Drew McAlister Country Proud Interview

Drew McAlister Country Proud Interview

After a jam packed start to the year which included opening the Golden Guitar Awards in Tamworth, McAlister Kemp are taking the Country Proud Tour on the road.

The multi-award winning country music duo came together with one goal in mind. Write and perform songs that people connect with and they seem to have done just that. Their debut album All Kinds Of Tough producing three #1 singles ('All Kinds Of Tough', 'Hell Yeah', 'Hard Work').

2012 saw the duo's second album Country Proud debut at #1 on the ARIA Country Album sales chart, #18 on mainstream ARIA album chart and receive an ARIA Nomination for Best County Album. To top it off the duo were elated when the albums' title song was chosen as the theme song for this years' Tamworth Country Music Festival'.

Now with five #1 singles and both Golden Guitar and CMC Music Awards under their country belt buckles, McAlister Kemp have hit their stride. Their brand of high energy country rock seems to have found its place, with growing interest both at home and overseas. These two seasoned musicians love nothing more than being in front of a live crowd and can't wait to get out on tour. They have opened for US country superstar Alan Jackson, performed at the CMA Music Festival, Global Artist Party in Nashville and have quickly become a regular headline act at major festivals across Australia.

Their towering presence means they own the stage and with a set list full of anthemic country rock songs like Country Proud, Cold Beer Hot Women, and Hard Work, it's a night not to be missed. You can catch McAlister Kemp at the following venues. Check out the website for more details: www.mcalisterkemp.com.au


Country Proud Tour Dates
Friday 8th March 2013: Gateway Hotel, Geelong
Saturday 9th March 2013: Hallam Hotel
Sunday 10th March 2013: Central Coast Country Music Festival
Saturday 23rd March 2013: Rooty Hill RSL

Interview with Drew McAlister

Question: What are you looking forward to most about the upcoming tour?

Drew McAlister: I'm looking forward to performing, we get to go out and do some really cool gigs with some really cool fans. It is one thing to write an album but it doesn't add up to much unless you get to go out and sing it to the people who buy it. Looking forward to the performance and meeting the fans, it's cool that we get to do it.


Question: What was it like performing at the Tamworth Country Music Festival?

Drew McAlister: It was great, we had a great year this year; we got to open for Craig Campbell who is an American artist which was fantastic and we also did our one-off show in Tamworth on the Thursday of the second week and that was huge, we had the best time and it was a really good Tamworth Country Music Festival.


Question: Tell us about your promotional truck.

Drew McAlister: The added bonus of Tamworth Country Music Festival was the Monster Truck which was done up with our McAlister Kemp stuff and it went around town for a few days; it was the talk of the town which was a lot of fun!


Question: What's your inspiration when writing songs?

Drew McAlister: Inspiration comes from anywhere, you've just got to keep your eyes and ears open and that's what we do. It could be as simple as seeing something, hearing a conversation or seeing something on television and then we write it down; we've got lists in our phones full of ideas, things we've seen and song titles. We put all our ideas in a folder, on our phone and we revisit the list when we sit down to write a song.


Question: What inspires you about writing in Nashville?

Drew McAlister: Nashville is an amazing town! You get off the plane and you want to write a song, part of it is being away from home and the routine whilst the other part is the romanticism of Nashville and the history that has come before. Nashville is incredible and when you're there you can write with amazing songwriters and the whole point of being there is that there are no distractions. It's always exciting to go to Nashville and we plan before we go so we have lots of ideas to go there with and then we can come back with songs we're happy with.


Question: How would you describe your music?

Drew McAlister: Its country-rock; contemporary country, it's certainly not old-school or plain.

Question: What music/artists do you listen to when you are not playing your own?

Drew McAlister: We listen to a lot of guys, anywhere from Zac Brown Band to Nickelback to Tim McGraw; it's a pretty mixed thing especially because we're more of a rock act we listen to Zac Brown Band for their incredible song writing right up to Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean and Nickelback because they are a bit more rockin'.


Question: Do you prefer performing live or recording?

Drew McAlister: Definitely a mix of both, I'd have to say. The recording process is amazing because you get to see those little demos completely come to life but with all that stuff you have to be able to go out and play gigs and perform.


Question: What/who was your inspiration to go into the music industry?

Drew McAlister: Music was always there but none of my family are musical so I can't say they inspired me or pushed me into it but it comes back to live performance, I started performing at The Entertainment Centre when I was 16 years old and Troy Kemp had a similar deal and standing in front of that many people, at such an early age, I was thinking -I really want to do more of this' and that's probably what inspired us to keep doing it for the rest of our lives.


Question: What is the biggest challenge you have faced along the way to your musical success?

Drew McAlister: Even though we're just about to go into our third album, getting the longevity out of the music industry is a challenge as is getting to that critical point where it can stabilise itself. Music is a lot harder than it used to be and I think keeping the momentum going is probably the hardest thing we've had to face. It's not like it was in the 90's where lots of money was around and people weren't watching their money as much as they're now with the financial situation. For us music is a business and keeping the money going is the biggest challenge.


Question: What has been your favourite part of becoming a music artist?
Drew McAlister: There have been so many! We got to open for an American artist named Alan Jackson who was incredible, we did five stadiums in Australia and we played in front of 50,000 people in one week! And, things like the CMC Rocks The Hunter! we've been there a few years now and we can see our audience grow.


Question: If you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be?

Drew McAlister: Zac Brown Band would be good and Troy Kemp would probably say Jason Aldean. I'd love to write with Vince Gill, that would be cool!


Question: You and your wife have been together 18 years; do you have any advice for us all?

Drew McAlister: Yes, make sure you don't lose yourself within the relationship; always have outside friends because it's important not to live in each other's pockets.


Question: Do you have a website fans can visit?

Drew McAlister: www.mcalisterkemp.com.au


Interview by Brooke Hunter