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CMC Blog: McAlister Kemp

CMC Blog: McAlister Kemp Hey folks,

Troy and Drew here. The nice people at CMC asked us to write a few paragraphs on what we've been up to lately, so here goes!
 
The last couple of months have been really awesome, as we have written and started recording what will be our second album. We spent two weeks in Nashville in June working with some of the best songwriters in that crazy town, including Bruce Wallace, Joe Doyle, Ed Hill, Jerry Salley and Steven Lee Olsen who have written songs for some of the biggest names in American country music!


During our time in “Nashvegas,” as they like to call it, the CMA Festival was on so we caught quite a few shows, including Big and Rich, Zac Brown Band, Lady A, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and that’s just to name a few! They were all great, but we reckon Jason Aldean was the best in terms of the way he just got the crowd going from go to woah. Man, that guy rocks!

We also played a showcase on Broadway at a Honky Tonk called The Stage for some industry people that went down a treat - hopefully a few of you caught that via the live stream. We had the honour of meeting/hanging with Tommy Emmanuel during that gig - and let us tell you, that guy is a serious talent… When he took the stage the crowd was gob-smacked !!
 

When we got back to Oz we pretty much went straight into the studio to start work on recording the new album with super-producer Matt Fell, who also did our first album, as well as a bunch of albums from other country artists such as Graham Connors, Troy Cassar-Daley and Slim Dusty! It's been a great few weeks working on the album, hearing the songs come to life via Matt and some seriously talented musicians including Glen Hannah, Mitch Farmer and the incredibly talented American session musician Dan Dugmore, who has played on more Albums than we’ve had hot dinners! Matt's even had some African-American ladies do backing vocals on a few tracks and the result has just blown us away - we hope you like it too!
 
After the initial round of recording we spent a week in Fiji for the Australian Country Music Festival there and it was great just chilling out for a few days, enjoying the resort and hanging out with some very cool fans and other artists, including Kasey and Bill Chambers, Shane Nicholson, Travis Collins, Luke Austin, The Sunny Cowgirls and Ash Dallas.
 
Recently we got to open for Doc Walker at a cool rock club in the middle of Sydney. It was the first time we’ve played a few of our new songs live and man it felt good! The crowd seemed to like what they heard so we guess that's a good sign! It was a great night hanging out with the Doc Walker guys and we even jumped up on stage with them during their set and belted out CCR’s 'Bad Moon Rising'… It was a hoot! We’ve got a good vibe going with the Doc Walker lads and here’s some exclusive news - there will be a McAlister Kemp & Doc Walker duet on our new album.
 

It looks like the album will be out some time in March (perhaps around a certain CMC festival?), so right now we're just in the middle of getting everything set-up for it (video, photos, artwork, etc.). We'll definitely be in Tamworth in a big way for the festival - looks like we'll be playing a full band show at West’s Leagues Club, Blazes Showroom on Australia Day (some time in the early afternoon), so mark that day out now on your calendar and we hope to see you there!
 
We'll end this now by saying a BIG THANK YOU to all you guys out there who buy our music and get along to our shows. We really appreciate your ongoing support. We're so excited by this new album and can't wait for you to hear it.
 
See you on the road!!

Peace, Love and Country…

Macca and Kempy

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