We had the pleasure of chatting to the amazing country duo Smithfield at The Long Road the other weekend. Check out as we chat about their set at the festival, their UK tour and plans for the year!

P.S. their album drops tomorrow!

This is the first stop on the tour, right?

Yep! First show period on the tour!

Is this the first time you’re in the UK for a couple of years, right? I know you did C2C at some point.

Yeah, we did C2C in 2023. Played three stages there, and then tried to figure out the next few years. How do we get back over here?

So honestly, the festivals, The British country Music Festival’s kind of what started it all. So we got booked for that and then we were able to book all around that. And then Long Road came in last minute. We were like, ‘well?’ and we were like, ‘oh yeah!’

I thought you guys were announced a bit later than a lot of the bands. I didn’t realize you were booked a bit later on!

Like a third announcement.

How would you compare the scene in the UK and Europe to back home?

We always talk about how attentive the audiences are here. And, you know, they know the words to the songs that aren’t on the radio, aren’t the singles, and that kind of freaks us out sometimes, because we’re just like, “How do you know this?”

I thought the first time I was like, “Are they… Do they like us?” Because they were so quiet. I realized after, it’s because they’re so attentive and they’re really taking it in, even if they don’t know the music. They’re so, like, appreciative. Not that America’s not, it’s just a different culture. You know, it’s a little more rowdy, you know, fights and beer drinking, it’s just, it’s wild and it’s fun, but it’s wild. So it’s very different audiences.

I’ve seen a few people say that it’s very daunting playing to a crowd for the first song and it’s nothing and then that you finish and suddenly everyone cheers and it’s great.

Yeah, you’re like, “Oh, wow, they did like it.” They did like it!

You’ve got quite an extensive tour, at least over here and then a couple of stops in Europe as well, right?

So we have one day in Denmark. Yeah, and I think it’s a festival or something. Yeah, it’s called National Nights. The rest of the dates are us being bopped around.

Yeah, I saw some cool venues on there as well. Quite a spread of kind of stuff from, yeah, almost a dive bar to a more intimate kind of songwriting thing, which will be cool!

Yeah, so we have a British band over here. So we have a couple shows that are full band, but most of them are acoustic. So it’ll be a different vibe for if you want to come to multiple shows.

Is it a full band here?

No, this is just acoustic. The front porch felt like acoustic. Just felt right.

Yeah, we’ve done a few years here now, and yeah, I feel like a kind of acoustic set does really well on that kind of stage as well.

Porch sitting and picking, you know, that’s the thing!

Then we’ve got part two of the, I guess a double album, right? Next month?

Two weeks!

Are there any differences you can pick out between the two parts? Is there anything specific?

Well, they feel cohesive as one project, I feel like…

They do. But you as the producer might have a different perspective on that.

Yeah, I mean I could go into geeky producer stuff…

That’s fine, go for it!

I mean, part two was recorded in a live studio with the full band together. So we multi-track things and we’ll do it in a big studio. The first part was done… the best way I can describe it is like; a part is done, then he sends it to me, then I get the drums recorded and he sends it to me. This was like all the musicians in the room together making music, and so that was one of the differences. And honestly, it was a little more special to me to do it that way.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it’s pretty cohesive.

It’s all meant to feel like one big album that just came out.

You’ve done at least a couple of kind of standalone singles as well outside of the EP, right? What went into the decision to put them out separately compared to the album?

Just being honest, we’re independent artists. It is so much easier to put out song-by-song than it is to put out a full album and what you have to put in on the front end to do that. But what’s cool is we’re putting out our first vinyl. It will have part one and part two and those standalone singles that came out in between.

That’s cool! I feel like it’s so hard to decide what to put out these days as an artist. Like a lot of the industry kind of pushes towards singles, but there’s quite a lot still leaning towards an album and EPs!

The West is wild to me, I mean it is. There’s no right way.

Well, and I think you just got to stay true to what you want to say, you know, like try to follow your North Star. If you lose sight of that, that’s when it starts becoming inauthentic. It’s like we just had a mountain of songs that we wanted to put out an album and a project, but I wouldn’t say force that. We just have a song at a time, go single, single, single. We had written so much, we’re like, this feels like a project. So it’s like, who cares what’s right and wrong these days? The West is wild!

I noticed you guys are pretty up on the whole Christmas singles and that kind of thing. Are we expecting something else come December?

You did your homework!

We shine at Christmas, yeah!

We got a couple things coming for Christmas, things that I’m actually working on while we’re in the UK.

I imagine that’s quite stressful, right?

You know, it’s interesting… yes and no. I mean, it’s making music at the end of the day, right? It’s something you love to do. We can’t say it will be originals, so what we’ve done since 2020 is every other year we do originals, the next year we do covers. So yeah, we’re trying to build up to where we’ll maybe eventually do a Christmas vinyl.

That would be very cool.

Our Christmas show is really special. We give back to charity with it, and we do it with several other artists. So Christmas has become a big thing for us, really has.  Accidentally.

I assume you’ve got everything in place for a Christmas show then back home?

Oh yeah, we haven’t announced it yet. But I can tell you it’s in December!

Have you got a busy few months when you get back home leading up to that, or?

Yes, it’ll be kind of a sprint until the end of the year. I mean it’s Halloween back home right now, so either holiday, when we get back, you’re going to be seeing Christmas.

It is, yeah, wherever you go it’s already Halloween. People were announcing Christmas stores in July!

What can we expect from the set tonight?

You know, we love our acoustic set, honestly. I might love it more, I don’t want to say more than the full band, there’s a great time at full band, but I think you don’t get a chance to get to know us as well with the full band. Like, when it’s acoustic and just the two of us, it’s very intimate, it’s very interactive, you get to just kind of get to know us more. I was telling a few people already that for our shows we just want to make you feel like part of our family, because that’s what we are. And like we just want you to feel that way while you’re here. Like, acoustic is the best way to do that. Because you get to know us, you get to feel like that.

Is it a different approach going into writing a set list for an acoustic show between you guys as opposed to a full band?

Yeah, you’re spot on, because some of the songs that we have don’t really translate as well to just a guitar, especially the more track-heavy ones. The EDM music we do doesn’t translate well to acoustic!

I don’t know, I feel like on a front porch it’d be fun, right, in the rain?

Yeah, why not!

And also more of your like storytelling songs, sometimes those shine when you’re able to tell the story. So in a full band, if you got to go from song to song and just… it’s more about the energy and the party and the fun, harder to tell those stories, so our sets do change based upon what we’re playing. Some remain the same, but yeah, there’s songs we’ll play in our acoustic that we don’t play in full band and vice versa.

That’s cool though. So what you’re saying is we need to come down to the whole tour.

Yeah, you need to come to more than one show!

Then as kind of a lighter question, do you have a dream tour lineup you’d want to be a part of? Anyone you want to support or friends you want to bring along?

I’ve always wanted Little Big Town.

I was going to say, I don’t want to speak for the other because I look up to them so much and they’re, I mean they’re very similar to us, very harmony-driven, but I think that their audience would, because they love them, would love us, and there’s just not a lot of us in country music, so. What about you?

I mean you kind of took mine, but another, I think Keith Urban would be awesome. He was a big influence on me just with country music, and I think it would just be cool, I think it’d be a cool combo, we could go out and sing harmonies with him on some of his songs. All three getting to be part of harmony stuff, I mean we still do cover one of his songs all the time. I think we’re covering one in the front porch set. I’ll have to look at the setlist. Keep you on the edge of your seat. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t!