Platinum country recording artist Rodney Atkins and singer-songwriter Rose Falcon are already partners in life, and now they are partners in music as well, as they team up to form a new duo, Rod + Rose. Their first joint effort single, “Being Here, Being There,” drops today (Aug. 20) via Curb Records.

Married since 2013, the two have a sound steeped in country and roots with harmonies that intertwine his signature grit with her feminine charm. Their new single is an ode to the devotion of that friend who has your back through life’s highs and lows.

“This song is about being, and having, that friend who celebrates with you during the highs and isn’t afraid to get in the trenches with you during the lows,” says Falcon. “We recently went through a year of feeling like there were way more lows than highs, and when you go through one difficult scenario after another, you begin to question everything. It can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you have that person you can count on to walk through life with you, it’s a game changer. When one is down, the other picks up the slack, and vice-versa. We know how lucky we are to have each other, now more than ever.”

“Being Here, Being There” isn’t the couple’s first collaborative effort. Rod + Rose have been singing side by side for years and share two sons: Ryder and Scout. Most recently, they co-wrote several tracks for Atkins’ latest album, Caught Up In The Country, whose Gold-certified title cut, featuring The Fisk Jubilee Singers, set the record (at the time) for the longest-running single in Billboard Country Airplay history at 57 weeks. The two plan to share more new music in the months to come.

Carter Faith. Photo: Alexa Kinigopoulos

Up-and-coming country singer-songwriter Carter Faith has released her debut EP, Let Love Be Love, available now on all digital and streaming platforms. Signed to Altenda and Pound It Out Loud, she recently performed the lead track, “Joyride,” during her Ryman Auditorium debut, closing out the sold-out Whiskey Jam 10-year anniversary show.

Originally from Davidson, North Carolina, Faith taught herself guitar and piano, and soon after began writing songs. She has received over eleven million streams with her recent releases and has shared the stage with artists like Cole Swindell, Old Dominion, and Chris Young.

“I got the inspiration for the EP title Let Love Be Love from a really beautiful poem by Morgan Harper Nichols called Let July be July,” shares Faith. “This poem struck me because life is so fast and I for one am always worrying about the future and wanting it to speed up, but I have found that makes us miss out on most of life itself.”

The songwriter recently delivered leading track “Joyride” that has already amassed over two million streams and counting. Faith gave listeners a sneak peek of what’s to come with acoustic project The Dusk Sessions. The recordings included original tracks “Leaving Tennessee” and “Easy Pill,” as well as a reimagined version of Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time.”

“As I put these individual songs together into a group and tried to put my finger on how they all somehow connected, I discovered that they each were completely unapologetic,” she adds. “The songs hold so much emotion but they don’t analyze these emotions, they just ‘let them be.’ When it comes to life and all the beauties that it holds, I don’t want to waste time analyzing it but instead just basking in the craziness of it all. Let Love Be Love is about truly experiencing life and love, and everything in between.”

Let Love Be Love Track List:
1. Joyride (Carter Faith, Margaret Valentine, Jen Stegall) – Produced by Ben West
2. Buzzkilla (Faith, Jonny Price) – Produced by Ben West
3. Cowboys and Dreamers (Faith, Steve Moakler) – Produced by Ben West
4. Lasso (Faith, Stegall) – Produced by Ben West, Jen Stegall, & Sean McConnell
5. I Just Wanna Dance – (Faith, Valentine, Ben West) – Produced by Ben West
6. Pipe Dream – (Faith, Sean McConnell, Ashley Ray) – Produced by Ben West & Sean McConnell

Southerland visits MusicRow. Photo: Haley Crow

The origin story of Southerland reads like one from a country music fairytale. The duo of Matt Chase and Chris Rogers spent years cutting their teeth playing hours on hours at bars, frequenting many–if not all–of the spots on Nashville’s Broadway. Having met through singer-songwriter Ray Fulcher, the two decided to “give the duo thing a try.” With no name or songs to offer at the time, they set off to figure out their direction.

“We figured out we were going to be a duo, but the immediate next question was, ‘What kind of music are we going to make?’ At gigs we would play the Top 40 stuff, but our roots and what’s true to us is what artists like Brooks & Dunn, Montgomery Gentry, Alan Jackson, Shenandoah, George Strait, and so on were doing,” Chase explains. “We decided that we were just going to make unapologetically country stuff, because if we didn’t, then we were already off to a bad start because that isn’t true to who we are.”

It wasn’t until a few years later that their namesake surfaced. After drowning in a sea of name contenders–like Palmetto Peaches, to pay homage to Chase’s South Carolina and Rogers’ Georgia roots, or Chase & Rogers like that of past iconic country duos–it took an 18-hour drive to Bath, Maine for the pieces to fit together.

“It was the first time that we were playing three nights at this place called Erik’s Church in Maine, opening for Ray. We had never been to Maine before so we were Googling what to do there, and we came across a Wikipedia page and started reading random facts about the place,” Rogers remembers. “In Bath, Maine there’s a place called Bath Iron Works. It’s where the U.S.S. Southerland battleship is.”

Chase sums it simply, “We landed on Southerland because it sounded cool and we had known the whole time that we wanted a name that paid tribute to both of us being from the south.”

Since that fateful trip to Bath, Maine and Erik’s Church, the River House Artists duo have released their recent Boot Up EP which features seven songs and acts as the introduction to Southerland.

“We went to put this EP together and we knew that most people had never heard of us or listened to our music before,” Chase admits. “We looked at all of our songs and found the ones that we thought would really give people a good idea of who we are. We wanted to put together a catalogue of songs so that if you’d never known Southerland, you could listen to tracks 1-7 and get a good idea of who we are.”

Among the seven tracks is their blue-collar anthem, “Came Out of Nowhere,” which was penned by Rogers, Chase, and Jessi Alexander. In a truly unapologetically country manner, the song goes out to the many people working the often overlooked blue collar jobs that make the world go round. Also found on the project is “Along Those Lines,” the track that Chase calls “the story of us.” Written with Greg Bates and Driver Williams, the duo recounted their southern upbringing and started to compare notes. Finding an uncanny amount of similarities, they put it all together and wrapped it in a three-minute package.

However, the pair shift the tone and the tempo with the EP’s title track. Penned with Austin Taylor Smith and Bates, “Boot Up” puts a catchy spin on an old phrase.

“We were on Zoom and we were waiting on Greg to come into the meeting room. He texted us and and said, ‘Sorry, guys. I’m running a little late because I’m waiting on my computer to boot up.’” Rogers jokes, “As soon as he came in and we said, ‘You’re such an old man. Who says boot up?’” And the rest is history.

Pictured (L-R): LB Cantrell (MusicRow), Lydia Farthing (MusicRow), Matt Chase, Chris Rogers, Sherod Robertson (MusicRow), Haley Crow (MusicRow), Alex Parry (MusicRow)

With an arsenal of original material, Southerland is ready to take their songs to the stage in a different fashion than that of their early days.

“Chris and I essentially started as a cover band, but we also did multiple years on Broadway playing four or five nights, and eight hours a day sometimes,” they explain. “That’s where we learned how to be entertainers, how to get people who just happen to walk into a bar to hear our voices together, and learn what makes them want to hear us play our songs.”

Though thankful for those experiences and where they came from, Southerland is ready and hopeful for what is to come–never taking any moment on stage for granted.

“Playing in front of people is where we feel the most comfortable,” Chase sums. “To be on any stage or to open for any artist is always a pinch ourselves moment because we know where we started and where we’re going.”

(back row, L-R) Chris Perkins, Carlile Willett, Nate Towne, Gus Chancy. (front row, L-R) Shannon Saunders, Caylin Acosta, Sloane Logue, Tanner Adell, Lindsey Dodge, Morgan Kenney, Abby Wells Baas. Photo: Courtesy WME

Tanner Adell has signed with WME for representation in all areas.

Adell has written with No. 1 songwriters JT Harding, Lindsay Rimes, Will Weatherly, Justin Ebach, Chris DeStefano, Allison Veltz, and many others. She has quickly gained an impressive social following of more than 175k followers on TikTok as her debut single, “Country Girl Commandments,” was released on July 30.

Adell is represented by Chris Perkins and Gus Chancy of Victory Entertainment.