By Hudson Hornick

The PovertyNeck Hillbillies have been called “a beer drinkin’,
foot stompin’ good time.” Their music is a throwback to rockabilly
stomp, but it’s hard to pigeon-hole them. The seven-member band,
which hits the Maverick in Santa Ynez on Friday, August 11, plays
everything from country-rock to Zydeco and polka. Fiddler Chris
Higbee recently chatted over the phone.

You guys are the “official band” of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
How’d that happen? Me and Abby [lead singer Chris Abbondanza] have
always been big fans. We started talking to our manager about doing
something with them for our upcoming video, “Mr. Right Now,” and
our manager got things rolling. Someone mentioned wouldn’t it be
cool if we got Ben Roethlisberger, and I said, “Why not?” We
started talking to Ben and he was on board pretty quick.

How’d you come up with PovertyNeck Hillbillies? That was the
name of my farm, the farm I grew up on. The farm got the name
PovertyNeck from the Depression era, and when I was a kid, my dad
used to dress us up as hillbillies for the parade. A couple years
ago, I saw my dad fish the sign out from the backyard and I stopped
him because he was going to throw the sign away, and I thought it
would make a great name for the band.

You started on the outskirts of Pittsburgh and signed in
Nashville — you must’ve hit some crazy venues along the way. Ever
play through chicken wire? Ha! Yeah, we’ve played all over, in
front of, and in everything. We’ve played fire halls to outside
Wal-Mart. Chicken wire? Almost. Not quite that bad.

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