Rock grass band Hayseed Dixie is coming to the region next month, and the Leader has one pair of tickets to give away.

Hayseed Dixie began one summer day in 2000 when John Wheeler and Mike Daly drank enough whiskey to 'float a battleship from the Florida Coast over to Portugal and back' and decided to play around in John's studio.

Having spent the previous few years touring around with assorted country hat-acts, John had assembled a proper pile of recording equipment.

When he and Mike discovered in their drunken epiphany that the Lost Highway of Reverend Hank Williams and the Highway to Hell of Bishop Bon Scott were indeed the same identical stretch of road, they were well and truly prepared to document this revelation in situ.

East Nashville, Tennessee in the summer of 2000 was a proper Bohemian party place, and a few friends stopped by, drank some of John's whiskey, and played and sang on this recording here and there, as was the custom of the times.

And 10 AC/DC songs were suddenly reimagined and recorded forever anew, entirely reinvented as Appalachian Mountain hillbilly rave-ups. Everyone danced around the studio room and out onto the porch and drank more whiskey.

Now, functioning well as 'Exhibit A' in the demonstration of how one's beginnings rarely know one's ends, Hayseed Dixie have evolved into a proper force, one that most people either love, hate, or have never heard of. There isn't really any middle ground, nor should there be.

But 14 albums - consisting of both original material and reinterpretations of previously rendered songs - and global physical sales in excess of half a million copies, with more than 1,200 live shows in 31 different countries testify: Hayseed Dixie are the undisputed creators of the musical genre, rockgrass.

And now, holding up their own idiosyncratic mirror to an unsettled and unsettling 2017, Hayseed Dixie offer up their 15th studio album, a collection of both original songs and reinterpretations of R&B and soul classics.

The band are set to perform at Chester's Live Rooms on Friday, July 8, 2022, and the Leader is giving away one pair of tickets to the gig.

Tickets are also available from thegigcartel.com/Artists-profiles/Hayseed-Dixie.htm

• For your chance to win, simply send your name on a postcard along with your address, postcode and daytime telephone number by noon on Thursday, June 30, 2022 to: Hayseed Dixie, Newsquest Ltd, Mold Business Park, Wrexham Road, Mold, Flintshire, CH7 1XY or email your details - subject marked Hayseed Dixie - to claire.pierce@newsquest.co.uk. Don’t forget to include your daytime number as the winners may be notified by phone. The competition is not open to employees of Newsquest Ltd or the prize sponsor and their families.

If the competition is sponsored we reserve the right to send the details of your entry, including your contact details to the competition’s sponsor. For full terms and conditions visit www.newsquest.co.uk/prize-competition-rules www.newsquest.co.uk/privacy-policy. Winners may be required to collect prizes in person, have their photograph taken and participate in local publicity.