Hillbilly Vegas are a five-piece rock band from Oklahoma who have spent fifteen years building something real without a blueprint. Rooted in southern rock and fueled by the kind of blue-collar conviction that doesn’t care much for genre labels, they’ve earned five Billboard Rock chart entries, five overseas tours, and a loyal UK following built on nothing but the music. Frontman Steve Harris is the voice and driving force — a songwriter who writes from lived experience, performs like the room depends on it, and believes that for the duration of a show, nothing from the outside world belongs inside it. With new album A La Mode on the way, Hillbilly Vegas are exactly where they want to be.
SNQLX: Hillbilly Vegas started because your grandmother passed away and you gathered some friends to record a gospel song for your mother. How did that moment, something so personal and private, turn into a band that’s been going for over a decade?
STEVE: You’re right, it started just like that, but something else happened that I’ve never put in the story. While recording, our guitarist Johnny Reed, the original guitarist, was noodling around with a piece of music in between takes. I kept hearing it and finally about the fourth time I stopped him and said, what is that? He said it’s just something I have. I said give me 10 minutes. About 15 minutes later it was a song. I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was a songwriter again for the first time in 10 years. The short version, if you put a bunch of musicians in a room, they’re going to start a band. It’s just what happens.
SNQLX: You’re from small town Oklahoma. How much of where you come from lives in the music, and how much of it do you feel you’ve had to fight against or move past?
STEVE: It’s been a complete joy to be from and represent Oklahoma and small towns everywhere. I am also a very proud member of the Cherokee Nation. I will always fight for my home and never against it. I love my little town and my state.
SNQLX: The name Hillbilly Vegas carries a certain tension in it, two worlds that don’t naturally belong together. What was the thinking behind it, and does it still feel like an accurate description of who you are?
STEVE: Our first really successful song was “Shake It Like a Hillbilly”. In the middle of that song, it explains the name pretty clearly, raise a toast to what we are, “champagne baby in a mason jar, a touch of Vegas with a hillbilly twang”. I still stand by it today.
SNQLX: You’ve described yourselves as a rock band that dabbled in the country market. Where does that line sit for you now, and how do you navigate it when you’re writing a new song?
STEVE: I don’t navigate it. We write whatever we feel like. If it’s a heavy rock song, it’s a heavy rock song. If it’s got some country in it, that’s because that’s what we felt like in the moment. I hate being labeled or pressured to do things a certain way. We are a product of our environment. I tell people all the time my biggest influence was FM radio. There was a time when you heard a little bit of everything on the same station. We’re just doing that.
SNQLX: “I Hope You Know” came out of something real, watching someone lose control of themselves and knowing you can’t fix it. How do you decide when a personal experience has earned its place in a song?
STEVE: For me, it’s uncomfortable to write about personal things. I never intended for this song to be about what it became. I just started writing and realized I let some things out that I was feeling. We were going through a lot as a band at the time and I guess I needed a place to vent.
SNQLX: You’ve recorded on the same console Bruce Springsteen used for “Born in the U.S.A.” Did that change anything, the energy in the room, the way you approached the material, or the decisions you made in the studio?
STEVE: We recorded the new album in our own studio. We recorded our last album that was released overseas in the same studio as Springsteen and on that console. It was a great experience! I love the history of old gear. Sometimes there’s a definite vibe in things like that. Over the years we’ve learned enough that we don’t have to go to studios anymore. We do it ourselves and that vibe is even better.
SNQLX: What’s a song in your catalog that most people overlook but that you feel captured something essential about this band?
STEVE: I don’t think there’s any one song. There’s a collection of songs from our early years. There’s a lot of great stuff in there people may never get to hear, and I think that’s a shame. I hope someday that old stuff finds its way to the wider world. There’s a good chance they will discover it on the streaming services as awareness for the new LP “A LA Mode” grows.
SNQLX: A small town Oklahoma band going to the UK, not once but twice, is no small thing. What did those shows teach you about your music that you couldn’t have learned at home?
STEVE: We did five tours overseas in three years and had already been touring all over America and Canada for several years before that. It didn’t teach us anything new, really – because we already knew who we were. What it did prove is that you can go halfway across the world and people react to the music the same way. They sing, they feel it, they’re all in. That told us we’re doing something right.
SNQLX: You’ve been at this since 2011. What has kept the center of Hillbilly Vegas steady through lineup changes, shifting markets, and the grind of being independent?
STEVE: From 2011 to 2018, it was more of a hobby. Not a lot of stress, not a lot of grind, just doing it when we had time. As for lineup changes, all bands have them, especially when it’s a hobby band. Once things became more serious and we got offered our first substantial record deal, we had to make choices. Do we chase it or do we keep goofing off? Some of us chose to chase it and that dictated who stayed and who left.
I do have a lot of love for our original guys and I miss some things about those early days. We had a lot of fun. As for shifting markets, I don’t pay attention to that stuff. I don’t care. We just keep making music our way.
As for being independent, I don’t wear that as a badge of honor. I’m very happy to have smarter people than me running the show now. I’ll take all the professional help I can get. My only love of independence is creativity. I don’t want anyone messing with that part of what we do.
SNQLX: The new album ‘A La Mode’ is coming soon. Without giving too much away, what does this record say that you haven’t been able to say before?
STEVE: I’m a storyteller. I’ve got new stories, but it’s still Hillbilly Vegas. We still create what we feel and what we like. I love our older music and I love the new album. It’s a continuation of our story and our journey.
SNQLX: You’ve said you don’t think it’s a band’s job to impose beliefs on an audience, that you make music for music people. How do you hold that line when the world keeps pulling artists into things that have nothing to do with their songs?
STEVE: Nobody is pulling me into anything. I say it all the time during a show. Out there is the real world. Out there is that job and that damn boss. Out there is traffic and somebody trying to take your money. But we ain’t out there. We are in here and in here none of that matters, let’s have a good time!
SNQLX: What does showing up for this band look like on the days when nothing feels like it’s working?
STEVE: I’m a glass half full guy. I work the problem and make lemonade. 😉
The written interview only goes so far. Words on a page can tell you a lot about an artist — what they think, what they value, what keeps them going — but there’s more to Steve Harris that only surfaces when the camera is rolling. So we went the extra mile and sat down with him to get a little more, straight from the man himself. Hit play.
Direct to You.
