At the age of 23, Deer Tick singer/songwriter John McCauley already sounds like a grizzled rock veteran.

A son of Providence, Rhode Island, McCauley started his career like so many other hopeful musicians -- booking his own solo tours and selling CDRs out of his trunk, performing at house shows, coffee shops, art galleries, anywhere anyone would let him play his unique brand of twangy, low-fi alt-country rock.

It wasn't until this year that Deer Tick emerged as one of the hottest new bands in the crowded indie scene, picked by Rolling Stone Magazine as the top attraction at this year's South by Southwest Festival. Even NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is a devoted "Tick Head," bragging up the band's first album, War Elephant, backstage at a taping of the Rachel Ray Show.

Williams' endorsement came as a surprise to McCauley. "One day I got an email from someone who said, 'I heard Brian Williams talk about you on Rachel Ray and I like what I'm hearing.' I thought, 'What are you talking about?'" he said from his Brooklyn home a few days before the tour that brings his band to Omaha. He found a video of the segment on YouTube and put it on his MySpace page. "Everyone we worked with just thought it was funny, and it spread like crazy."

Then last month, McCauley got a phone call from his manager saying he had to be in New York on Monday because Williams wanted to interview the band at 30 Rock. "That made no sense to me, but I was very excited," McCauley said. "So we did it and it was fun. It got us a lot of attention, and it came at a perfect time with our new record coming out. Bless that man Brian Williams."

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