True to cliché, countless failed country stars stream out of Nashville with their money spent, spirits broken and nothing but a nasty hot chicken habit to show for their Music City sojourn. It's an addiction many twangsters say they just can't kick.

"Lorrie Morgan turned me onto it," recalls Rocky Lindsley, a former back-up drummer for country music stars including the popular blonde singer. "I was paying a guy money to bring me that chicken [from six hours away]."

Veterans of the Nashville scene are partially responsible for a burgeoning hot chicken diaspora, introducing the city's fiery, tastebud-melting dish to brave eaters across the South. Lindsley, who now owns Rocky's Hot Chicken Shack in Asheville (east of Nashville), doesn't hesitate when asked to name his influence: "As a musician, I'm going to say who inspired me, whether it's Led Zeppelin or whatever, and I was inspired by Prince's."

Learn the bizarre side effects of hot chicken consumption after the jump.

Indeed, Prince's Hot Chicken Shack is universally recognized as the progenitor of hot chicken, a dastardly pepper-rubbed, skillet-fried chicken that makes a mockery of every Buffalo wing that's ever crossed your lips. The "medium" chicken makes customers sweat through their socks, while owner Andre Prince Jeffries reports the "hot" chicken has caused folks to tear through the restaurant in pain or, bizarrely, to scurry out to the parking lot for impromptu, cayenne-fueled trysts.

Hot Chicken Syndrome has now spread across the South and as far north as Michigan, where Ari Weinzweig has put the dish on the Zingerman's Roadhouse menu. The knock-offs have apparently nailed the addictive qualities of the original, and folks are getting hooked.

"I had this couple come in here three times yesterday, which freaked me out," Lindsley reports. "They kept asking me, 'What are you putting in this chicken?'"

Hot chicken is on the march: Has it hit your 'hood yet?