Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley have wanted to make an album together for a while, but finding the time was always a challenge.
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With The McClymonts taking a break after Brooke’s sister Sam became a mother earlier this year, it provided an ideal opportunity for the eldest McClymont to record and tour with her husband, who is usually on stage with his own band.
Of course, the musical styles of The McClymonts and the Adam Eckersley Band are different, and Adam said it was an interesting process to try and meet in the middle.
“Obviously we both love our country music, but over the years we’ve come at it from different angles with Brooke and her sisters on the more pop side of things and my band on the southern rock, more bluesy end.
“So when we came into this project we wanted to meet in the middle somewhere and I feel as though we’ve done that.”
And they both said the result was a very country album.
While that new album, which is titled Adam & Brooke, won’t be available until February, the first single, Train Wreck was released this week along with a video clip.
Shot in Uralla, the video was directed by Ben Abbott, who previously directed The McClymonts’ Forever Begins Tonight clip.
Watch Train Wreck here:
The new song is a swaggering, soulful country rocker that delivers a hard-hitting, endearingly honest account of love at full throttle.
“When we started talking about songs, we didn’t know if we’d butt heads more or what have you, but thankfully it all worked pretty well. We were both respectful of what each other wanted to get out of it,” Adam said, before Brooke chipped in, saying that they both had to be open minded.
“We’re both songwriters so for us lyric content was very important,” Brooke said. “And also too, the music side of it, we wanted to do what was personally satisfying as well as what the audience would like to hear, and also creating something new for Adam and I.
“I feel like this album - this is our sound. We were actually quite shocked at how awesome it did turn out, we just love it and I think this album definitely represents Adam and I together,” she said.
Country fans got an insight into how the husband and wife’s music could blend together at the Gympie Muster in August when Brooke surprised fans by joining Adam on stage.
And some of the songs on the forthcoming album were originally written with their own bands in mind.
“There were songs that we’d written in the past that didn’t work for The McClymonts or Adam Eckersly Band that we felt worked really well for this project, so we went back to them and also we wrote some stuff for the album,” Adam said.
Talking about the songwriting process, he said they have discovered a groove that works for both of them.
“We don’t have to be polite with each other anymore, which is often sort of hard in a co-writing situation when you’re just getting to know people.
“Brooke always kicks my backside, and I do the same to her and we don’t have to be polite and as a result we feel we can get the best out of each other.
“It’s always the case when you write and record something, you never know if people are going to dig it, but (it’s great) if we can put it down and we’re happy,” he said.
Recorded at at La Cueva Studios in Byron Bay, it was also the first time the couple – who, between them, have 12 Golden Guitars and two APRA Awards to go with Brooke’s two ARIAs – have worked as producers.
And it was mixed by Grammy and ARIA award-winning producer Nick DiDia with members of Adam’s group serving as the studio band.
“We took a punt, and it was recorded live basically and we did the vocals afterwards,” Adam said.
“There were seven musicians in the studio, and we had a great engineer, Jordan Power, and it was really stress-free and fun.”
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