Everette Release Their First Single & Video ‘High and Lonesome’from their new EP ‘Keys To Kentucky’
6th March 2024Multi-talented country roots & rock ‘n’ roll duo Everette release their single ‘High and Lonesome’, along with its accompanying video. The track is taken from their brand-new EP ‘Keys To Kentucky’, due out this May, which spearheads the stripped-back, back to basics style they’ve found so effective in live touring.
‘High And Lonesome’ is their first single to kick off this new stage of Everette’s journey: brimming with melodies that lean towards tradition and grassy back porch rock n roll rooted in southern storytelling and heartland hooks.
Everette are two Kentucky natives: Anthony Olympia and Brent Rupard. The pair first started making music together in the college bars and honky-tonks of Bowling Green, KY. — a sound they’re returning to with the new EP.
Over the past few years, this pair from Bullitt County, KY, have covered the US from corner to corner and ventured forth to Europe, taking their vibrant, life-enhancing music — rooted in country rock ‘n’ roll and southern storytelling — far and wide, on stage after stage, including playing the Grand Ole Opry 11 times and touring with Brothers Osborne and Cadillac Three.
After wooing the crowds at C2C in the UK in 2022, Everette played The Long Road Festival, leading Maverick magazine to proclaim, “Everette were one of the talking points of the whole festival!” As Six Shooter Magazine said of their UK shows “if you have a ticket, you’ll be in for a treat.”
Live touring has heavily influenced the new ‘Keys To Kentucky’ EP.
“We’ve toured a lot with just me and Anthony on our acoustic guitars,” says Brent Rupard. “We love plugging up electric guitars and playing full band, but there is something about the freedom that comes along with just us two jamming together. It brings a raw human element to the performance that we can feel our crowd respond to.”
So, whilst most of Everette’s previous records have been based on a swampy, electrified full-band sound, on stage Brent and Anthony have often found a more natural and organic connection with their audiences when they pare down to two guitars, returning to their roots.
Vibrant audience and fan response to Everette’s stripped-back sound has inspired the duo to make it the foundation of their latest EP.
“We’re leaning more organic and acoustic-driven,” the duo proclaims, “We stripped back all the flash and focused on a raw, live-in-the-studio, sound. Resonator guitars, vintage acoustics, drum set supplemented with aluminium baking pans, and meat-headed bass guitar. Junkyard orchestra with a few upscale instruments playing the first chair.”
“We’ve connected so deeply to our fans with a more acoustic stripped-back organic sound (and it comes so naturally for us), so we felt it would be unforgivable not to record new music with that in mind.”
“We’ve been playing songs like ‘High and Lonesome’ and ‘Keys To Kentucky’ on the road for a couple of years, and every time the crowd came undone…from the Grand Ole Opry to the dive bars in the middle of nowhere. The magic in those moments really got us thinking that we should give this unplugged thing more serious thought. We love cranking up our electric guitars, but we find that this unplugged arrangement lets out our voices and the stories cut through a little easier.”
“In ‘High and Lonesome’,” say Brent and Anthony, “we take you on the wild rollercoaster ride that has been our lives over the last 10 crazy years. The highest highs and loneliest lows, burning up blacktop from one stage to the next, and everything in between.
“There aren’t very many acts that I have come across that actually manage to make a contemporary sound that is really traditional at the same time,” said Country in the UK, “So many people are trying to achieve that balance but why I think people here really dig what you do is that you guys really do make it authentic which they don’t hear other people do and especially not from people that looks as cool as you do when they do it.”
Check out that authenticity and Everette energy in its potent, pared to the bone form with ‘High and Lonesome’, Out now on all digital platforms. and watch out for the ‘Keys To Kentucky’ EP, due out this May,
Photo Credit: Sean O’Holloran