As I climb the stairs to the Rausing Circle in the Royal Albert Hall, people around me are chattering enthusiastically about how many Country to Country shows they’ve been to. Their love for the genre is palpable. It’s going to be a special night.
For we’re here to see the cast of hit TV show Nashville, filmed in Music City itself, play their hearts out.
Charles Esten is first to take to the stage, raising his arms wildly to amp up the room. He launches into a rousing Buckle Up, part of his Every Single Friday project (he’s been releasing new music every Friday since last July) and another original, Simple As That, sans guitar. Laid bare, you can hear just how impressive his voice is.
Songs from the TV show are also featured. Chris Carmack’s bluesy vocals shine on his character Will’s song Spinning Revolver, and Jonathan Jackson, who plays Avery, thrusts forward with each high octane guitar strum on Keep Asking Why. He howls: “Is this what you wanted?”. The answer, of course, is yes. It’s foot-stompingly good.
Jonathan Jackson, Sam Palladio and Chris Carmack (L to R)
Even original songs have their origins in the programme. Charles plays I Climb The Walls, inspired by his character Deacon’s battles with alcoholism, admitting: “Some days it’s tough to play them.” It’s a moving song, and as he reaches up to the sky on the line “light at the end of the tunnel is you know who” it feels as though he is singing to Connie Britton’s character, his wife Rayna, who was killed off earlier this year.
But it is Jonathan who brings emotion firmly into the fray with the softer Love Rescue Me by U2, rivalling Bono and his “shalalalas”. The climactic high notes are impeccable.
When Sam Palladio, who plays Gunnar, enthuses: “It feels good to be home, London”, his English accent is startling.His performance of I Will Fall (originally a duet with Clare Bowen’s character Scarlett) works oddly well as a stripped back solo piece, but then he says the magic words: “I want to bring out a couple of my dear friends.”
Charles Esten and Clare Bowen duet
This is what we’re here for. At the heart of Nashville are the group performances. And this one does not disappoint. The doll-like Clare, twirling in her white dress with her hair in a bow and glitter on her face, looks in awe when she gets on stage. Jonathan returns, too, and they sing an electrifying version of their song Borrow My Heart.
As Chris says, “It’s better with friends”. When Charles joins Clare for Hand To Hold, the pair go into the crowd to take selfies and shake hands – you can tell they value this fan interaction
Yet the standout duet of the night is Longer, Clare’s performance with her “very own best friend”, fiancé Brandon Young (she says they’re going to get married straight off the tour), who isn’t on the show but often performs with the cast. The simple track offsets the lyrical variations perfectly – it’s a heartrending mix of love and near-anger, captured in the transition between Clare’s “I want to give you more, for nothing in return” to Brandon’s “Oh I did wait for you darling, did ache for you darling”.
In the encore, Charles introduces David Bowie’s song Heroes, and the other four cast members join him, unifying them all on stage for the first time. It is an impressive blend of voices, with Chris on saxophone (he’s the most talented instrumentalist). They erupt into And Then We’re Gone, a humorous song about reaching the end of a gig, and we all sigh, savouring Charles’s husky vocals in this “one more song”. Fortunately, this is misleading – what has become the show’s anthem, A Life That’s Good, is the true finale. And after a concert like that, life is most definitely good. Great, even.
US country music duo Striking Matches are having quite the year. Their debut album ‘Nothing But The Silence’ was released to rave reviews, reaching No. 1 on the UK Country iTunes chart, with The Telegraph calling it “slick country storytelling”. They've also just been named International Act of the Year at the British Country Music Awards - the end of 2015 certainly isn't slowing down for them.I chatted to Sarah Zimmermann and Justin Davis as they prepare to embark on the UK leg of their tour.
Flash back to 8th
May this year. Striking Matches are playing in London’s Union Chapel to a grand
800-strong crowd. Selling out this historic venue is a career-defining moment
for any country music artist performing in the UK, demonstrating their vast
international pull with the audience they have carefully cultivated. Sarah
finds this response “absolutely incredible - a dream come true, it’s been so
cool to have the opportunity to come over there and play.”
Justin appears lost for words in thinking of the
magnitude of their UK success, until he exclaims “It blows us away every time
people actually turn up to our shows [in the UK] because it just feels so good.
We feel like we’re so far away from home, which is a scary thing to begin with,
but when everyone shows up like they do and makes you feel so welcome, that
feeling is really tough to describe.” He talks of the country music scene over
here as a tight-knit community. “It’s almost become this underground secret
club scene, this neat thing that people want to be a part of because it’s this
growing movement. I’m not sure what’s caused it, but it’s really cool that we
get to be a part of it.”
The duo met whilst they were studying at Belmont
University, but Justin admits that it was a slow process towards working
together. “Neither one of us really wanted to be artists, especially not on our
own and [starting a band] never really entered our thought process so that was
really over the course of a whole year, if not more, where we were playing
together with no real serious aspirations between us that it would become
anything. We were just doing it for fun and because it was inspiring and it
just sort of developed!”
This constant development and progress has been vital
in getting to where they are now. The TV show ‘Nashville’ has become a
resounding part of their career success story, with eight songs they’ve written
being featured on the show. Sarah describes their involvement in it as “a huge
help, that is what has helped us to reach an international fanbase. When people
heard those songs on the show, they went and found us. It’s part of the reason we were able to play the Grand
Ole Opry, which we’ve done now 49 times.”
The
Opry is the sacred show of country music, which made the genre famous the world
over. Sarah speaks of their debut performance, playing in the ‘Mother Church of
Country Music’ in December 2012, with nothing but wonder in her voice. “It was
at the Ryman which is also a very historic room; when it’s the Christmas season
they move the Opry show to the Ryman and so we got to have our debut for the
Opry on the Ryman stage which was definitely two dreams coming true at one
time. I just remember singing ‘When the Right One Comes Along’; I got to the
end of the song and I looked at Justin and I just burst into tears. It was such
a magical, special evening.”
Justin cheekily adds “Well, Sarah also has a funny
story [from that night] because she was so nervous she wore her shirt inside
out.” Sarah responds: “For a long time when we went to the Opry I started to
wear it inside out again, but then when we started playing it too often I
couldn’t come up with enough different outfits to keep wearing it!” A sad end
to the lucky charm, but one that merely reinforces their great achievement –
playing the Opry 49 times is no mean feat.
On whether the duo have been plagued by any other
embarrassing moments whilst on stage, Sarah exclaims: “Oh gosh, I’m usually the
queen of the embarrassing stories! I ripped my [trousers] one time on stage,
I’ve hit my head on the mic pretty bad and made myself bleed, I’ve done it
all!’ Her laughter upon regaling these tales is infectious. “Justin never has
embarrassing stories, it’s just me. So far I haven't tripped on stage though.” Justin breaks in, never one to miss an opportunity.
“At Union Chapel something happened as well.”
Sarah remembers. “Oh yeah! Jon Green [of The Bonfires]
was going to play a song with us and I had left my strap on the guitar he was
going to use, so I went to grab the mandolin as I didn’t have a strap I could
use; I had to exit the stage pretty swiftly”, leaving Justin to “riff on stage”
by himself!
Despite the huge significance of the TV show, many of
the songs featured on ‘Nashville’ didn’t make it onto their album. Justin
discusses the decision process in selecting songs for the album. “We tried to
make it a cohesive body of work. Tonally or just feel-wise, the other songs
didn’t fit as well. That’s the tricky thing that you face whenever you make a
record.” Sarah explains: “We put two from the show, ‘When The Right One Comes
Along’ and ‘Hanging on a Lie’ on the record, those are very special to us; we
always knew even before the show used them that we were going to put them on
our record, so having the show use them was just a bonus.”
The writing process for Sarah and Justin is clearly
very personal to them. Sarah says that “Most of what we write comes from either
stories we’ve experienced or we’ve seen people in our lives experience. I think
every song we have definitely has a story behind it.” Justin suggests the
importance of touring for them creatively. “You have to take time to live a
little bit, to kind of recharge on your inspiration. If you get too bogged down
with work or only writing and you don’t get out and experience things then you
kind of run out of things to write about, so being on the road and travelling a
lot, that helps me […] because you observe other people from all over the world
[…] and so you kind of pick up stories that way and you figure out new things
to write about.”
Lyrics “sort of [fall] out” for them, seemingly effortlessly
when you’re listening to them on the tracks, but they do take a lot of work and
persistence. The hardest song on their album to write was, according to Sarah,
the title track, ‘Nothing But The Silence’. “It was an idea that Justin had for
probably six months before we were ever actually able to get it down and write
it. The idea was ‘there’s nothing but the silence between us that hasn’t
already been broken’ and it was such a great idea and we just couldn’t quite
get it there […] but we finally did!” – to the relief of all of their fans. It
is certainly a standout track on their album– a diamond amongst many other very shiny gems!
One of my favourite questions to ask any musician
regards which of their lyrics they would get tattooed on their body, and here
it provokes a wonderfully thoughtful answer. Justin responds with the
breathtaking lyric “You think you know what you’re looking for till what you’re
looking for finds you”. “That was a line that applies to so many things, not
just in a romantic notion but in so many ways – when we try and control and
plan out how our lives are going to go until the answer sort of appears in
front of us.” Sarah reminds me of how in sync the pair are by proclaiming “I
was going to say the same actually, so we have matching ones!”
The duo are so in tune with one another that they
rarely find themselves having ‘creative differences’ during the writing
process. “I think across the board we have very alike musical instincts and so
when we’re writing, if one throws out something, more often than not the other
one is going to roll with it, especially if it’s really important to that
person. I think usually we walk the same path when it comes to what we think is
right for the song. So, so far so good I think!” says Sarah.
The recording process was also special for the pair,
and for T Bone Burnett, the country music star and legendary music producer who
worked on their album, they have nothing but praise. They were in excellent
company – Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Tony Bennett and k.d. lang are just a
small selection of artists he has produced for. “He was amazing, I think going
into it I was a little nervous just because he’s done some of my favourite
records ever, but when we got in the studio he was just the coolest, nicest,
most nurturing person that we’ve ever worked with. He’s so smart and so musical
and it was just a really cool experience,” Sarah gushes.
Justin
emphatically agrees. “I would describe T Bone as the gentle giant. He’s a very
imposing figure stature-wise; he’s incredibly tall and he has this résumé that
follows him around that you can’t help but be intimidated by, but he’s
brilliant because he makes you forget all about that. The genius he possesses
is that he makes you forget about all those things that ought to make you
nervous and just makes you feel like you can do anything you want; that you can
sing anything you want, play anything you want, and that’s just really great,
that’s how he brings the best out of you.”
And
it’s not just the incredible T Bone that they’ve had the opportunity to work
with. They’ve played with some amazing artists, having toured with Hunter
Hayes, Keith Urban, Train, Vince Gill and Ashley Monroe to name a few. Justin
says they are particularly excited to play with John and Jacob on the upcoming
tour. “That is going to be a blast, we’ve known them for several years now but
we just haven't been able to tour together, so that’s something we’re really
looking forward to.”
Their hopes for the future are just as down-to-earth
as they are. “I would love to have, by the end of it all, toured the world – go
around the entire world and back again,” says Justin. “There’s an element of
artistic dissatisfaction you feel when you make one record and you just want to
make another record, and you have this hunger that just persists. I hope maybe
someday we kind of satisfy that, but at the same time I don’t want that to be
satisfied too soon because I like the drive and the feeling that you haven’t
written your best song yet; the best is yet to come. But I hope that at some
point maybe you do feel satisfied with what you’ve done.”
Sarah agrees. “Yeah, if we can just keep playing music
and have a successful life that way and that’s all we ever have to do as a job
then I’m happy!”
So, what’s next for Striking Matches? “We’re working
on all kinds of new music and we’ve already got some new songs we’re going to
play on the tour and got a couple of cool things in the works that we can’t
quite talk about yet, but we’re very excited,” Sarah reveals.
“We will be playing some new tunes for the coming UK
tour, and I think the fans have been waiting to see that, especially the ones
who have seen us every time that we’ve been over,” Justin says. “It’s been
incredible to see them come back but we’re excited to let them check out some
new things that we’ve been writing.” And we are most definitely excited too.
