Maddie Marlow and Tae Dye may be young, blond and pretty, but they hope people who see them see more than that.
Their songwriting abilities certainly are showcased on their breakout smash “Girl in a Country Song,” which Rolling Stone recently described as “The first overt antidote to the ‘bro-country’ trend.”
“I think us ladies, we are complicated creatures. God made us (so) we’re just special,” Marlow said with a laugh during a phone interview from Seattle during the country duo’s ongoing radio tour.
“We like to have options, and these (“bro-country”) songs don’t really give us any options. We’re only good for looking good and all of that stuff. So, that’s what really inspired this idea, and I think that’s why so many people are connecting, because women want to feel beautiful no matter what.”
A little more than a year after relocating to Nashville, Tenn., Tae Dye, 18, of Ada, and Maddie Marlow, 19, of Sugarland, Texas, are rocking the country music world by refusing to be just “little country girls.”
“I hear you over there on your tailgate whistlin’/Sayin’ ‘Hey girl,’ but you know I ain’t listenin’/Cause I got a name and to you it ain’t pretty little thing, honey or baby,” they sing in their debut single, which is sitting pretty at No. 17 and climbing the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
“We have more to offer than just looking good. All of us,” Marlow said.
“Hey, don’t get us wrong, Maddie and I will totally rock a pair of cutoffs in the summer time — not year-round, not every weekend and especially not with a pair of pumps,” Dye added with a laugh.
Life-changing lyrics
Not everyone can pinpoint the exact day that his or her whole life changes, but for Dye and Marlow, it was St. Patrick’s Day, a random Monday less than six months ago.
“Maddie and I were jamming in our car listening to country radio, and we were like, ‘Man, you know, some of the lyrics in these songs make women seem really one-dimensional,’” said Dye, as the duo dried off from taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge with The Wolf Pack from Seattle radio station 100.7.
“We decided to go into that (day’s) songwriting session and write a song that shows a completely different side to this lady that these guys just love writing and singing about.”
They were taking aim at the “bro-country” or “checklist country” trend popularized by the likes of Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean, who have dominated the country charts lately with party songs about pickups, back roads and, most importantly, “pretty little country girls.”
The pair already were signed to Big Machine Publishing, the writing side of the country music juggernaut, and when they sat down with staff writer Aaron Scherz, they made a checklist of all the cliches about girls that end up in those checklist songs.
“It had cutoffs, bare feet, dirt road, trucks ... all that fun stuff. But the most important one of all was ‘girls,’” Dye said. “There’s always this smokin’ hot girl that these guys sing about, which is fine, but to be the smokin’ hot girl, you have to have long, tanned legs and be barefoot on a tailgate in cutoff jeans, shakin’ your sugar shaker. Tae and I were like, ‘You know what, I hate to crush your dreams, boys, but that’s not real.’ So we decided to come at this topic with a little different perspective.”
They didn’t really expect much more to come of it, but they were wrong.
Longtime team
The duo first met in the middle — Dallas — through a vocal coach who was working with them both.
“We kind of hit it off as friends. We loved each other’s voices, and we figured out that we both write songs,” Marlow said. “That was about four years ago, so we’ve been together for a while.”
“Like an old married couple,” Dye added with a laugh. “It’s just crazy to think how fast time has flown by.”
When they got to Nashville and signed with Big Machine’s publishing division, they wrote every day to hone their craft. By the time they turned in “Girl in a Country Song,” they had built a catalog of about 200 songs.
“We were writing the song thinking that no one was gonna hear it. It was just going to be a song that we played at writer rounds, maybe on a Nashville street corner,” Dye said. “But we turned it in to our publishing team at Big Machine, they called two days later and (said), ‘Hey, so yeah, ‘Girl in a Country Song’ is gonna be your first single, and you’re getting signed to Dot Records. Good luck.’ It was crazy.”
Uproarious video
Dot Records is the new imprint of Big Machine Label Group, which counts bro-country hit-makers Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett and Justin Moore among its artists, as well as powerhouse women Reba McEntire, Taylor Swift and Kimberly Perry of The Band Perry. Along with the single, the label released an uproarious role-reversing video that dressed the guys in cutoff jeans, skimpy shirts and titillating poses. The sassy clip has earned 5.5 million views on YouTube in the past month.
“It was the hardest thing to do was to keep a straight face,” Dye said. “As soon as we walked out of our trailer when we got done with hair and makeup and we saw the guys in cutoff overalls, we started dying laughing.”
With the single garnering praise from NPR, The Washington Post, CMT and more, the imprint is planning to release a Maddie and Tae debut EP by year’s end, and the young women said they hope to have some fun tours to announce soon. They’ve already made their national television debut with a performance and extended interview on the “Today” show.
“It felt like somebody knocked us in the head, and then we woke and we were like, ‘Oh, we just did the ‘Today’ show,” Marlow said, laughing.
“As songwriters, when we pour our hearts into a song like we did with ‘Girl in a Country Song’ ... and people are singing along and reacting and connecting with the message, that’s all we can ask for,” Dye added. “At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. So, it’s very gratifying to see that happen.”
