Sony Music Nashville’s Southerland is a band that you’re going to want to make sure is on your radar this year.
The duo – South Carolina’s Matt Chase and Georgia’s Chris Rogers – released their excellent EP ‘Boot Up’ on Friday and they’ve been gaining plenty of momentum, despite being hampered by the pandemic since signing their major label deal.
I spoke to Matt and Chris recently about keeping their sound authentic on ‘Boot Up’, how they got together as a duo and their hopes for 2021…
You’ve just released your ‘Boot Up’ EP, which I’m loving. What was it like to put together?
Matt: Thank you so much. That means a world. When Chris and I decided we were going to do the duo thing, the conversation of what kind of music we were going to do was so easy. It was like, ‘what are those songs that brought you to Nashville and wanted you to chase these dreams in the first place?’ and it was early Luke Bryan, early Jason Aldean, Shenandoah, Diamond Rio, Alan Jackson… a lot of those big 90s/2000s band sounds. That’s just how we’ve always approached our music. We want to be authentic to who we are, write those songs that are authentic to our life story and stuff that’s just undeniably country. That’s our roots, man.
I can definitely hear that 90s country influence…
Matt: We love 90s country so much but I think the trick is how to have those influences yet not make a 90s country record, not make it sound dated or sound like it’s still best stuck in the past.
Chris: We say 90s country but it doesn’t sound like 90s country. It has those influences, and a lot of the early 2000s, which in my mind is more live instrument band based stuff and not so much track based stuff.
It’s nice to hear something that’s actually honouring tradition and is traditional in the modern country music genre, because that is quite rare…
Matt: We appreciate that, that means the world. That’s just our thing. We moved to Nashville to be country singers. Whenever I get in the car and turn on music, I keep up with a lot of stuff that’s current but I listen to those 90s/2000 songs. To not do that kind of music would be just inauthentic to us so that’s where we try and kind of keep our wheelhouse.
How did you guys meet and when did you decide to become a duo?
Chris: We met through a mutual friend of ours, Ray Fulcher, he’s another big writer here in town now at this point. He was coming over to my house one day to write and he was like, ‘hey, I got a buddy of mine I wanna pull in on this write if you don’t mind?’ and it was Matt. Within the first week of us meeting, we had written a song together and we were out playing shows. It was never in the duo capacity, it was just two buddies getting together to go out and try to make little money. We did that for about a year and a half and that took us down to Key West to the songwriter festival that they have down there with BMI. Miss Lynn Oliver-Cline over at River House happened to be there. She saw us and was like, ‘I will sign y’all to a duo deal right now’. That was the first time Matt and I had ever had the idea of becoming a duo. We were still resisting it and it took us about a year to come around to the idea of giving the duo thing a shot and that’s what we did. We approached it with Lin as we’ll just go in and cut some songs and see what happens, and it was just as easy as that. We went in and cut some stuff and started writing for this new project. It was just fun and it just kind of snowballed from there.
Matt: It’s crazy when you look back on it now. We were functioning, operating and performing as a duo without having a name on it. For the longest time, everybody saw what we didn’t, or saw from a different perspective that we didn’t. Ever since being a duo, life has changed so much for us. We have an amazing team of people. I mean, look we’re sitting here doing interviews with you. A little over a year ago we were playing on Broadway so it just shows you how quickly life changes and it’s awesome to be here.
Chris: It’s been really cool to see all this stuff evolve, from literally two buddies going out and playing four hour cover shows to college kids that were probably too drunk to even remember their own names, to now. We’re just really, really grateful and humbled to be in the position that we’re in.
It must have been frustrating for you to sign with Sony, start to build momentum and then have the pandemic come along and throw a huge hurdle in the way…
Chris: It’s like you’re in my mind right now (laughs). It is frustrating. We have to talk to each other and be each other’s sounding board sometimes about this. There’s days that it hits me and then there’s days that it hits him. We just have to remember that it affected everybody. 2020 that was actually very good to us in a weird way because we didn’t take our feet off the gas at all, when it came to writing songs. That’s where this EP came in. All these songs that are on this EP came out of 2020.
Matt: If you’re trying to find a silver lining it at all, in a weird way, it’s like a blessing in disguise. We have grown so much since early 2020 to where we are now in ’21 as artists, and as a duo and with our material. We’ve written so many songs that are in our keeper category now that we’ll hopefully play forever. Things that had we been on the road last year, we wouldn’t have. I’m very thankful that it did give everybody the time to stop and really look at music differently, look at songs and spend a little extra time on writing songs and not just keep pumping them out like a factory. We’ve written some songs that will last with us forever, hopefully, and had it not been for this crazy pandemic, maybe we wouldn’t have written those songs. We try and find the light at the end of the tunnel. I will tell you though, I’m so glad we’re getting back on the road (laughs).
It has been such an odd time because we’ve all been craving for normality to resume but I’m sure once it does, we’ll look back at this time and realise there’s more we could have done with it. We’re not likely to get this time again in our lifetime…
Matt: I’ll tell you another crazy thing too. We played a couple of shows lately and it does seem from the other side of the stage, that fans are so appreciative that you’re there, which they always have been that way, but I think especially now. They’re just so glad to see artists they love live and in person. Seeing an artist live is definitely a different feeling than listening to records on the radio or listening to them on a streaming service. It is for us too. I love writing songs and I love the whole creation process but playing in front of people and watching your songs hit people in real time, is an adrenaline rush and I’ve never found anything in this life that replicates that.
Chris: You can never replace the energy of being in a room like that.
It’s so ironic that music is the thing that has got most of us through the pandemic but it was the first industry to shut down and be punished because of it. That must have been tough?
Matt: Everybody went through it. We have buddies of ours that are way further along in their careers and they had to manage how to keep employees on salaries and how to manage 100 person operation without letting anybody go. We didn’t have any of those problems so it’s all perspective, man. It’s all about how you look at it, really. It seems like the world’s turning in the right direction. Things are popping up on the calendar so we’re super excited. Coming to the UK would be the highlight of my life. I’ve never been across the pond before so that’d be awesome.
I think your music is going to really resonate over here in the UK and I love what you’re doing right now. You’ve got to put the UK on your plans for 2022…
Matt: We would love that. Everybody always says you want to write songs you’re gonna love for 20 years and I can say that with these songs, these are truly those songs I could play 20 years down the road, if I was given that blessing. To hear you say that you appreciate it and all the nice things you said about really does make our day and we appreciate that.
If I’ve learned anything about my time working in Country music it’s that you have to really love your songs because you could end up with a Russell Dickerson situation where you’re promoting the same song for four years before it hits number one…
Matt: It’s a wild business, as you know but all you can do at the end of the day is stick true to who you are, and just throw the music out there and cross your fingers that it lands and resonates with everybody else. Our music has a lot of little snippets of our lives in it, that makes it relatable to us but we try and write it so anybody could put their own story in there. We try and write them to where they’re kind of like rubber bands so they can be flexible to someone’s life in the UK as they would be someone’s life in Georgia or South Carolina. That’s the goal at the end of the day. Music for everybody, not just for you.
Is there anything else you’re hopping to fit in before Christmas rolls around?
Chris: Getting married, that’s on my radar immediately. Then just trying to write more songs and get more music out. That’s our our number one goal and of course, playing more shows and booking more live shows.
Matt: I think our big thing right now is just to build that name awareness. A lot of people don’t know us yet or don’t recognise the names. We want to get it out there, play as many shows, do as many interviews as we can, meet as many people as we can, and just play country music. That’s the dream!
Southerland’s EP ‘Boot Up’ is available to stream and download now. Watch the video for the title track below:
