Chuckanut Drive

Seattle area alt-country band Chuckanut Drive hits its stride with the release of its sophomore album The Crooked Mile Home. This ambitious country/rock concept album chronicles the wanderlust adventures of a young man through the back roads of middle America. Hearts get broken, shots get fired, and hell gets raised, but not without repentance, redemption, and a world-weary struggle to get back home.

Produced and engineered by Johnny Sangster (Mudhoney, The Posies, The Briefs) The Crooked Mile Home pays tribute to early country story albums such as Willie Nelson's Red-Headed Stranger. Chuckanut Drive also counts such rock icons as The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Band among its many influences. The album's roots-rock appeal has been felt internationally, gaining the record much praise in foreign press and selling copies in over 10 countries.

The songs of Texas-born singer/songwriter Steve Leslie radiate a human warmth rarely heard in today's popular music. Chuckanut Drive plays pop music, but Leslie's lyrics often have an intimacy one would expect to find in a folk singer. Chuckanut Drive plays rock music, but guitarist Loren Huggins' twangy guitar lines and Garth Highsmith's pedal steel evoke a sprit of the bygone honky-tonk era. The result is the vibrant sound of an American band carrying on an American musical tradition.