The Redbucks' expat motif is musician as ambassador. Beijing isn't Nashville but they have Chinese fans who love the distinctive, speedy sound of bluegrass, and foreigners who bask in their familiarity with this antiquated music. The laid-back southeastern US has a hot and lazy image, but natives must channel all their energy into the saturated arrangements and instrumentation of their old and venerable regional sound. All That Glitters, their first album, features 13 original songs and they celebrated by going on tour in China in the summer of 2010.

The sets are a mixture of high-energy tunes and emotive country ballads. The latter likely draws on a genuine melancholy, a marinade of whiskey and tears; two of the band members are recovering alcoholics and in the early days Chip played solo in KTV joints and Chinese bath-houses riding out a long lonely time when Luke's career priorities took him to England. But wherever they go the Redbucks, like their music, have their roots in America, and southerners or not, all of them took a down-home Bluegrass moniker. Chris "Bonedaddy" Boehner came to China with banjo-player pal "Uncle Luke" Boswell. Chip "Jimmy Yeehaw" Rountree on guitar and vocals made it a trio. Then they picked up Amy "Spice" Gardner on fiddle and harmony vocals, Jackson "Two Sheds" Garland on bass, and vocalist Christine "Daisy Sweetgrass" Laskowski on banjo and guitar.

Like their music, they've been around awhile, and continue to adapt to make sure that stays the case. Laskowski recently went off to the Berkeley School of Music. The band simply uses times like this to reinvent themselves. They are considering a focus on "old time" music now, which predates Bluegrass and uses fewer instruments. Their reduced number can likely rehearse in someone's apartment rather than wander down to Sky Music studios' sound-proofed vaults. None of it will make much difference to the project. In deep-picker Jackson Garland's words, "The sharing of culture, particularly music, is a key ingredient to ensuring humans get along in the long run and don't blow each other up; music is a truly international language that speaks to all of our brains and hearts."