Country Music is officially the fastest growing genre in the UK. This weekend over 80,000 fans went to watch a wealth of homegrown and international country acts perform at the C2C Festival and with British acts continually releasing quality music the genre is only going to continue to grow.
Hampshire born twins Catherine and Lizzy AKA Ward Thomas are playing a huge part in the fortunes of the UK country scene. Their independently released debut album ‘From Where We Stand‘ was a huge success topping the UK Country Music charts and their major label released sophomore album ‘Cartwheels‘ firmly cemented them as our top country act after it topped the Official UK Album Chart making them the first ever British country act to do so.
Now, four years after the release of their first record, multiple sold-out UK tours, major festival slots and award winning/record breaking releases, Ward Thomas are gearing up for the release of their third studio album.
Here Ward Thomas speak exclusively to us about the new LP, 2018 plans, and more;
We are three months into 2018, so have you set yourselves any New Year resolutions for the year ahead?
We have set some New Years resolutions to take up things that’ll help the environment and eliminate some of the plastic etc.
2018 is set to be huge for British country music, how do you feel the genre will continue to grow over the next twelve months?
We feel it keeps on growing and has been especially at large this last year! So we expect good things to come with the growth of country music as more UK people are being exposed to it.
You are a huge part of the British country scene and during your December gigs you premiered new music such as ‘It’s Not Just Me’ how happy were you with the fan reaction?
We were very happy with the reaction! It was nerve racking as we had no idea what to expect. But we had a lot of people keen on the new sound so we feel it went down well.
The new songs feature a lot of lyrics about believing in yourself, is that the theme of the new album?
I think that plays a big part in the theme. However, we feel the theme of this album is based on being in your 20’s, becoming adults and getting to the next stage of a young adult life in the day and everything that comes with it.
You’ve also collaborated with US country star Sarah Darling on a track called ‘Our Song’, will the song be featured on Sarah’s or your new LP?
We don’t know yet as we’ve written so many songs for this album that we’re still in the process of breaking all the songs down to fit the album. However, we love the song we wrote with Sarah and if we don’t put it on our album we will definitely save it to release separately at some point.
You’ve also recently dueted with the late Roy Orbison on the song ‘I Drove All Night‘, how did that come about?
That happened through our label Sony. They were repackaging a Roy Orbison album with the Philharmonic Orchestra and asked us to duet on it! We were thrilled and said yes :)
Do you have any more collaborations planned for 2018?
We would love to but we’re completely focused in the studio right now! But we are definitely planning on collaborations during the album campaign.
Speaking of the new album, when can we expect that to be released?
We’re very lucky to have the freedom of time on our hands to really work on the material and make sure it’s the best It can be. But we’ll be releasing it this year hopefully during the summer period but we haven’t set a date yet.
Along with releasing the new LP, will you also be touring the record this year?
We will be. But before/during the release we’ll be playing a couple of festivals as well.
Talking of festivals, you’ve recently been named as an act for the Black Deer Festival, how excited are you about the new UK country music festivals?
We are very excited by this as it shows how much country music is growing every year in the UK! We feel proud to be apart of it!
With your new album due this year, how many tracks can we expect to be featured on the record?
You can expect around 12 to 14 tracks on the album.
Are you recording the album in the UK or over in Nashville?
In the UK.
With your LP due in the summer, when can fans expect a new single from you?
Hopefully soon, around 2 months time.
What are your main career goals for this year?
We like to see our career building step by step! We see that most with the size of our audience and the growth of venues on tours. Seeing people connecting to our music and singing along is extremely rewarding. And seeing this happen more and more would be a great goal for us.
Make sure you follow Ward Thomas on Twitter @wardthomasmusic to keep up to date with all their latest music and tour news!
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