INTERVIEW WITH EMERGING DUO, ONE TRICK PONY ABOUT THEIR DEBUT SINGLE AND PLANS FOR 2021
This week's interview comes from British Emerging singing-songwriting duo, One Trick Pony who are a musical theatre pair made up of Georgia Lennon and Michael Pickering who on the 11th December released their debut single, You're That Face.
Good Morning, Michael and Georgia. Thank you for agreeing to this interview with me about your latest single, and plans for 2021.
How are you both today?
Hi Kellie, we’re great thank you, really looking forward to this interview! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about One Trick Pony, all things regarding our recent UK Country debut and our exciting plans for the future. Coverage like this really supports our journey as emerging country artists so we really appreciate it.
Glad to hear that you are well. I am very grateful for your time today, you have been a great addition to the UK Country Music scene.
2020 has been a really difficult year for so many of you, I was wondering how you have found it? Have you discovered anything new about yourselves?
2020 has been the craziest of years! Although it’s been a bit of a downer worldwide for One Trick Pony it really has been such an amazing year and we’re grateful for all of the opportunities we’ve been presented with and the people we’ve been fortunate enough to cross paths with. Although we’ve been singing together for years now, this pandemic has really given us the gift of time to advance our style as a duo and to continue writing our own material. It was during this period that we completely solidified our sound and began to really give focus to our own original writing. It was in the middle of lockdown that You’re That Face came to life, an idea that started with a guitar and an egg shaker and it set the ball rolling for One Trick Pony. Before we knew it, we had our debut single in production with the awesome Tim Prottey-Jones, and had begun to develop a catalogue of writing, which culminated in the double release of our debut and Christmas follow-up; Always Home.
I love that you have been singing together for many years, but with everything this year has allowed you to show the world who you are as a duo. I am very grateful for 2020 allowing you the opportunity to showcase your music.
Off the back of our debut release on December 11th of this year, we’ve had some amazing radio, playlist and blog coverage including Chris Country (CountryLine Homegrown), UK Country Radio, ARC Radio and Durham On Air, and we even managed to enter the iTunes Country Charts at numbers six and seven, which was completely unexpected!
The UK Country Music scene of radio stations is amazing, and is so supportive towards new artists.
We had a super exciting debut single launch gig/party planned in central London, but this was cancelled due to the UK tier systems; dealing with these unprecedented circumstances so early on in our country journey has been really valuable, so we’re trying to continually find each and every silver lining. Without this pandemic, who knows where we’d be, but one thing we do know is that we wanted to get our upbeat, feel-good sound out there as our way of helping others through these strange times!
Have you been writing a lot?
Almost every day has turned into a writing day! For every 10 songs we create together, we might find one or two golden nuggets that we can really work into the production stages, and this is the most exciting part. But most importantly, every day has been a learning day. Singing someone else’s music and covering some gorgeous country hits is one thing, but writing our own original music together is a whole different ball game. We love working together on new writing, and it’s the best feeling when we really start to believe in our work and run with a particular idea!
Oh, I love this. Love how you are writing every day, and each and every song is magic but pleased you have 2 golden gems per 10 songs.
That being said, not every song we write fits the One Trick Pony style, works as a duet, or in fact works at all, but we’ve really started to develop a catalogue of songs for the future. *Hint hint* there might be a release on its way early next year; you heard it here first!
Oh, this has me very excited. I love new music.
A few weeks ago, you released your debut single, You're That Face, can you please tell us a little more about the single?
The concept of You’re That Face came from a song that Michael wrote nearly ten years ago now, and we just decided to pull it back out of the woodwork one evening while the tea was cooking to see if we could give it some new life! Originally, the song was a solo number with a very melancholy twist at the end, so we spun it on its head to change the narrative and added a countermelody, making it the duet you can listen to today across all major music platforms. As soon as we brought it to life with both of our vocals, we knew we wanted to make our debut with it.
The song paints the daydreams an individual has when they first meet the person they think they’ll spend the rest of their life with. Equally, we also like to consider the single as representative of the things you think of but are too scared to say. It’s an upbeat, feel good, energetic number that certainly puts a smile on our faces; we hope it makes you smile too!
Was You're That Face written about anyone specially?
Actually, it isn’t! Even the original concept wasn’t about someone in particular.
Oh, I love this. It comes across so well, and in a way that makes for beautiful listening.
What we really love as individuals and most importantly, as a duo, is the relatability and storytelling that is so prevalent within country music. We want everyone to be able to drop themselves into our music and in the case of You’re That Face, paint their own daydreams, rather than to live ours. That was where the drive for this song came from. Musical narrative is magic!
You always released a Christmassy single, Always Home how did this decision come about? It's a beautiful song.
Georgia was at work one morning, teaching singing and Musical Theatre to little ones, and by the time she’d finished she had a whole host of voice notes to listen to! These were the foundations of our Christmas single. We’d been discussing a Christmas single for a while, especially after hearing such a current release from Twinnie's This Year Sucks airing its first play on the radio. Her single detailed the present COVID-19 situation back in September, and led us off down the path of potentially running with an original single that similarly narrated the differences of this year, whilst also highlighting that there is still somebody somewhere every year having an unconventional Christmas. We also wanted to emulate the perfect ‘driving home for Christmas’ feel, which is where the added bounce and jingle of Always Home comes from.
Like how you got the Christmas song inspired from a fellow country artist, Twinnie - love this! Always Home is so magically Christmas song.
It is worth mentioning the incredible turnaround of Twinnie’s single from the start of all this craziness back in March, to her brilliant release in September; she is definitely an inspiration in UK Country music, reaping the rewards of her immense hard work. A double debut release of You’re That Face and Always Home was pitched to us as a fantastic debut move onto the country scene, and we just decided to roll with it!
And, I am very pleased you did as it was very different from many other country music artists release - you definitely stood out.
Writing Always Home is probably the quickest we’ve ever worked, from pen to paper in October to full release in December! We seem to work really well as a duo when one person devises a concept, with the other adding the sparkle. We’re a little tag team!
Quick turnaround songs are magical, and show off how dedicated you are as an artist.
I love your songwriting it's so magical. Please tell that we can expect more music from your next year?
Thank you so much; this really means a lot. Singing and writing our own music, as well as presenting it to the public ear, can be a scary prospect especially as there’s so many opinions out there these days. It’s so wonderful to hear great feedback. As we’ve already mentioned, we’re well underway with new music and new ideas, with something coming early next year. The buzz from our debut release has given us the impetus to continue with new releases into 2021. We’re super excited about this one, with another little added bonus hopefully! Stay tuned for more coming soon... We’re also hoping to release an EP or album later in the year, fingers crossed. We really want to show a few different sides to the duo and feel this could be the perfect way to serve up a smorgasbord of One Trick Pony! We’d like to extend our thanks to the wonderful David Ashford, without whom any of this would not be possible. David has allowed us to dream bigger than we ever imagined, and we now have so many plans for 2021.
Thank you, David for all your hard work with One Trick Pony. I am always so excited about your plans for next year, and I have a finally 2021 is going to be a BIG YEAR for you as a duo!
I have to ask you about Country Music in general before I let you go, but what song(s) have inspired you this year?
Gosh, there’s hundreds of songs that have inspired us and caught our ear this year! Especially as we’ve spent almost every day listening to radio stations and playlists for research and inspiration. We couldn’t possibly single out one particular song! The most inspirational thing for us this year has been watching and listening to the many ways in which people have used music throughout these challenging times. Yes we’re a duo and have our own opinions but one thing we definitely agree on is that music is the way. The power of music is simply captivating!
It’s also been very inspirational to watch the UK Country scene absolutely blossom! It was such a great moment when UK Country including Vicki Manser, Jade Helliwell and Biddy Ronelle took over the charts alongside One Trick Pony on our release day. It’s an honour to be just a tiny part of the ever-growing UK Country scene.
2020 has definitely been one incredible year as Country Music goes, I am so proud of this genre! Vicki Manser, and Jade Helliwell are two of my standout artists of 2020 with their incredible heartfelt releases. What a release day, you had as One Trick Pony.
How are you planning on spending Christmas/ New Year? Are you planning on reuniting with your loved ones?
As we’re both from up North, we had plans to travel up and spend time with our families this Christmas, but it seems Tier 4 had different ideas, keeping us in London this year. We’re finding those silver linings though and now spending Christmas and New Year together! And with a new puppy roaming the halls, he can have his first Christmas in his little home. His name’s Deacon by the way - Charles Esten, this one is for you! Another huge inspiration of ours.
I understand about the Christmas issues being in Tier 4 too, but 2020 has been a different kind of year so it's no surprise Christmas 2020 is too! Deacon is such a cute name for a dog, love the Nashville reference. I hope you enjoy Christmas together.
What is the one thing you are hoping to get out of 2021?
We don’t really believe that a change of year will bring us something although we’ll happily escape 2020, but we’ve already got so much hard work planned and this is our main focus for 2021 to continue our growth as One Trick Pony and hopefully bring lots more successful music to the country scene. We’re hoping that this may lead to some exciting interest moving forward, but who knows where things will take us! That’s the best part - the future is ours to write! Most importantly, we hope 2021 is a happier and healthier year for everyone and send all of our love to our gorgeous family and friends.
Thank you so much for your time today, Georgia and Michael. I very much appreciate it. Here's to 2021!
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