TORONTO, (May 9, 2005) — It’s been a few decades since a trucker could spin the radio dial and have a hope of hearing Red Sovine’s “Phantom 309”, Dave Dudley’s “Six Days on the Road” or some other ode to the trucking life. Scan the dial these days for some truck-inspired Country and Western musical accompaniment and you’re more apt to hear Toby Keith crooning about his favorite bar, or Gretchen Wilson belting out an anthem to redneck womanhood.

Nothing wrong with either, but it’s been a spell since anyone has broached the long-lost genre of trucking music. That’s evidently what Canadian country star Jason McCoy thought, too. He teamed up with a few of his buddies in the music business — Clayton Bellamy and Chris Byrne — to form the Road Hammers, a country-southern-rock-style band with its heart in the cab of a truck.

“The Road Hammers is the ultimate driving album,” says McCoy. “It’s got country elements, like Waylon Jennings of the classic era of country, which truckers really relate to, and it’s got southern rock elements like Lynyrd Skynryd or the Allman Brothers. It’s rootsy and it’s got a lot of good tempos on it — it’s meant to keep people awake.

“It also deals with love and loss,” he continues, “as well as regular trucking driving themes. We’ve got one song called ‘Keep on Truckin’ — it starts off talking about how it’s hard to make it these days with the price of diesel and whatnot, but the second verse talks about seeing a band at a little bar and how hard they’re rocking and hey, when the going gets tough, you just keep on trucking.”

The Minesing, Ont. native says the Road Hammers project started after he’d written a couple of trucking songs in the same vein as Red Sovine’s Teddy Bear, “and all sorts of other classic, campy recitation songs, which I really liked growing up.” That, coupled with the urging of his friends and relatives in the trucking business — as well as a week-long stint in a truck last year during a tour for a children’s charity — gave birth to the idea behind the Road Hammers.

“Truckers are traditionally country fans,” says McCoy, “but you’re also seeing them listening to classic rock. In my own backyard research, I notice a lot of truckers like AC/DC and Skynyrd, but then you’ve got your George Jones and Johnny Cash fans — not so much the new country. The Road Hammers fulfils a lot of the orders that they’re requesting from the trucking world.”

You hear the name “Road Hammers” and you automatically think of some truck booting along down the hammer lane, but McCoy says their handle has nothing to do with trucking. In fact, it stems from a time in Bermuda when McCoy and his bandmates were cruising around on Vespa scooters. “We thought we were some bad gang so we called ourselves the Road Hammers. Since then, I’ve always had the name earmarked for a trucker band.”

In his other life, McCoy is a country star with four albums to his name and a Canadian Country Music Association male vocalist of the year award (2004) on his shelf. He’s been playing country gigs with various bands since he was 16, and formed his own country band at age 20 — touring around ever since.

“This has been my main job since high school. I love rock, but I’ve always been country, traditional country. It’s just genetics, that’s what my voice sounds like.”