2019

Sarah Darling has revealed that she will be returning to the UK for a one-off Christmas show at Union Chapel in London on December 2. The hugely popular artist has a very strong following in the UK and broke the news on her appearance on BBC Breakfast on September 10. Darling also said that she will be playing a mixture of old and new songs on the night, as well as some more traditional Christmas songs. Earlier this year, Darling released her fifth studio album ‘Wonderland’, performed several sets at C2C 2019 and embarked on a headline tour in the UK, including a date at Bush Hall in London. Speaking about the upcoming gig, Darling said that the UK is a place that means an awful lot to her and that she is hoping to bring a few friends with her for what will be her final performance of the year. “Britain has a special place in my heart, and the audiences have always been so warm and welcoming,” Darling said. “Throughout this year, I’ve met so many wonderful new friends and fans in the UK.  I’m so excited to have my final performance of 2019 here in London at the beautiful Union Chapel and hope to share the stage with some really special guests and close friends” Tickets for the gig will go on sale at 9am on September 13 and can be purchased here. Darling will also be performing at the upcoming British Country Music Festival in Blackpool as a headliner on the same day.

Reigning ACM ‘Artist of the Decade’ Jason Aldean has revealed his ninth studio album, titled ‘9’, will be released on November 22 via Broken Bow Records. Aldean hasn’t hung around waiting to get back in the studio recording and the album is his first since 2018’s ‘Rearview Town’. To celebrate the release of the album, Aldean has released four tracks from the album in the shape of lead single We Back, but also Blame It On You, I Don’t Drink Anymore and Keep It Small Town. You can listen to the tracks or pre-order/pre-save the album here. Speaking about the album, Aldean said that the number nine has a lot of meaning to him personally  and while it seemed nothing more than a pipe dream when he was first starting out, it’s very much a reality now. “Early on I always thought if we ever got to make nine albums, I’m going to call it ‘9.’ It was my baseball number growing up, and it’s just kind of always been my lucky number,” explains Aldean. “I remember cutting the first album and thinking ‘that’s forever away’ and now here we are. I don’t know, it’s really special we made it this far – so, it’s more for me than anybody else – but, it means a lot.” Currently, Aldean is on tour in America for his ‘Ride All Night Tour’, with that set to wrap up on October 11 at the Rangers Globe Life Park Stadium in Texas, before he heads to Las Vegas in December for a handful of dates.

Ashley McBryde has given her fans a glimpse of her second album by releasing the single ‘One Night Standards’, which is her first music since ‘Girl Going Nowhere’. You can listen to the track here. The track sees McBryde discuss one night affairs, which make up the bulk of the lyrics on the song – especially the chorus. Speaking about how the song came about, McBryde explained that she was with Shane McAnally and Nicolette Hayford when she said something that was misheard by the pair, but from that, they had a song title. “We had to walk away from it to give it a second to breathe,” McBryde said. “When we got back in a room, this time Shane was with us and I joked, ‘You know, hotel rooms…they only have one night stand for a reason. They’re one night stand-ers.’ Shane and Nic’s eyes lit up, ‘Did you just say one night standards?’” At present, McBryde is on tour and has plenty more dates to come as well, as she will be supporting Miranda Lambert with Maren Morris and Elle King as of October 17.

Hootie & the Blowfish have announced that their first album in 14 years, Imperfect Circle’, will be released on November 1. You can pre-order the record here. The Grammy Award winning group’s last studio record was ‘Looking For Lucky’ in 2005 and have been going since 1986, with the news being welcomed by the group’s fanbase. Speaking about the album,  frontman Darius Rucker said that it feels like a proper Southern rock album and that he loves the overall flow of the album as it represents something that they don’t usually get a chance to do. “When we started getting that one going I was like, ‘Man, we’re a Southern rock band when we play this,’” Rucker said. “I loved it. It’s like us trying to play a Black Crowes or Allman Brothers cover. I love the feel of that ’cause we don’t do that a lot.” In addition to the album release news, the group will be touring the UK and Ireland in October as part of their ‘Group Therapy’ tour. There are two dates in Glasgow, a headline gig at the Eventim Apollo in London and some of the O2 venues across England. Hootie & the Blowfish will be playing: October 4 – 3 Arena, Dublin, Republic of Ireland October 6 – O2 Academy Bristol, Bristol, England October 7 – O2 Academy Leeds, Leeds, England October 9 – Barrowlands, Glasgow, Scotland October 10 – Barrowlands, Glasgow, Scotland October 12 – Eventim Apollo, London, England October 15 – O2 Apollo, Manchester, England October 16 – O2 Academy Birmingham, Birmingham, England Tickets are available here.

King Calaway have revealed that their debut album ‘Rivers’ will be released on October 4, after announcing the news on The Late Late Show with James Corden. The album, which will be released via BBR’s Stoney Creek Records, follows the group’s incredibly successful self-titled debut EP, which was released in January. That EP contained tracks such as World For Two and Love the One You’re With and those who pre-order the album will get all five songs on the EP, as well as a brand new track in the shape of Driver’s Seat. You can pre-order the album here. Speaking about the album, singer and guitarist Chad Michael Jervis expressed his delight that the album had a release date and that everyone pulled together for the making of the record, while hoping that the album can spark inspiration among others. “We’re so excited to announce the release of a record we’ve worked so hard on this past year,” Jervis said. “Everyone who worked on this album shared a similar vision of creating an authentic, original sound while spreading a message of positivity through the lyrics and melodies. “With our love and passion for making music, the title track mirrors who we want to be as a group. We hope our debut album inspires others the way our favorite albums have inspired us.”  

Kelsea Ballerini is back with a new single homecoming queen, which has been released in the run up to her set at Hyde Park on September 15. You can watch the video below. [wpdevart_youtube]PC0nSbgwAqw[/wpdevart_youtube] The single is very gentle and acoustically driven, with the video showing that there is another side to Ballerini when the lights go out after her shows and that she has a very vulnerable element to her. The music represents Ballerini’s first solo music since she released ‘Unapologetically’ in 2017, which was critically acclaimed in the country world. Her upcoming third album doesn’t have a release date thus far, but it is expected to be released in the new year. In the meantime, Ballerini will be performing at Hyde Park in London as part of BBC Radio 2 Live.

Ahead of their first ever UK tour, Maverick sat down with Keifer and Shawna Thompson – who make up the duo that is Thompson Square – and found out what to expect  You will be in the UK for September for the Long Road, then you’ve got a UK tour on the back of that as well. How are you feeling about that? (Shawna) It’s a bucket list thing. Since we started Thompson Square, we had always talked about going over or trying to get over there to play and to see it coming to fruition is pretty crazy. We just can’t wait. Is there any reason why it’s taken such a fair while to get over the Atlantic? (Keifer) We’ve been asking for years and we just weren’t really allowed to do that. Now we’re in a place where we can do what we want, so the first thing that we put on the agenda was to figure out a tour in the UK. Unless UK fans visited America to see you guys play, they won’t really know what to expect from your live show – so what does a typical Thompson Square show entail? (Keifer) It’s the greatest show on earth! We try and put on the same kind of show that we like to go and see, so like a pseudo Springsteen situation, where you have tempo and rock songs, then you have story songs and sad stuff and have this full range of different kind of music – which is what we write and what we record. (Shawna) Acoustically our shows are a little more low key, though. (Keifer) Oh yeah – our acoustic shows are just a stripped down versions of the big one. (Shawna) We love it though, it’s like a guitar pool in Nashville and we just like to share where the songs came from and how we found the songs if we didn’t write them, or what inspired each other’s songs as we’re playing our set. (Keifer) You have to remember, we started out acoustically too and we’ve always loved that format. We do about 30 shows a year in America, so we experimented and did it a couple of years ago and we just loved it, so we just kind of kept it going. To be able to go over there and to my knowledge, with listeners or fans over there who…I’m probably going to say this completely wrong, but the UK audiences don’t mind listening to songs and they don’t mind diving into the lyric, then going back and going through somebody’s catalogue. It’s going to be really cool to be able to strip this stuff down and play for everybody.  

Ahead of her UK and Europe tour – including a slot at Long Road Festival – Maverick sat down with Lauren Jenkins, who is very excited about her upcoming dates How are you feeling about your upcoming European tour? Are you kidding?! I’m so excited!! You’re performing at The Long Road, but for people who haven’t seen you before, what might they expect from your set? Something very, very honest. It all depends on how they are feeling as to what songs I play – if they are up for a very introspective song, then that’s what they will get and they might cry. Or if they just want to have a good time, then that’s what it will be. It’s been a busy festival year for you in the UK, with C2C as well – do you feel you’ve left a lasting impression over this side? I think so. I had some fans from the UK and Europe who came to my shows in England who were at CMA Fest and I was shocked that they were there. They came over at CMA Fest, came to my shows and they are going to be there again when I’m there in September, so I know there will be a lot of familiar faces that were on my journey. At C2C, they gave me a shout that they are going to be the shows in September, so I think that’s a really positive sign. A couple of the headline shows are sold out or are close to selling out, so that’s also crazy. I think something worked when I was there in March. From your experiences, how would you say European audiences are different to American ones? I love playing anywhere, but there is something about the European audience that just feels like they genuinely really respect music and also do their research. I’m a huge lover of music, so if I go to a show, I will look up the opener and listen to their back catalogue so that I’m familiar with the music and I thought that was something that only I do, but when I got over there, people were singing songs that were deep cuts and songs that America has had access to for a long time, but nobody really knows. They knew them and they knew all the lyrics and I was blown away. I just think there’s a different level of appreciation – and maybe for art at all levels, I feel with the European audience – and that’s a really big thing. Most of the time over here in America, you have to work really hard to earn a crowd’s attention and over there, I felt like everybody was in a party with me from the moment that I walked on stage, which is an overwhelming feeling. It’s only a brief European tour, can we expect to see you back anytime soon? Absolutely, 100%! Like literally, maybe two months later…I mean probably not, but fingers crossed! You can buy tickets for Lauren Jenkins’ tour here and you can read a full feature with Lauren in the upcoming September/October issue of Maverick, which is available very soon

Ferris & Sylvester have shared a new single in the form of I Dare You, which has been released just before the duo embark on a headline UK tour. You can listen to the track here. Speaking about the single in a statement, the duo stated that it shows a somewhat darker side of them than perhaps shown before and that they are very excited to play it on the live circuit. “We’ve gone over to our dark side with I Dare You,” the band said. “It felt important to get this song out there. We made bold choices with it and it’s very unapologetic. We think this song shows another side to us, it blends dark folk with explosive rage and is grounded by our live performance, as all our songs are. We can’t wait to play it on the road.” The band’s headline tour is certainly a big one and it also includes dates at AmericanaFest in Nashville (September 10-15) and Rivfest in Warrington (September 28), while they had to add another London date after the first one at OMEARA sold out. Ferris & Sylvester will be playing: September 3 – Boiler Room, Guildford, England September 4 – The Horn, St Albans, England September 5 – OMEARA, London, England* September 6 – OMEARA, London, England September 16 – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, England September 17 – The Bullingdon, Oxford, England September 18 – Metronome, Nottingham, England September 19 – Green Door Store, Brighton, England September 20 – Think Tank?, Newcastle, England September 22 – Stereo, Glasgow, Scotland September 23 – Mash House, Edinburgh, Scotland September 25 – Lost Lane, Dublin, Republic of Ireland September 27 – Phase One, Liverpool, England September 29 – The Wardrobe, Leeds, England September 30 – The Portland Arms, Cambridge, England October 1 – Deaf Institute, Manchester, England October 3 – Forum, Tunbridge Wells, England October 4 – Frog & Fiddle, Cheltenham, England October 6 – Sin City (Fringe Fest), Swansea, Wales October 8 – Old Bakery, Truro, England October 9 – Phoenix, Exeter, England *denotes sold out date Tickets for all Ferris & Sylvester gigs are available here.