“And it took a long time, 36 hours from the first contractions. “It was the most surreal day anyway,” he says. “Confidence is the biggest difference now, especially going into the studio.”Ģ016 has been remarkable in other ways too, as Ben became a father on the same day The Shires headlined Glastonbury’s acoustic stage. Even on the first album’s cover, Ben feels they look like kids. They know they’ve made a big step forward from their debut, which was “very much Lady Antebellum, Civil Wars”, towards a newer country sound. Meeting them one month before the release of My Universe, their second album, the most striking thing is how well they get on, finishing each other’s sentences, complimenting and complementing each other, and both still giddy with their success.
Ben’s moved even closer to Crissie now, so when they need to rehearse they’re just around the corner from each other.Īlthough they went straight into the UK Top 10 with their debut album, Brave, Crissie says they actually get recognised more in Nashville, four thousand miles away, than they do back home. But their real history is one of years of toiling individually as wedding and pub circuit singers, studying, selling mobile phones, almost quitting altogether, and then magically hooking up on Facebook to form the perfect country music duo.Ĭrissie Rhodes lives in Bedfordshire and Ben Earle was based in Hertfordshire when they met – hence the name The Shires – and they were only about half an hour’s drive from each other. The Shires’ back story feels like a classic tale of meteoric rise and astounding success out of nowhere, conquering the UK charts and Nashville. The Shires, the UK’s most celebrated country duo, are back with another barnstorming album, ‘My Universe’, as Helen Jerome reports.
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