Midland are one of the most beloved country acts in the UK – and it’s fair to say that feeling is mutual.
Since making their debut here all the way back in 2018, the trio have been regular visitors on this side of the pond, most recently for their second C2C appearance in 2023. Along the way they’ve also released four albums, including their 2024 project ‘Barely Blue’. They’re currently in Europe for their latest headline tour, which kicked off with them headlining the Saturday night at this year’s Long Road festival.
Ahead of their set, Laura Cooney sat down with Mark, Jess and Cameron to talk about their experience of the festival, their plans for the tour, latest single ‘Glass Half Empty’ and more.
Welcome to The Long Road! How are you finding it so far?
Cam: It’s going amazing.
Mark: [in posh British accent] Splendid darling, splendid.
You’ve been pretty regular visitors here over the last few years…
Mark: Yeah, this is our fourth or fifth time playing in the UK.
Cam: There were a few years where we came here twice a year.
Mark: Yeah, we’ve been here a lot, and we’ve fully, fully embraced ourselves in the culture. We got in a couple of days ago. We did some pub crawling and tried to find the best pint of Guinness in London.
Did you succeed?
Mark: [laughs] Yeah, we found some good ones. I think the best was probably the Devonshire. It was in the neighbourhood.
Cam: I had one yesterday at the Harp which was really good.
Mark: Angie’s Too is the best. So yeah, we love it here. It’s really fun because it’s exotic, but at the same time everybody still speaks…
Cam: English? [laughs]
Mark: A different English! Sometimes it’s hard to understand.
Cam: I was saying this yesterday, this is why I love London because it’s got all the real old history. America doesn’t have [that] – we only go back to the colonial era, 1600s. It goes so much further back, what survived out here. But because it’s English speaking it’s just accessible enough to really appreciate. For an American abroad, it feels like kin. But it’s just so cool. There’s a lot of culture that we appreciate and immerse ourselves in.
I was going to ask if there’s any British slang or anything like that that you guys are still a bit perplexed or ‘wait, what?!’ about when you come over here…
Cam: Oh, perplexed? No, we embrace all of ‘em. Mark, give ‘em a couple.
Mark: Uh, we went on [in East London-type accent] a bit of a lash the other night… [laughs]
Cam: We like ‘treacle’. What else we got?
Mark: ‘Innit’ is one of them. Yeah, it’s fun. Every time we’re here we kind of pick up on stuff. It’s cool. I feel like every time you come here you’re investing in the fan base and they appreciate that, and they do their job which is to spread the word. And every time we come back here the crowds are bigger and bigger. Now we’re headlining our first ever festival. We’ve done C2C but we haven’t headlined that one, so C2C you might wanna jump on!
Cam: It’s our first outdoor festival.
Mark: Which is like, to me, a proper festival. So pretty cool.
You’ve recently released your latest single ‘Glass Half Empty’ – so what does the next chapter musically look like for Midland?
Mark: [in a posh voice] Turned up to 11!
Jess: We’re almost done recording the next album. We’re working with a new producer, Trent Willmon. It’s very country, fiddle, as well as a lot of the same kind of stuff you come to expect from a Midland album. But I would say Trent makes a very Texas country sounding record. And we’ve had some top notch fiddle players playing on it, [like] George Strait’s [fiddle player] Jenee [Fleenor].
Cam: Is she mandolin too?
Jess: Yeah, I think so.
Cam: Also, in terms of the song choice, we went more for… Like on ‘Let It Roll’ there was a lot more rock-forward things we were trying and doing and achieving and loving, and this one is really more traditional down the middle Texas country. Or just traditional country that we have been referencing since the beginning of this band. And it’s nice to really just go straight at that, in a way that Midland has been doing and maybe can credit ourselves with being some of the first to popularise that and bring it back, since the late 90s.
I was going to say, there is a big revival of that 90s country sound at the moment – how do you feel about almost being pioneers in a way for that coming back?
Cam: What we say to ourselves and what we say to journalists are not always the same [laughs]. But I think you just have to try and stay focused on what you’re doing. It is nice to… It’s a double edged sword, right? In the beginning, we felt like we were outsiders and like we were really alone for a lot of the time. And now that we’re not and now that it’s become popular again, it’s kind of bittersweet. Because it’s now popular again, and it brings out the competitive nature in this band, because we are all very competitive. And it’s keeping us really nose to the grindstone, and I think more than anything the word would be… we’re scrutinising the crap out of ourselves right now and making sure we’re not putting out anything that’s not of the highest quality.
You’re about to head out on your latest UK tour next week. What can people coming to see you at those shows expect?
Mark: Well I think we have always prided ourselves on… we started just as live musicians before really putting music out. We were playing live shows as a band for two and a half years before we actually put music out into the ether. So we’ve always sat on that as a laurel for us.
The show itself is a bit of an emotional journey. You’ve got tearjerkers, you’ve got love songs, you’ve got sexy horny songs, you got some rock and roll, you got some blues, you got some beautiful country soaring harmonies.
We’ve got an amazing seven piece band. We’ve got Philip on the pedal steel guitar, he also plays the dobro, he plays the electric guitar, he plays the harmonica. Geoff, singing the fourth harmony, he’s playing the Nintendo the whole time which is insane [laughing], he plays keys. We’ve got John Wood our new drummer who’s been the missing element of the live show. He fits the pocket so well with Cameron. They’re very symbiotic which is amazing. He’s such a good hang, great player. We got Luke Cutcheon who’s really elevated himself to one of the best live country, rock and roll, blues guitar players. Just a real player, a guy that’s lived it, a guy that’s built guitars, sold them, fixed them, he’s done it all.
And then you’ve got the three of us and we’re constantly playing off one another. The three of us are really three leads, which is really cool. I just think we’re one of the best live acts in the world. I would have us open for Oasis. I would have that much confidence! [laughs]
Interview by Laura Cooney. Midland’s latest single, ‘Glass Half Empty’, is out now on Big Machine Label Group.
See Midland live on tour in the UK this September:
Tuesday 2 September – Roundhouse, London
Wednesday 3 September – Academy, Manchester
Friday 5 September – Custom House Square, Belfast
Saturday 6 September – O2 Academy, Glasgow
