Lucas Black and Cary Elwes have signed on to star opposite Sam Shepard in Epix's first pilot, Tough Trade.

In other news according to The Hollywood Reporter, Garrett Dillahunt has landed a co-starring role on Greg Garcia's comedy pilot for Fox, Keep Hope Alive.

Tough Trade is a contemporary one-hour drama about the Tucker family, a Nashville music dynasty whose penchant for drink, debauchery and divorce has left it on the verge of bankruptcy.

Black will play an extremely talented guitarist and singer who could have followed in the Tucker legacy started by his grandfather (Shepard) and father (Elwes) but has no interest in pursuing a career in country music. Instead, he makes his money selling illegal ammunition around Nashville.

Epix brass is eyeing Tough Trade as the premium cable channel's first original series and aiming for a 2010 premiere.

The single-camera Keep Hope Alive, from 20th TV, centers on Jimmy (Lucas Neff), a 25-year-old man raising an infant with the help of his quirky family after the mother of the baby, with whom he had a one-night stand, ends up on death row.

Dillahunt will play Jimmy's dysfunctional father and boss, who is not thrilled to find himself a grandfather and worries that the baby might carry her mom's homicidal gene.