Tin Horse embarks on their Horses Gone Wild Tour

Chatting with the three ladies who comprise Chicago country band Tin Horse means bearing witness to a trio of kindred sisters linked by a common thread that somehow surpasses friendship. They talk in a chorus of laughter and sentence-finishing, piqued by the kind of local success and shared experiences that seal a band of relationships for life. Considering how well they get along, you'd think they hadn't seen each other in ages instead of being confined to recording studios and a great big tin touring bus (which belonged to Willie Nelson and Shania Twain before Tin Horse) that carts them to shows throughout the country.

"We're together all the time, even when we're not on the bus," they all seem to say at once.

This incarnation of Tin Horse - Andra on fiddle, Antje on guitar and Caroline on keys (they all sing) - has been the most successful, according to their label rep at Chicago-based Sweet Pickle Records. The band thrives on recreating the kind of onstage energy found in old-school barn dances, uniting newfound friends with foot-tapping tunes that recollect a modern kind of heartbreak and rocking, folk-anthem fun. The result is large crowds turning out for the band's summer tour, affectionately named the Horses Gone Wild Tour, plans for a new album and even opening for Kenny Rogers last summer. One venue owner's son actually vowed to add "Tin" to his left-shoulder horse tattoo (the Tin Horse gals are holding him to it).

Call their success the result of a slow, steady infiltration of country music into urban areas, but Tin Horse knows the truth: It's the bond they feel while writing and performing. And make no mistake: The songs on Tin Horse's forthcoming boot-scooting and ballad-touched, country-rock album are built on experiences cut from a shared cloth. The refrain of Tin Horse's recently recorded "Something Stronger" twangs, "Your love is like watered-down whiskey, glass-half-empty, never satisfied me, and it's wearing off - and I need something stronger."

"It's (about) a love that's really just not doing it for you, and we've all, unfortunately, had that," Andra says.

Their shared stories, indeed, sound like a fated country song in and of themselves. But the three friends are far from typical, southern-raised country girls brought up under the Grand Ole Opry marquee, even if the musical seed was planted early on.

Andra's first memory of country-music exposure happened when she was 6. Her dad took her to the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Fest in Indiana, and she met "the father of bluegrass," Bill Monroe. Of course, she says, she had no idea how big of a deal that was back then or how much it would impact her musical influences in the future. Andra spent school days in Wilmette studying classical instruments. That evolved into fiddle-playing and, eventually, a love for country that hearkens back to childhood.

For Caroline's part, she didn't discover country as early on as Andra, with whom she was friends as a kid.

"I didn't really get into country music until I was in high school," she says. That's about the time her dad left his corporate gig for landscaping work and started listening to country himself. Caroline remembers how one day he went out and bought a cowboy hat and began spinning his favorite country track from Confederate Railroad, which sang, "I like my women just a little on the trashy side."

"I thought that it was so funny," she says of the song, "and country music won me over."

People who aren't familiar with Germany's roots in country usually view Antje as the least likely of the three to pursue the genre in a band. Antje, a transplant from Germany, says that aside from lederhosen, there's nothing more prevalent in her German hometown than cowboy hats. "When we weren't listening to my dad's radio show," she says, "we were listening to Glen Campbell." Antje is a musician by heart, she says, and her songs have always taken on a country feel. "It's logical for me; it just makes sense."

A trio of backup musicians travels with Andra, Caroline and Antje that provides extra percussion, guitars and bass while on tour. But while Kevin, Fran and Kirk are a big part of the sound, Tin Horse's writing comes from Tin Horse's leading ladies. Our conversation took place just after practice, which they hold together on a weekly basis, and it turns out, they'd written another song for the new album.

Writing seems to come easy for Tin Horse, even with a busy schedule on the road. As such, their full-length album is on schedule for release by the end of the year. For now, though, live performances and the Horses Gone Wild Tour throughout the Midwest takes precedence for the summer.

Tin Horse can't wait to persuade non-country fans just how fun the genre can be, and no matter who shows up, they can't wait to collect people's donations for the Tin Horse Gas Fund. Word has it they jokingly threaten to leave their tin steed on the side of the road in town if the gas fund isn't up to par (a fan once helped them out by donating $3 to their sound guy), but "obviously, we're just joking about that."

After summer dies down and recording finishes, there's only one place left for Tin Horse to travel anyway.

"We're going to Nashville to take it to the next level," Andra says.