VALDOSTA — Two musicians with South Georgia roots will be inducted into the Indie Music Hall of Fame.

Barry Best and Rich Herring operate the production company 8 Hour Drive. Best and Herring won the Indie Music Channel’s Producer of the Year award for Ryan Daniel’s single, “Like America.”

They will be inducted into the Indie Music Hall of Fame in an April 28 ceremony in the Clive Davis Theater of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

They both plan to attend the ceremony. It will be a chance for the two long-time friends and business partners to see each other face to face. They often work on projects digitally communicating via phone, Internet, text, etc.

“You gotta love technology,” Herring said. “I do most of my work in my pajamas. It’s awfully convenient to be able to set my own pace and then send master-quality audio across the wild blue in a matter of seconds. A far cry from the days of expensive two-inch tape and very limited edit-ability. Having said that, there’s no substitute for putting four or five musicians in a room to bounce ideas off each other. I still do a fair amount of that, too. It all depends on what’s needed for the project.”

And when they do work in the same room, with Best still living in the Valdosta-area and Herring calling Nashville, Tenn., home, it usually takes an eight-hour drive to reach one another.

“That’s the distance between Valdosta and Nashville,” Best said. “Rich and I have known each other for so long, we have a lot of inside jokes. He’ll drive into town and I’ll open the front door as he’s walking in from being on the road, and I’ll say, ‘It’s just a little eight-hour drive. Are you ready to play?'”

Given their long careers in music, they are always ready to play some more.

Herring, a 1984 Lowndes High School graduate, has been performing as part of the Little River Band for several years.

“I’m actually in my 14th year with the band,” Herring said of the Little River Band. “Seems like I went to an audition in 2006 then woke up on a bus the other day. We play around 85-90 dates a year. Our lead singer is 68 and still at the top of his game. We’re playing a lot of theaters now, which are my favorite, as opposed to big festivals or clubs.”

Herring traveled to New Zealand with the band earlier this year.

“This last trip to New Zealand was way too fast,” he said. “Forty hours of flying time for 48 hours on the ground. Make no mistake. I get paid to travel. The guitar playing is free.”

Best was music director for more than 20 years for the Air Force’s world-renowned Tops In Blue. He has several projects but said he still enjoys his work and friendship with Herring.

“He knows how I will hear a piece of music and I know how Rich approaches it,” Best said. “It’s a good symbiosis.”

The feeling is mutual.

“Barry is one of my biggest musical influences as well as one of my best friends,” Herring said. “He was kind of a mentor to me when I was just a teenager playing club gigs. We spent countless hours, days together playing, recording or just listening. We both have a deep appreciation for well played and well produced music, and there’s a level of mutual trust that I’ve found with very few people in my career.”

Herring tries returning to Valdosta about twice a year. And though he doesn’t plan to move back to Valdosta, he is looking for an opportunity to stay home and spend more time with wife Suzanne and their two small children.

“This venture with Barry is part of a transition for me,” he said. “I’m finding it harder to leave home these days. Suzanne and I have a 4-year-old boy and a girl who is almost 2, so home is where I want to be. I think 8 Hour Drive is off to a great start.”

And though there’s an eight-hour distance, or further if they are in different parts of the world, Best said it’s like they see each other all of the time.

“We rarely see each other in person,” Best said, “but I feel like we do because we’re on the phone so often.”