Rising bluegrass outfit The Bankshafts might be based in Nashville, but they’ll never forget their roots in East Tennessee.

Their new single, “Don’t Mess with Ol’ Smoky,” honors the time the band’s members have spent among the grandeur of the Smoky Mountains. They include mandolin player Rocky Carnell, who grew up in Bristol, TN, and co-frontman Addison Simmons, who has family in East Tennessee and spent some time at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

“I started writing the song while we were on the road in Chattanooga playing some gigs. We started talking about the Smoky Mountains a bunch, and it got the wheels turning,” Simmons said. “I wrote the majority of the song; then. I brought it to the guys and got some help finishing it. This was the first song we did as a group, so it’s a special song for us.”

Although written about East Tennessee, the band got an assist in a neighboring state — and a contribution from The SteelDrivers’ Gary Nichols — to help the tune to life.

“Recording it down in Muscle Shoals (AL) was just the cherry on top. That’s where we get the best stuff done,” Simmons said. “There’s something about recording music down there that just makes the music a little extra special. It was a group effort. We had almost everyone at the studio be a part of the song in some way.”