Grassroots hype and anticipation surround the upcoming film “Here Comes Rusty”, which stars Col. Bruce Hampton, Fred Willard, and Joey Lauren Adams. The film also features 12-year-old guitar prodigy Brandon “Taz” Niederauer, Nikki Glaspie, and George Porter Jr. We recently spoke with one of the writers Pierce Wortham about the film.

To summarize the plot, Wortham explains: “Col. Bruce plays the lead role of Dicky St. Jon who is the proprietor of Magnolia Greyhound Park. Over the years, he has neglected the track, and it has fallen on hard times. Dicky learns he is broke, and with the bank nipping at his heels, makes the bet of a lifetime with his chief adversary and brother in law, Mak. The bet pits Magnolia Park against Mak’s Used Car Ranch, winner of the Magnolia Derby takes all.”

During the early stages of development, Pierce and Producer Ross Smith were discussing characters over dinner when Smith brought up Col. Bruce for the role of Dicky. They decided there was nothing to lose in calling Hampton and to their surprise, he was interested.

Expect The Unexpected: The Legend of Col. Bruce Hampton

In a very organic way, it wasn’t until Hampton brought up Niederauer that a role even existed for him. “We didn’t know who Brandon was or why Bruce was pitching us a kid when the story didn’t have a kid. But after watching a couple videos on YouTube, we knew we had to find a spot for him, so we changed some things around and wrote him into the story,” Wortham says.

Brandon spent about a week on the Mobile, Alabama set filming his role as Dicky’s [Col. Bruce] guitar student named Bartholomew. Then Nikki Glaspie and George Porter Jr. came in for one day, and one day only, to shoot their scene as part of Dicky’s band called the Dinosaurs. Bruce hand-picked these musicians for obvious reasons, stirring the pot of anticipation for those excited to see these rockers on the big screen.

Read More About Col. Bruce Hampton’s Relationship With Brandon Niederauer

The independent film has been submitted to multiple festivals, including SXSW. Until then, we won’t know an exact release date for what we expect to be a greatly successful film. A full trailer will be released soon, but here is the first of many teasers for now:

Thanks to Pierce and the “Here Comes Rusty” team for chatting with us. We look forward to learning more. For now, keep up on their website.