At first glance, the Reverend Horton Heat's decision to promote its new record, 'Laughin' and Cryin' with the Reverend Horton Heat,' by opening for metal legends Motorhead is interesting, if not perplexing. Sure, Horton Heat can get heavy, but the timing is a bit odd considering the Texan trio cooled its self-styled psychobilly jets, swapping its spiraling punk rockabilly mix for a set of Hank Williams-style country songs.

"That's our business plan -- release a country album and then go on a heavy metal tour," frontman Jim Heath tells Spinner. "It might just work." The massive trek began in Minneapolis Aug. 28 and ends in Las Vegas Oct. 10. Despite the difference in sound, the pairing isn't random, as the Reverend Horton Heat and Motorhead are actually longtime buddies. "Lemmy comes to almost every show we play in Hollywood," Heath says of the rock legend. They even toured together a couple of years ago with Lemmy performing with the rockabilly trio. "In the middle of our set, he'd come out and play and sing six Motorhead songs with us. We'd stop our set to be Lemmy's backing band. It was really cool."

Heath admits that after 20-plus years of being the singer and guitarist, taking a backseat was a relief. "It's really fun to hang back and play and not have everything thrust on me." Oddly, Motorhead's signature tune, 'Ace of Spades' was the one song Lemmy wouldn't perform. "He just said, 'I wont do it'. I said, 'Lemmy, it's like the Rolling Stones saying we're not going to play 'Satisfaction' or 'Jumping Jack Flash.' It's what the people want to hear.' Lemmy said, 'Well, sometimes you have to give them what they don't think they want.' I was like, 'okay,'" Heath chuckles. "That don't make no sense."