Country duo SaraBeth and Glen Mitchell, from Texas and the UK originally, were both drawn to Nashville for the same reason as a host of musicians before them: the country music scene. Having developed impressive solo careers, they recently came together to form Royal South, and now tour the world after the rapid success of their early singles, in particular number one hit ‘Cry Cry’.

Royal South, happily, are inspired by the same era of country music that swept Ireland a couple of decades ago, so sure to connect with Irish audiences.

“Our solo careers were very intertwined before we became Royal South,” they recall. “Glen’s solo career always involved playing for other country artists like Darius Rucker, Billy Currington, and Lonestar. We met through the band Lonestar when SaraBeth needed a guitar player, and we’ve worked together writing and recording music for almost 10 years now.”

“All that being said, Royal South is like an extension of our solo projects and going forward we will be recording music together as a duo instead of focusing on separate solo careers.”

Ireland, they’ve anticipate, will be much like playing anywhere else – and they’ve had plenty of experience with that. “Honestly, the only thing different [when we travel] is the accents,” they laugh. “It’s amazing that music can connect you to people 4,000 miles away. That’s something we don’t take for granted.”

“We both are heavily inspired by 90s and 2000s country music. You can hear that in our recordings. We do listen to other genres here and there, but the biggest influence definitely comes from country and the legends who have come out of Nashville.”

“In our acoustic show, no show is the same. We change and tailor the show to each audience. We tell different stories and the audience is a huge part of our show. We didn’t realise how much our fans seemed to enjoy that part of our live show until some conversations we had with them during our online Covid shows.”

“If we have to pick one song [to check out], I would say ‘Cry, Cry’. That was our debut single as Royal South and achieved so many firsts for us. We had a number one charting iTunes singles in multiple countries when the song came out. It has over 2 million streams. It was the first song we had at Country Radio internationally. ‘Cry, Cry’ opened so many doors for us!”

A heavy focus of the music is harmonies, which feature in pretty much every release.

“Glen is a genius at harmonies,” SaraBeth says. “We spent hours working on parts for our recordings. We didn’t just do that with the vocals but also the instrumentation. The process of choosing which songs we would record first and working on those songs was a process that took months both at home and in meetings with our producer, Paul Worley.”

“We are just taking things one day at a time! We are so grateful for everything happening behind the scenes right now in 2023. This year we have 150 shows booked… and more to come. We feel blessed and honoured to do what we love for work. Awards and accolades are great, but for us we just want to keep recording music and bringing that to people around the world!”