Q&A: The Shires on the British country movement & breaking stereotypes

When The Shires’ debut album Brave hit #10 on the UK’s official chart in March 2015, the pair became the first British country act to chart in the UK Top 10.

A British country music movement had been bubbling in the territory for some time, with Dolly Parton’s addition to Glastonbury Festival in 2014 a welcome confirmation of millennials’ widening embrace of the genre.

Perhaps it should have come as no surprise then that when The Shires released second album My Universelast month, it hit #3 on the UK’s main chart at #2 on the TMN Country Music Airplay Chart.

The duo also have five A List singles at BBC Radio 2, headlined Glastonbury’s Acoustic Stage in June, were thebiggest-selling country act intheUK last year, and have been announced to perform at CMC Rocks QLD next March.

Currently in Australia for a short promotional stint hosted by Universal Music Australia, Ben Earle and Crissie Rhodes chat to TMN about breaking stereotypes, recording in Nashville, and the dressing room encounter with Lady Antebellum that has forever stuck with them.

My Universe crosses a few genres outside of countrymusic. Do you consider yourself a country music duo?

Ben: We’ve always said we’re sort of nu-country or country pop. It’s a really big question actually about country in general we think. It’s such a varied genre now with acts like Sam Hunt, who is sort of rapping in his songs, then you’ve got more traditional stuff like Kacey Musgraves, and then there’s Little Big Town; they’re all considered country.

When we got together we really sat down and said, ‘What is country to you?’ A lot of people assume it’s just about the trucks and cowboys and rhinestones and having a Southern accent. We don’t believe that.

We think it’s about how you approach the song; the writing process especially. All country songs are an extension of the artist, the thread that goes through them is honesty and storytelling; the truth. You know [the saying] ‘three chords and the truth’ – we do more than three chords now but [laughs].

When did each of you start your love affair with country music?

Crissie: We both came to country music very differently. I’ve been a long-standing country fan, my Gran taught me all the old song, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton. She was my main influence of country music.

Then growing up in the ‘90s to early noughties I listened to a lot of Leann Rimes, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Martina McBride – they were the leading ladies in my life for country music. I always loved their music and then about four or five years ago, Lady Antebellum were Ben’s first influence of country music. He discovered them from a writers’ session that he was in and couldn’t quite believe that was country music, it was so different to what we perceived as country music in the UK.

Ben: It was the song Need You Now. I was a struggling songwriterand I felt like my songs didn’t fit anywhere – I was almost about to give up actually. That song, it was kind of everything I wanted to do in music. It was what they were singing about, the way they were singing and the production. It was unashamedly earnest, which was what I was at heart but in the UK it wasn’t really a thing.

What kind of music were you writing before you discovered Lady Antebellum?

Ben: It was pop really. I had a song for Newton Faulkner [Over & Out], it was quite straight down the line pop. The thing was, I felt the occupation to be a bit ’cool’, and my music’s never cool. When I look back at my song sheets and look at the old ones, a lot of them are almost country songs, but I’d stop myself because I was like, ‘I can’t sing about that’, or ‘I can’t write that’.

You’re the first UK country act ever to have a UK Top 10 album, why do think country music isn’t as celebrated in the UK as it is in Australia and the US?

Crissie: I think maybe people couldn’t relate to it in the UK; there was this stereotype that it was all about the twangy-ness of old school country. I personally love that style but it’s evolved so much now.

We had a lot of backing from a lot of radio stations in the UK and there’s so many platforms and TV shows that have had us on. There are so many messages that we’ve received that are like, ‘I don’t like country but I like The Shires’. They’ve gone on to platforms like Spotify and [through playing our music] have discovered Kip Moore, Little Big Town, Sam Hunt – the new sound of country. It seems like there’s many people that have been converted.

[Fans have] gone on to platforms like Spotify and [through playing our music] have discovered Kip Moore, Little Big Town, Sam Hunt – the new sound of country. It seems like there are many people that have been converted.

The perception is definitely changing. Tell us about what you think is behind the British country music movement?

Ben: There were loads of markers that happened. Dolly Parton played Glastonbury a couple of years ago and that was quite interesting. You can’t play down the importance of the internet, it’s just so easy to find country now, whereas in the old days you had your collection of vinyl and it was quite a big reflection of who you are. […] Nowadays you can actually really explore music. I remember when I first started looking for music and finding Hunter Hayes on YouTube, and seeing he had like 4 million views; I was like ‘But I haven’t even heard his name!’

[…] Music is so accessible now. In Nashville, it’s really a cosmopolitan place; they’re singing about things that are relatable, whereas before it was really exotic and different.

Crissie: We’ve had so many messages about particular songs on our album and it’s almost like a kind of therapy. Ben and I both have songs that we listen to and go, ‘That takes us straight back to that moment’ or ‘That song really helped me through a really difficult time or a really great time in my life’.

It’s great to know now that our music is having that influence on some of our fans, they have that real personal connection to it where they’ve chosen our song to be their first dance song or the song they walk down the aisle to. The song Brave helped a fan that we got to meet at a show, it helped her through the recovery of her heart surgery […] There’re so many songs in the pop world where they’re singing about being young and meeting in clubs and stuff. It’s almost not too relatable, whereas what we’re singing about, is things people can relate to.

Granted, Nashville is the country music capital of the world, but aside from that, why did you choose to record My Universe there?

Crissie: We actually recorded it in the exact same studio as [our debut album] Brave, with the exact same producers and pretty much the same band apart from the bass player. It was almost like walking back in a memory.

It was brilliant to do it that way again, only this time we just felt a lot more confident and sure of the exact sound we wanted to create.

For the first album Brave, we were just a ball of nerves, a bit starry-eyed and we didn’t want to tell these amazing musicians what to play, we were just leaving them to do their own thing. But this time, it really was a great collaboration between all of us. I think the guys in the band enjoyed playing the Brit version of country music as well.

I noticed most of the tracks on the album are co-writes, is that normal for you two?

Ben: In Nashville, the co-write is a huge thing. It’s a really great thing. You get a different perspective on it and I think the songs are almost better actually in a way.

[…] We can do it by ourselves, I’ve written one of the songs on the album by myself [Everything You Never Gave] it can be done. But it’s just really great fun.

Crissie: […] When I wrote the song Daddy’s Little Girl[a ballad about her late father] I was in a room with three other writers [Victoria Banks, Livy Jeanne Richardson and Jeff Coen], all of which have their dads. One was a guy, Jeff Coen, and Daddy’s Little Girl didn’t make sense to him personally but to hear the stories from the other two girls as well about their influence on their dads… I always struggled to speak about my dad, it was always a touchy subject for me, but it was so lovely to sit in that session and hear the positive influence of their dads in their life.

What’s the best advice you’ve received regarding the music business?

Ben: It wasn’t advice but Charles Kelley from Lady Antebellum came into our dressing room – we’d just gone Top 10 (with Brave) and we found out at Country to Country Festival at the O2. They were just about to headline and he said, “I almost miss the fight, I’m kind of jealous of you guys, you have to fight for it right now.”

Sometimes you can get bogged down, especially in the early days. And there’s loads of indecision, ‘Are we going to make it?’, ‘Do we have to go back to our jobs?’ It’s a hard industry. I think it’s just about enjoying every step of it; that’s what I got from him.

I think the great thing about country music is that the artists are all so approachable. We can sit down with Kip Moore and say, ‘What do you do when you get a bad tweet on Twitter?’ or ‘What do you do when you don’t have a great gig? What do you do after?’ You really feel part of this community.

Crissie: Every country artist is just so humble and for me, when (Charles Kelley) said that, you really evaluate your situation and know that all of those struggles that you’ve been through, are all part of that fight, that journey that you’re on.

The new album My Universe is availablenow