Atlanta, Ga.
A Chicken Fried Family Affair
www.zacbrownband.com

Zac Brown had just turned 16 when he was driving down a street near his Dahlonega, Ga. home and saw a young woman walking. “I practically rear-ended the car in front of me,” says Brown, now 30. “She had to be laughing at me in the old wreck of a truck with the radio blasting.” Well, no one is laughing now. Brown put that sighting to music in a song he called “Some King of Fine” and basically launched his career as a songwriter/musician. When he and his dad opened a Southern gourmet restaurant – Zac’s Place – not far from their home, he had the perfect place to play. It wasn’t long before he was on the road, playing 200 gigs a year (fronting a band that includes Oteil and the Peacemakers’ Chris Fryar) and independently selling CDs – some 30,000 to date. Although the Zac Brown Band’s album The Foundation debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Top 200 charts and No. 3 on the Top Country Albums charts after its release last November, you won’t see Brown abandoning the roots that he explains in the song “Chicken Fried” – “You know I like my chicken fried/A cold beer on a Friday night” – which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country charts. “I have little mini-festivals with all of my friends and have four bands play and provide all the food for the shows,” he says. “It’s a real traveling road family.”

Back in our June 2009 issue, we profiled Zac Brown Band in our On The Verge section. Today we revisit that initial piece on the group.