The Greencards + Bawn in the Mash!

They've toured with Dylan and Nelson. They've been Grammy-nominated for Best Country Instrumental. And they're totally hot.

The Greencards perform Saturday, January 17, at West Kentucky Community and Technical College's Clemens Fine Arts Center. Special guests: our own super hotties, Bawn in the Mash! Doors open at 7 p.m. — purchase tickets online!

The Greencards feature Kym Warner on mandolin and bouzouki, Carol Young on bass (she the sultry singer on most of the songs) and Eamon McLoughlin on fiddle and viola. They're playing at SkiJam now in Steamboat Springs, Colo., and are all over the place after the Paducah gig.

The three came together six years ago when Kym and Carol (both from Australia) met Eamon (from the UK) in an Austin recording studio. They hit it off, began writing and performing all around Austin, became one of the city's most popular bands, released their debut album Movin' On — and caught the attention of Austin's top music promoters.

Music reviewers are big fans, too. Bob Strauss of the Los Angeles Daily News gives the band four stars: "The Greencards might be the best argument for liberal immigration policies you'll ever hear," he writes. "Bassist Carol Young's voice has an easy, Norah Jones-like quality, the band fits in electronics and strings without any awkwardness and the lyrics are unpretentiously literate."

The Greencards took Best New Band at the Austin Music Awards in 2004, and their Time video became one of the most played on GAC and CMT. They followed that by nabbing New/Emerging Artist of the Year at the Americana Awards in 2006 along with a long list of other awards.

Their next album, Fascination, comes out April 24 on the Sugar Hill label, also the label of our friend Chris Thile's band, Nickel Creek.

Along with touring with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson — which Kym calls a "huge highlight" — the band had another huge highlight in 2008: The Best Country Instrumental Grammy nomination. The nod was for Viridian, their third album.

Clearly The Greencards love 'em some good ol' US of A. Their roots are in American music. All three grew up listening to Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and other country greats. They each played for many years in jam sessions and gigs in their homelands before making the move to Austin.

We got to talk with Kym by phone last week. As mentioned earlier, he's Australian, so it's even better if you read his answers in a sexy Australian accent:

So Kym Warner, you all are cute, cute, cute, no doubt about it!
Well, I don't know how cute I am.

Oh, you're cute, mate. All Australian men are cute! Now your dad's a musician. Did you grow up knowing that you'd be a musician, too?

It's just one of those things. I started playing fiddle and then he showed me some things. I don't think I was that keen on being a musician initially, knowing the difficult parts. I was encouraged to have a real life — that I shouldn't solely depend on music.

But it turned out that music is what I wanted to do, and it's all I've done for the past five years. I'm very happy now. We get to play music, and we get to play music we love playing. And, of course, we play our original music.

The music industry must be so tough. What is it about your band, do you think, that's made you so successful?
I don't know. I know that we love doing it. We have a lot of passion for it. We enjoy playing, and that shows in our performances. People are going to have a good time because we're having a good time.

There's something in the music that people must like. And I like to think that we've made some good records. And we play well live. We're a live band. We'll go into the studio every two years to make a record, but we'll play 150 shows a year. We put a lot of effort into being a live band and putting on an interesting show.

The audience is every bit a part of the show as we are. The audience has to be digging it, and that feeds the band.

Um, 150 shows a year? That's a ton of shows! Isn't that just grueling?
It is. We'll be home for a month or two, then back out. Some shows are not as good as others, and sometimes there aren't as many people as you'd like. We'll drive all day, and sometimes that gets a little tedious. The cuisine on the road can be terrible — especially in the California desert. The most difficult thing is trying to stay healthy and looking after yourself.

We'll you're in luck in Paducah! We've got an Outback Steakhouse that will make you feel right at home!
On one occasion some friends in west Texas took me to an Outback Steakhouse. It was OK. A few years back, an Austin radio station asked me to come in and do a voice over for an Outback Steakhouse advertisement. I thought it sounded like something I could do so I went in and read from the script.

A few weeks later I asked the guy how it went and when it would air. He told me they did not use it. They hired an American guy they had used previously because my accent was not strong enough! 

Oh how funny! I can't imagine that you weren't Australian enough for Outback Steakhouse! So tell us, how are U.S. audiences different from those in Australia?
U.S. audiences are much better. Music is a way of life in the U.S. People grow up with music here. Not so in Australia. They are big on sports and the outdoors.

And we have way more places to play here and more people who appreciate it. The audiences are just amazing and great for us and supportive of us. We were a bunch of foreigners playing in Austin, but people really accept our music.

What can Paducah folks expect at your show?
If you haven't seen us before, we hope you'll enjoy it and that you'll find it interesting and unique. We've been off the road for two or three months finishing our new record, Fascination. So Paducah will be our second show of the year. We're itching to get out and play.

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