Interview: THE WANDERING HEARTS, The Long Road Festival, Leicestershire

Welcome back to Ciara's Country! I recently caught up with country/Americana band The Wandering Hearts ahead of their set at The Long Road festival (you can read my thoughts on their performance here) - read on to find out more about their Wild Silence album, who they think you should be listening to, and their favourite animals...

Ciara’s Country (CC): I’m joined by The Wandering Hearts at the inaugural Long Road Festival in Leicestershire. First off I have to ask how the year is going for you all?

Chess Whiffin (CW): The year is going pretty darn well.

CC: Understatement?

CW: Yeah, everytime we talk about it it’s hard to put into words. We can’t put into words how this year has gone. It’s been amazing, and it’s not over yet!

Tim Prottey-Jones (TPJ): I can’t believe it’s all been the same year! The album came out in February, which felt like a long time coming any.

Tara Wilcox (TW): Then the Americana Awards in March.

TPJ: Yeah, then a tour. Nashville, then festival season which we’re kind of still doing. It’s been amazing actually, it’s been a really busy summer and we’re off out to Nashville again before our tour at the end of the summer.

CW: 2018 is good!

CC: The year of The Wandering Hearts! It must be an honour to be selected for the first festival of The Long Road, which judging from what I’ve seen looks like it will continue for a number of years.

TPJ: Absolutely, it will. We love doing new festivals – Black Deer earlier in the summer which was also wonderful, great people and you see so many familiar faces now in the audiences that we’ve met at like C2C and places like that where they come in their thousands to see great country music. We’re chuffed to be here, it looks amazing, we need to get out and hear some other music out there! I do think it will carry on for many years.

TW: So wonderful to be invited to play.

AD: They put so much into it as well. You can see everywhere you go that so much has gone into making this a total badass festival. We’re pumped to walk out there and see what’s what and play some music.

CC: And let’s talk ‘The Long Road’ too because that’s something that inspired me. What’s been the longest road for you as a band?

TPJ: Probably the years building up to us coming together as a four. I can say that with confidence because I’m the oldest, so it’s felt like a long time! I think sometimes it can be misconstrued that the band has happened very quickly and overnight almost in some cases which is obviously not the case, but you don’t see the years that have gone into improving your craft, being better at playing, being better at writing.

TW: And that kind of self-doubt that you have as musicians, those battles of ‘do you give up and do something different because this is too hard?’ We’ve all had those individual fights to go ‘can I do this?’ So when we met and it became this amazing, wonderful thing, Tim’s exactly right, it was a really long road to get to this point.

AD: And that’s always there, because as much as we’ve had hard times before this band got together, the more good stuff that happens, the crashing and the downsides after that feel so much lower than before. That’s an ongoing battle that we have, and we’re lucky we’re a four so we have each other to lean on for that.

CC: Country as well, you hear about all those stories that go into the music – do you think some of the themes that you’ve just told me made their way onto Wild Silence?

TPJ: Absolutely, and so many other songs as well. We did about 60 songs for that first album, and so many had those elements of these battles and struggles we were talking about. It’s hard not to because they’ve shaped our lives and our music.

CW: And as well they’ve shaped our lives up to that points, the experiences we were having as people – that all went into the songs too. It’s good that we’re not 11, we’ve had those experiences.

CC: Festivals like this are great stomping grounds for up and coming artists – who out there do you think is underrepresented and deserves to be listened to?

TW: We had Laura Oakes support us on tour, and her voice is just incredible. Elles Bailey is just wonderful too. There’s almost too many to mention.

TPJ: I agree. They’re doing amazingly but Striking Matches we also love.

AD: Jarrod Dickerson aswell. It’s funny because there are so many UK artists growing up in this scene, so it’s been interesting going over to the States and seeing how American artists are received over there and then coming over here too.

CC: So true, they have to remake themselves again.

AD: Exactly!

CC: Finally, what’s one question you’ve never been asked in an interview but would love to be?

TPJ: That one!

CC: I bet!

TPJ: Cats or dogs?

CC: Okay, quick fire round then!

TPJ: Cats.

TW: Dogs.

CW: Dogs.

AD: Dogs.

CC: Just what we needed to know. Thank you guys so much!

Thanks for reading! You can keep up with all of the reviews and interviews I post by following me on Twitter @CiarasCountry - plenty more to come! If you liked this interview or have any more questions for The Wandering Hearts for the next time I interview them, drop me a message in the comments below.