"...Tony, Chip and Al say they always had country roots. The Kinmans were military brats growing up in Virginia and the Carolinas, hearing country music constantly. Alejandro grew up in San Antonio, Texas, where his father sang in a Mexican swing band.
When The Dils and The Nuns Disbanded. Chap and Al both moved to New York, while Tony decided to leave the music business and live in Oregon. Al played in the Judy Nylon band. Chip and Al decided to get together and form Rank And File, they recruited former Clash tour DJ Barry Myers for bass and the drummer from the Judy Nylon band. In this configuration Rank And File were torn between being a pop band and being a country band, and the experiment never gelled.
Four steps were needed. First, they fired their rhythm section, the part of the band that had been pushing for a pop direction. Then, they coaxed Tony Kinman out of hiding to play bass. Then, they moved to Austin, Texas; a proper environment for a country band. Finally, they found drummer Jim "Slim" Evans, an Austin native.
Evans was an oddball for Austin - he'd played in such local bands a Sharon Tate's Baby, The Chickadiesets, and The Inserts, but he knew the country best. Living in Austin, Rank And File began practicing in garages and playing anywhere they could, from rock clubs to roadside honky-tonks...
...And in Austin, Rank And File found the sound they were looking for. A true country sound, but with a hard, abrasive edge to it, and lyrics the go well beyond country's usual crying-in-my-beer moaning.
"I'd like what we do to be called country music." Tony says, "but you can't really label it. It's not country-rock. One writer called it rock-country. It's been called country-punk. It's all those things.""
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