We had the pleasure of chatting to the awesome country duo a couple of weeks ago. Join us as we chat about their latest tracks, writing style and potential UK plans!
How did this pairing come about? Did you know each other a while before deciding to do this?
Rory: Yeah, I’d say yeah, kinda! We met back in 2017 at a Locash concert, because Ryan was opening up for them. I was just a fan watching the show. After he played his shit I went back to his merch booth and was like ‘hey, let’s grab a picture’, and we still have that picture. Fast-forward like five years later we got reconnected through a family friend. After several conversations on the phone we decided to play a round of golf and on the 19th hole we decided we were gonna be a duo. It wasn’t until after that that I remembered ‘yo, you’re not gonna believe this but I have a picture of you from once upon a time!’.
Ryan: Yeah, we both agreed that day: ‘dude, we suck at golf, but we are pretty good at music, so let’s just focus on that!’
The picture’s gotta make it as an EP or album cover or something at some point, right?
Ryan: Dude yeah honestly, it would be an awesome T-shirt!
What’s it like writing together? Ryan, you’ve written for other people in the past, I imagine it’s different writing for yourself?
Ryan: Yeah yeah, it’s… when I met Rory I had a pretty small batch of songs that I had done. I was trying to figure out if a duo would even work. It’s hard finding a bandmate. As we got together I didn’t know how it would go as we haven’t ever written together. Yeah, I’ve written for like award shows and… I’ve worn a lot of hats but for us I didn’t know how that would go. Honestly, it’s been the most fun I’ve had writing! Rory is so musical… it feels like almost two superheros coming together, like Captain Planet or some shit!
Rory: Without Ryan’s incredible voice and songwriting this wouldn’t be a duo by any means whatsoever. I definitely come more from the musical approach to writing and Ryan is a bit more the opposite, but it’s really a great pair.
Ryan: It’s like he’s hearing colours, and I’m seeing sounds!
It’s clearly working out well! ‘Them Boots’ came out about a month ago and has done well!
Ryan: Yeah, it’s killing for us! It’s such a classic funny story of I was going to a session and it got cancelled. My buddy called me he was like ‘my session got cancelled, what do you want to do?’ We got together and in 45-minutes it was done. We just wanted to write something that really felt like Summer. It felt like a tempo that was more up from the typical country thing you’re used to. We wanted to write something real fast paced, which is hard to do in country. It just fell out. The receptions been insane, live it’s been insane. It’s just a really fun song!
Rory: I feel like it’d been 10x more insane in the UK!
Have you got any plans to come over to the UK eventually?
Rory: We have nothing set in stone but we’re really hoping to get over to C2C next year. It’d be kickass, and we know the UK country fanbase are crazy for country, so we just wanna get out there!
Ryan: It’s not set in stone but we have the stone, and the chisel, so we’re working on doing it! We know how crazy it is. I was just downtown and had six friends come over for a bachelor party and they were talking about how crazy the country scene has gotten over there. And it’s been a dream of ours to play C2C. We’re dying to get over there, man. Especially since we can see people listening to ‘Them Boots’ over there, we’ve gotta make this trip happen!
It’s literally been over the last like five years or so it’s exploded over here, it’s been really cool to watch!
Ryan: It’s been the coolest thing! As people who grew up country and to go through this whole period of ‘oh, it wasn’t cool’; for it to be making it around the world is… it makes my heart happy!
Rory: Totally global now, it’s awesome!
With the last two or three singles you’ve put out, are you looking to group them into an EP or are they more standalone releases?
Rory: They’re all standalone for now but we might throw one or two of them onto our album. But we have so many great songs in the chamber ready to shoot off to the world. We’ve been writing our tails off and were really excited about the next project we’re working on.
Ryan: We’re a couple of dogs with too many toys, man!
It always seems so hard to work out what to put out these days with streaming. Take a chance with an album or just drip-feed singles, it’s a nightmare!
Rory: It seems like there’s no answer to anything anymore.
Ryan: If you figure it out will you let us know?!
Rory: We’re almost of the opinion that we should put out 37 songs like Mr Wallen did. We’ll see what the label thinks of that idea!
And so you guys have been releasing music for just over a year now, right?
Rory: Yeah! We put out ‘Poor Decisions’ May of last year. So just a little over a year old, and we’ve had a lot of amazing opportunities and accomplishments along the way. We’re always wanting to grow! We’ve been really going hard the last year and a half. I ended up moving to Nashville, finally pulling the trigger on that. I’m originally from North Carolina but I was like ‘I have to get out there and make some music with Ryan’.
It’s clearly done well, you seem pretty busy on your social media recently!
Ryan: Social media man, it goes crazy!
Rory: It’s our main job, honestly!
Social media is a nightmare at the minute!
Ryan: You can feed the beast and it’s never satisfied!
Rory: We just had a video referencing Gavin Adcocks boat party, of all things, hit 100k views on TikTok yesterday. I’m just like ‘how? Alright…?’. That’s 100k, sometimes it’s only 5k, it’s so weird!
Have you got a busy rest of the year planned? Imagine it’s a bit all over the place, someone’s having a baby, right?
Ryan: Yeah, that’s me, man! We’re like any second so we’re in the middle of finishing up a big writing batch. I’m gonna take a little bit of time with the baby. We’re gonna record some music this fall, go out on tour this fall. It’s gonna be a hectic rest of the year but it’s gonna be awesome! We’re so excited to get out and play live!