Very cool, Steph! As for trying to put a country rock thing together and not getting anyone to bite on some Buck Owens stuff -
says it all!
Just keep doing what you're doing. If you're a fan of arrangement and alternate instrumentation, all sorts of possibilities will present themselves over time. One of the things I most enjoy is putting together an arrangement for a tune (traditional, pop, whatever) that includes instrumentation that differs from the original recording(s).
What I really like to do with standards from the bluegrass repertoire is to dink with arrangements for guitar, banjo, and mandolin, along with a healthy dose of cross-referencing and curiosity; I learn a lot from this (sometimes haphazard) "method". "Cripple Creek" is a great tune for cross-referencing between instruments.
Today, I worked with a banjo student (it still cracks me up that I can call myself a banjo teacher!) on "Old Joe Clark", and that's a doozy for the left hand, what with all the clusters and stretches. A young guitar student has been asking me to play some banjo during her lessons, so I gave in today... we did some Eagles songs and some Taylor Swift (yes, Taylor Swift!) tunes, and it opened up her perspective a bit as to the use of drones, as well as toward right hand capabilities.