Most members of the band have contributed to their catalog of original songs, as have Robert Parr (Tom's brother) and schoolteacher Scott Taylor (who writes lyrics for some of Henneman's tunes).

As noted in the New York Times by William Hogeland, the Bottle Rockets' songwriting has been likened to Woody Guthrie's folk style in spirit, smarts, and satire.

The band appeared on the television show Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing one of their original songs as well as being featured in a comedic skit.

[8] The Bottle Rockets are featured in the PBS documentary The Mississippi River of Song: The Grassroots of American Music.

[16] In the series, which is narrated by Ani DiFranco, Brian Henneman says that he and the band are "reporters from the heartland" writing stories about their friends.

After the Bottle Rockets' eponymous debut, having a radio hit ("Radar Gun") on their second album, extensive touring, and critical acclaim,[24] the band endured a decade of subsequent hard luck, including problems with record companies, a UPS strike holding up distribution of one of their new records, band personnel changes, and family emergencies.

As a result, the music industry effectively abandoned traditional rock artists, in favor of marketing more trendy acts.

Zoysia (zoy-zhuh), a metaphor for tolerance and centered values and common ground, is a hardy grass, plentiful in Festus/Crystal City and Saint Louis, Missouri, where these hardworking musicians grew up.

After years of misleading portrayals of the band's music as "hillbilly",[31][32] the band's catalog proves otherwise with themes of maturity, generosity of spirit, neighborliness, insightful self-reflection, personal roots and modern society, individualism, pride of place, slow-mending hearts, and post-9/11 reality through the filter of a couple's romance.

[8][33] The Bottle Rockets continued with Zoysia:[26] It would be a mistake to claim that Missouri's answer to Neil Young's Crazy Horse has gone soft but their first release in more than three years shows greater range and reflection than is typical for the rock-solid quartet.

The sage wisdom of frontman Brian Henneman's "Blind" and the twang of "Feeling Down" show the band's countrier side while "I Quit" has the groove of retro soul.

—Don McLeeseZoysia received positive reviews, including a spot on novelist/audiophile Stephen King's Best Records of 2006 list in Entertainment Weekly magazine.

The band hand-picked a fan's set list for each of the special anniversary shows and entered the set list winners in a year-long contest to win one of 2 grand prizes, a $1500.00 custom Golden Rocket guitar by Creston Electric Instruments or the "Bottle Rockets for life" prize package.

[38] The results of the first such collaboration were detailed by Roy Kasten and Barry Gilbert in their reviews of the performance, in the Riverfront Times and the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, respectively.