UK country duo Ward Thomas have commented on the genre’s growing diversity in a new interview with Music Week.
The twin sister act, comprised of Lizzy and Catherine Ward Thomas, release their sophomore album Cartwheels on September 9, via the joint venture announced in March by WTW Music with Sony Music UK, which sees the group becoming Sony’s first British country signing.
“When you’re going independently, you can go at your own speed and do things below the radar, and that’s fantastic,” said WTW’s Roland Hill. “We didn’t have any expectations for the first record, but once you start to get a bit of traction, obviously it’s harder to open doors and there are financial constraints. Hearing the new songs and realising how good the next record could be, it became obvious we needed to partner with someone who could fill some of those gaps.”
“We’d had interest from quite early on, as the campaign got under way on the first album,” added his WTW partner John Woollcombe. “We talked about it, but didn’t want to rush it. To be honest, all the majors were interested, and one or two independents too. As we were thinking about the next record, we thought to give ourselves the best possible chance, it would be crazy not to pursue it.”
Meanwhile, the band commented on the diverse nature of contemporary country music.
“Country is such a diverse genre now,” said Catherine. “You could say Loretta Lynn, and then you could say Luke Bryan. They’re so different, but they’re both country. I would happily say that we completely leave country on a lot of the tracks on the album. But the writing process on all the songs was very country.”
Lizzy added: “It’s a little bit more mixed genre, but still very country-influenced.”
You can read the interview in full here.
