that I want to stay away from.”
When asked to describe the band's sound, the well spoken Prince admits that he struggles to pin it all down. “It’s so hard for me and I've often said it's more of a time period than it is a genre,” he says regarding their ‘70s influences and the many simultaneous musical movements of that time period.
“It's a big guitar sound and it’s a lot of driving. Outlaw country was doing that at that point with Waylon and everybody and Zeppelin and Aerosmith was doing it on the rock side so I wish I could come up with a good description so when people say what kind of music you play I can tell them but I really don't know.”
Laid Back Country Picker will perform with Dash Rip Rock on Thursday, October 3 at The Continental Club, 3700 Main, 9 p.m, $18-28. 
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