iSound

In an age when country music is dominated by contest winners, fresh–scrubbed adolescents, and pre–packaged pop (read "new") country pretenders, Rick Alan Carpenter is the genuine article. “I’ve been dead drunk, dead broke, divorced and damn near dead more than a few times” he intones. “I’ve successfully avoided success for 20 years, my life is a country song!” Carpenter has played as a sideman in numerous country and rock bands in Los Angeles as well as Nashville, where he currently resides. He has opened for everyone “from Boy Howdy to Van Halen, playing huge auditoriums, closet–sized bars, and every type of roadhouse and honkytonk in between.” Born “in the east” and raised “out west,” Carpenter started playing the guitar at thirteen. “My mother played the piano and always entertained when people came over, so I caught the bug early on.” He started playing bass as well and found out he could get more work as a bass player, because “everyone wanted to play the guitar.” A...