Indigo Summer

Indigo Summer is an up and coming Country Music Duo – Bryan Edwards and Hope Nix, from Nashville. Since I first heard their music, I have been very much hooked. I have been very fortunate to interact with Indigo Summer and review their wonderful music over the last few months, including their debut single Slow Down Summer and their new single Not To, which is out today (August 25th). Both are fantastic singles that you must check out. A couple of weeks ago, I caught up with Bryan and Hope over FaceTime to have a chat about their single Not To, their debut album – and for just a nice chat in general. I was sitting in my dining room at 7pm whilst Indigo Summer had just finished a photo shoot promoting their new single Not To and were in the bar of Nashville restaurant Valentino’s at 1pm their time.

Hope and Bryan, who make up Indigo Summer, were an absolute pleasure to speak with and put me right at ease. Not only were they friendly but also very funny and very down to earth. I hope you enjoy getting to know Indigo Summer via this interview and please check out their music and follow them on twitter. They are very interactive via social media, so send them a tweet, have a chat and, you never know, they may just follow you back!

You can download Not To here: Listen to Not To – Single by Indigo Summer on @AppleMusic.
https://itun.es/gb/pkMpeb

By Hannah Compton

Hi, guys, lovely to see you, how are you both?

Bryan – Good thank you, thank you for interviewing us – we appreciate it.

No, thank you very much for doing this interview for us today.

Firstly, for people who are unfamiliar with your music, how would describe yourselves?

Bryan – Yeah, sure. From the get go, all of our songs kind of fit into three categories, and it kind of became our slogan, so we call it Fun-Sexy-Country. So it’s all of those things, yeah. As far as sonically, you know we have a lot of influence from other artists, Country artists and Pop artists. Growing up, we would say we are like the new Lady A,

Hope – Minus one person.

Bryan – Minus one person, yeah.

I have heard the album and I think it’s really really good .

Bryan and Hope – Oh, thank you.

You’re welcome.

So, could you tell me how Indigo Summer formed?

Hope – Yeah, well Bryan and I met at a writers’ night at Hotel Indigo and that’s obviously how we came up with half of our name. That was back in 2010, and we played around together, just us and our guitars. We became friends and started writing together just as solo artists and just playing a lot of shows together. We didn’t actually get the idea to become a duo until two summers ago and actually our fans gave us the idea. They were like ‘Are you guys a duo? You should be a duo’ – just random people at this festival and so, on the way home, we were in the car for 8 hours and we were like, ok we’re going to do this.

Bryan – We wanted to try it.

Hope – Yeah, so we wrote our first song as a duo, was it Once?

Bryan – Once, I think.

Hope – So we wrote it like right after that – a couple of days after.

Bryan – Yeah, and all the other songs after that sort of just flowed very naturally and we kind of formed our own thing. Not To was one of the first ones – one of the first four we did together

Great, well I definitely think there is a gap in the market for duos. One thing I am always noticing is that, at the CMA Awards, it is always the same people, because there are not many around that we know of.

Both – Yeah, we hear ya.

So we need to get you at the CMAs really, really soon.

Hope – I will accept an invitation to that.

Bryan – Me too – how do we get you on the CMA board? Ha!

Bribery? I will think of something, I will make my millions and buy my way in haha!

Did you both always want to be Country Music musicians growing up, or did you have any childhood dreams of being something else?

Hope – Well, I originally wanted to be Britney Spears but that didn’t sit well with either one of my parents so I listened to pop music, but I also listened to Shania Twain and Dixie Chicks. Yes, to answer your question, I have sung since I was three years old, I started voice lessons when I was four and I always wanted to be on stage and the centre of attention, haha! But now I get to share that -which I’m ok with, ha!

Bryan – Thank you, I am glad you’re ok with that.

Both laugh.

Bryan – You know it’s funny, it was sports as a kid, so I really wanted to play football. My favourite football player was Dion Sanders so, I wanted to be a Defence back in the NFL. Then I realised I had to actually tackle people, and I thought, that sucks and I wasn’t very good at that so , well I wasn’t bad but it just hurt every time, so music was much more peaceful so..

I can relate to that, I played Rugby at school ha! So you released your first single Slow Down Summer in June. How did it feel to release your first single? Were you nervous? Did you go out and celebrate? How has the overall reaction been from Country Music fans?

Bryan – I think people have really enjoyed it and it was a good introduction to what we do. It was a perfect time because it was summer and the song’s all about summer and slowing it down right? Haha, but yeah, I wasn’t nervous, I was excited – weren’t we?

Hope – Yeah, I was excited.

Good.

Bryan – Not nervous.

It’s actually an appropriate song for the UK because our Summer doesn’t last very long, if at all, haha!

So, the next new single is Not To, which is released August 25th. I am very excited about that, because I love that song.

Bryan – Thank you.

How do you go about carefully selecting what songs you are going to release as singles and what made you finally decide on that particular song?

Hope – Well, it was pretty easy because, for this one particularly, it is kind of the complete opposite of Slow Down Summer, so I think it will give people an idea of how dynamic we can be with our songwriting. It’s going to be a really cool song to put out after Slow Down Summer, to give people an idea of what we can do and that we can mix it up.

Bryan – So the selection process is really simple. We didn’t put any songs on our album that we didn’t love, so that kind of makes it easy, when it comes to picking.

Hope – And hard at the same time.

Bryan – It’s easy in that it takes the song quality out of the equation, because they are all going to be good and it allows you to think about it in terms of what you think the fans want to hear and what you want to give your audience.

What was the Inspiration and writing process behind Not To?

Hope – Well Not To, is a song that I think a lot of people can relate to. It’s kind of about wanting to do some things with somebody that you probably shouldn’t and tried to do it before and it didn’t work out, but the temptation is still there when you see this person after a while.

Bryan – I think we’ve probably both done that, haha!

Hope – And then when you get some alcohol in you – and….

Bryan – Yeah, there is always a little bit of that, haha!

Hope – Hence the bar, haha!

I have just seen the video for Not To. Tell me about shooting it – I thought it was a brilliant video, really simple yet effective which is kind of the video I prefer myself. How did the decision come to shoot that style, who directed it?

Bryan – Sure, we partnered with a videographer named Stephen Byrum and we actually did it at the recording studio where we recorded the vocals for Not To, which was kinda fun. But the director wanted to it in a recording studio and I have good relationships with that one and so it just made sense to do it there.

Well, I really like it and I was just saying to your manager, Jordan, that these are the kind of videos that I love and that sometimes if a video is too busy it can distract you from the quality of the song in some way. Watching it, I felt connected to you as a duo and it made the song really stand out, which is good. You have already recorded the whole album, which is self titled – do we have a release date for worldwide purchase?

Bryan – So, the way that things are going, as far as CD sales and digital sales, we have our CDs available at our live shows, and you can purchase them on the website already. You can also download on the site. The way we approached that was we want people to enjoy what we do and to have the music, right? Already, because it’s out – but for people who don’t really know us we want to introduce them to our songs one at a time. So, our plan and goal is to release a single one at a time and then eventually the whole album will be released, or we will start releasing new songs that we write in between here and there, which we have already started doing.

What is your favourite track off the album?

Hope – I think my favourite track is Not To and Something You Miss.

Bryan – I would say my favourite is Wants What It Wants, but I do love Not To. They are like your babies, it’s like ‘Who is your favourite kid?’

Hope – It’s like you can’t pick a favourite, because you feel bad for the other ones, haha!

So you write all your own music – have you co-written with other people?

Bryan – We have co-written with other people, but it is usually just us two and then one other person or maybe two other people or just the two of us by ourselves. I think some of our favourites are ones just by the two of us, but there is such a good songwriting community in Nashville. We have been blessed enough to stay in this town for long enough to meet some really good songwriters, and had the chance to write with some of the best In town.

Well that kind of brings me on to my next question. The Country Music genre seems to be the only genre which praises its songwriters. As songwriters, how important is it to you to get the recognition and how Important are showcases? Are they the best way to get a song heard and potentially cut by another artist – because you have also written for other artists in the past?

Bryan – Well, I think if you’re not writing your songs then you’re just a singer, or an entertainer – and in order for you to be just that and be successful you’ve got to be really good, right? But I think, if you bring in your own songs and still sing your boots off and still be really good, then you bring the whole package to the table that someone isn’t if they don’t have their own songwriting components. So I think that’s what makes Country Music the best genre, personally, because the majority of the artists are writing a lot of their songs too.

I agree. We love songwriters in the UK. Are you going to be touring the States promoting the album?

Bryan – We don’t really have any plans to do that right now. We feel like the best use of our time right now is interacting with people online. We live in a world where we now get to connect with people all over the world from our fingertips and computer and via FaceTime, like right now.

Hope – We definitely want to go on tour, but when the timing is right.

Bryan – Touring is an interesting thing because I feel that, we both feel that, we have to have a lot of other things in place to make it successful. Being an independent artist, that’s pretty tough to do sometimes and keep in mind we have only had one single, right? So, we are just starting to build this thing and I think once we build into a place where we feel comfortable going out there doing a tour, we will. I’m excited thinking about it, because I love playing live shows. It’s fun.

Well social media is the way to go – it’s how I found you. It’s one of the best ways to get fans – having a tweet from your favourite artist can mean so much to someone.

What was it like supporting Jamie Lynn Spears at her fan club party during CMA Festival this year?

Hope – It was fun. She is very down to earth and such a sweet girl and that was a fun show. She brought a lot of people out and we gained a lot of fans and we will always be appreciative of that.

Bryan – Jessie James Dekker was there, we got to meet her – that was great fun.

Not Britney though?

Hope – Nooo, that would have been – I would have totally lost it!

Bryan – Ha yeah, I would have lost my duo partner!

So, other than Britney, who are your musical influences? You said at the beginning that Lady Antebellum is one of them, but any other influences or artists you are listening to right now?

Hope – My thing right now is I really get into someone and stay into someone for a while, like Maren Morris. I have been having her album on repeat for a while now so now I know all the words, ha! She is awesome and I feel like she is doing something different. I always enjoy somebody who’s putting a spin on what’s happening on radio, doing their own thing.

You put out a lot of videos online where you perform cover songs from various artists, Maren Morris being one of them. What’s been your favourite one to cover?

Hope – I really liked doing the Sam Hunt song, because I really like that song, Make You Miss Me. I feel like I know what you’re going to say (Bryan) Garth Brooks? I thought that was really fun too and people loved it, people don’t really do covers of people from a while back.

Bryan – Speaking of people who inspire us, Garth is probably the biggest for me. I have done that song as a solo artist for years, so to do it as a duo brought it to a new level for me – which is kind of what we do for each other. So now I love it even more than I did myself and when she’s not there, it’s not the same.

Hope – Oh, and Loretta Lynn. My mum was very happy that we covered her – she loves her, so she was very happy.

I liked the Florida Georgia Line one.

Bryan – Oh, the H.O.L.Y one? Yeah that was fun.

So are we, the UK, in your plans anywhere?

Bryan – We would love to make the UK part of our plans.

That would be cool.

Unrelated to music – are you both watching the Olympics? What sport are you watching the most?

Hope – We were just talking about this earlier. I love watching gymnastics and the diving.

Bryan – My favourite is track and field. I was a sprinter in high school, so I really love watching all the sprints like Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin and all those guys. They are major athletes and I love watching them.

I am the same as Hope – diving and gymnastics. Gymnastics just blows my mind.

Hope – Oh, me too. I don’t understand it – like last night I was watching it and I don’t even feel like I am watching a human, they move so quickly.

I was saying to my husband, how do you discover you can do that?

Hope – Haha, right?

I can’t even cartwheel!

Both laugh

Hope–I did gymnastics growing up but I never did it at that level. I did a little twist thing but now I can’t even remember what it’s called.

I just remember running around the pommel horse rather than over it.

Both laugh

And our poor GB man fell off it last night.

Bryan – Did you see the guy who broke his leg?

No, who broke his leg?

Bryan – One of the French guys on the vault.

Hope – And he seemed so calm – and I was like ‘Oh, my god!’

Ouch! I must have completely missed that.

Well thank you very much, that is all the questions I have.

Bryan – Thank you for giving your time out of the day.

No, thank you. I was really excited to talk to you finally and I am really excited for Not To to come out, too.