HomeEF CountryInterview: Seaforth open up about moving to the US and their plans...

Interview: Seaforth open up about moving to the US and their plans for new music

Australian Country music duo Seaforth – Tom Jordan and Mitch Thompson – made the move to Nashville to pursue their dreams of making it big in the genre.

Following their collaboration with rising star Mitchell Tenpenny, ‘Anything She Says’, the duo have been building a solid fanbase who are getting behind their subsequent releases including latest single ‘Breakups’.

I spoke to Seaforth recently to talk about their move from Australia, discuss working with Mitchell Tenpenny, and to find out about their plans for new music…

What was the transition like moving from Australia to the US? That must have been a bit of a climate and culture shock…

Mitch: Tom lived in the US a few years before we moved out as Seaforth. Tom has spent half of his life here…

Tom: I’ve spent the last 10 years essentially in the US, which is crazy like you know. We were just so excited to to be moving here and for our dreams to be coming reality. We were just more excited than anything. My friend always talked about the Nashville blues when you realise that you’re far from home but I feel like I never really felt that. I feel it more now than I did when we moved.

Mitch: We were doing frequent trips out, every year we’d be here for a period of time and we built a great community of friends and industry people. We knew the town, it wasn’t like we just got plopped in. When we finally moved it felt like we had our own family here and it quickly became a home. Honestly, it wasn’t terrible.

There is a thriving Country scene in Australia. What were your reasons to move to the US to pursue your career rather than doing it back home?

Mitch: When it comes down to it, Tom and I really wanted to experience the US. Keith Urban was the initial introduction to Nashville and to Country music for us. We wanted to see what it was all about and and get involved, and I think we just fell in love with the city, with the people and with what goes on here. It was like we needed to do everything that we can to move and it felt like the right move for us from the get go.

It definitely looks like it’s working out for you…

Tom: It’s little things like our buddy Mitchell Tenpenny played the Ryman the other night and he sold it out, and he had us get up and sing ‘Anything She Says’ with him. It was sold out that night and we sang our song that went Gold at the Ryman. It’s the little things that you don’t really think about in the moment. I got home and I was on the phone to my family. I was like, ‘I just got back from the Ryman’ and I was like, ‘wait a minute, five years ago I would have been like YEAH!’

Mitch: Being stage and everyone cheered and sang song, these little things are when we’re like, ‘four years ago when we first moved, to think that that’s what we’re doing is pretty cool’.

I actually spoke to Mitchell about the video for ‘Anything She Says’ and I know he was a little bit embarrassed about the costumes he had to wear in the video. How was that video shoot for you guys?

Mitch: That’s right! I remember him saying that! Honestly that was the easiest thing for me to film because anything where I don’t have to take myself seriously I’m all in. I’ll wear anything you want me to do and I’ll be an absolute moron. Whenever I have to be serious, that’s harder for me honestly. Dress me up and make me look like a dickhead, I’ll do it!

That song has had more than 90 million streams. What kind of impact has it had on your career?

Tom: It’s been crazy man. That song, to be completely fair, I feel it was like a dark horse for all of us. We wrote it and we all liked. The people around us and the people around Mitchell were like, ‘this song feels really special’ and then Mitchell ended up cutting it. I never expected it to do what it did and to see the reaction now live… we play it early on in the set and the guitar riff comes in or we talk about Mitchell or the song, and everyone in the room that isn’t even there for us knows it. It’s a really cool thing, the power of music and the life that song has taken on. It’s really super, super cool.

You released ‘Breakups’ earlier this year and the acoustic version back in August. It feels like things are building with every song release. How does it feel for you?

Mitch: Absolutely, man. I’d love to say that. If I was saying it’s all going downhill from here, I think we’d pack up and head home. I’m really excited about this next batch of music. We’ve got about six or seven songs that are about to come out, and a whole bunch more. I want to drop an album today but I’m so excited about the next batch of songs. We’re ever evolving and I think we’ve still got some of our best stuff to come. It’s definitely feeling like a progression and ‘Breakups’ was a really great indication that hopefully we are on the right track and people have connected to it. We just need to keep that motion and get more music out.

You mentioned putting an album out and there’s a real divide in the industry right now about the future of albums. What’s your take?

Tom: I think albums are great man.

Mitch: I would love to be able to say we did an album…

Tom: Albums are like a timestamp. There are chapters in your life musically where you really dive into this sound for a minute and then maybe you dive into (this sound). An album closes that chapter. I feel like as long as the album’s good, people will listen. I have artists that I’m a fan of that only drop albums and I listen the whole way through every time. As a fan, I love that. I feel like they shouldn’t be gone.

This new model where artists are under pressure to constantly put out new music is giving fans a short attention span. Songs are over before they have a chance to connect and climb the charts but in Country, there is still some longevity to a single…

Tom: Exactly and then put the album out and see which song puts its hand up…

Mitch: Because it is going into streaming you’re not going to get every single song played on radio and there’s the fear of songs getting lost. If we’re putting out an album of all our favourite songs, we want each song to get its look in, and realistically putting an album out you can get maybe a couple playlisted and then they might get forgotten. That’s the only fear but at the end of the day I want to get a body of work out so we can move on to the next. We’ve got all these songs that we love and if we’re only putting one out at a time then some of them are just never going to see the light of day, which sucks.

Tom: At the the end of the day, the only thing that’s really going to make us fans is music. We can post stupid videos of us falling down the stairs on TikTok but people aren’t going to be like, ‘wow, I wonder what their music sounds like?’ You know what I mean?

TikTok is very much in vogue right now but that’s a full-time job in itself to be constantly creating and posting content…

Tom: We’ve always had the mentality of quality over quantity. It is a full time job, especially when we’re like working on this new music and we’re self-producing it and all the rest of it. Finding a healthy balance between all of it is interesting.

You’re back out on the road with Jordan Davis. What’s that been like?

Mitch: It’s great. We waited so long. The world shut down while we were in the UK and that was the last show we played for a year and a half. Finally to get back out and be doing shows, we were a little rusty… like it had definitely been a minute but it quickly came back like muscle memory. It was the first time we got to see songs like ‘Breakups’ being sung back to us. To play a show every night and hear an audience singing your song back is just a reminder of what we do it for essentially and I think that was definitely being missed.

Your music works well with Jordan’s so I imagine you’ll be picking up plenty of new fans from his fanbase while on tour?

Mitch: Exactly, which is awesome and that’s why we were so excited to head out with him. We definitely mesh really well and have a similar kind of audience base. I think they’ve been really receptive to us and we’re hopefully gaining new followers every show. It’s been awesome with him.

Do you have any plans for any Christmas music? I know this can be a divisive topic…

Tom: Maybe it’s just my upbringing, but I feel like Americans particularly are so festive. They celebrate Halloween, they celebrate Thanksgiving, they celebrate Christmas and they go hard out for everything. For us in Australia, Christmas was like presents around a tree with the family and then go to the beach. Here it’s this whole (thing) and Christmas music is a big part of that. I feel like that’s like a very American thing. I would love to write (something), we should have done it this year really. I feel like we’ll do some something Christmassy at some point.

Do you have anything else coming up ahead of Christmas?

Tom: We are just on the road. We’re finishing up this music and we want to put music out as soon as we can but it’s just about the timing of it and when it’s going to be the best received. Moving into Christmas it will just get overwhelmed with sleigh bells ringing (laughs) We’ll continue posting online and maybe start teasing the new music and then put it out at the top of next year.

Seaforth’s latest single ‘Breakups’ is out now. You can watch the video at the top of this article.

Pip Ellwood-Hughes
Pip Ellwood-Hughes
Pip is the owner and Editor of Entertainment Focus, and the Managing Director of PiƱata Media. With over 19 years of journalism experience, Pip has interviewed some of the biggest stars in the entertainment world. He is also a qualified digital marketing expert with over 20 years of experience.

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