Musician lands songs in movie but he had to make a movie in order to get his songs in a movie

LAS VEGAS - Oct. 5, 2015 - PRLog -- Musician lands songs in movie he had to make

LAS VEGAS, NV - Struggling musician Jeff Mix, 44 of Las Vegas, tired of rejection from movie music supervisors, makes his own film Lost Vegas Hiway. Mix tried for years to get one of his Americana songs into films such as Crazy Heart, BJ and the Bear reruns as well as the upcoming Hooper remake, starring Tom Cruise. " I'm only human and how is an artist supposed to handle rejection? Artists are not used to rejection." Mix said from behind the wheel of his 87 Ford Tempo. "Even my car is about the music, man. This is all I know how to do, except for some other stuff."

Mix sells real estate in between sporadic beard growths for the film. " Ya, I'm not all about selling out to the man, but I'll sell him in a nice, 2800 sq ft home in Summerlin. (Contact my lender Randy Lovstuen at RMS for a quick preapproval)" In between checking emails, Mix talked to us about what got Lost Vegas Hiway started. "I had a con man client, looking at multi- million dollar homes. I got inspired to write a song about him, imagining him making up scams in his motel room. That idea blossomed into the idea of a concept album, about different guests staying in a dive motel in Sin City."These are songs and stories about the down and out. A prostitute, a motel manager, a guy in town with the flu on his trip, newlyweds and of course the con man.

Since Mix had never made an album before, he decided to write a movie and act in it as well. Between Mix and the majority of the cast, most have never acted.  "I mean, come on, how hard can it be? (as Mix stuffs day old french fries in his mouth)  I've watched Deniro and Redford, with a horse with lights on it. You just gotta pretend you're someone else, for like 2 minutes at a time. It's not rocket science. Kindergarten kids do that shit every day before nap time."

Mix didn't go the regular route of a big Hollywood budget, rather he brought on Zohaib Latif, a film student from Pakistan, who Mix met online through Odesk. "Yes it was instant chemistry and it just made perfect sense, location wise, that we work on this project together" Latif said, through a chat interview on MySpace. Latif stayed with Mix's family at their home, while they piece mealed the film together with free labor, borrowed lights and stealing shots from all over the Las Vegas valley and parts of Texas.

Mix has high hopes for the film and very little budget for press, but using a quote from one of his favorite films, Field of Dreams- "Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face"

"That one always get's me." Jeff said, as he understandably chokes up a little.

The film features several big names out of Texas music scene such as Grand Ole Opry member, Hal Ketchum; 2008 Academy of Country Music male Vocalist of The Year, Jack Ingram: Americana Instrumentalist of the Year and Producer Extraordinaire, Gurf Morlix;  Singer Songwriter from Wimberly, Texas that No Depression magazine called, “The Queen of Modern Texas Country Soul”, Robyn Ludwick.

The film has the bigger names mentioned above, as well as  Blake Phillips( host on KUNV’s americana radio show ‘Our Kind of Music’), Tiffany Rose Thomas ( Killers at Play), Michael Blair (2015 best actor -Mrs. Mannerly). The film has also brought together so many musicians from the local ‘Vegascana’ scene. Featuring Ken Osborne (The All-Togethers), Jack Evan Johnson, Justin Mather, Chris Heers, Seth Turner, Paige Overton (The Clydesdale), Tsvetelina Stefanova (Same Sex Mary)Tom Meny of Austin Texas and winner of the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival 2015 and some of Vegas’s most beloved venues. Mix's wife, Lee Ann, also sings a duet on 'Promise Ring' to sweeten the place up. The majority of the film was shot in and around Las Vegas and the opening scene was outside of Austin, Texas at the famed Devils Backbone Tavern.

Mix is hoping to help shed light on the burgeoning local scene in Vegas. “We’re basically trapped on a desert island here. We have nothing in a 200 mile radius of the city, compared to cities like Boston, where an artist can easily gig all over the place. We only have each other, which has helped make a tight community of artists and may give us our slant on Americana, we call Vegascana.” Mix doesn’t think we’ll achieve a “Bakersfield” brand, but Vegas has it’s own kind of slant.

Check out the trailer at https://vimeo.com/133672141 along with a link there to a free download of Jeff Mix and the Songhearts song, Fremont Street.