With a successful run in their home country of Canada, sibling duo High Valley set out to make their mark on the States this year. Their current single, âMake You Mine,â reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and the brothersâBrad and Curtis Rempelâare hitting on all cylinders with their new album, Dear Life.
âWe liken it to an illustration of a target. You have the bulls-eye, and âMake You Mineâ is our bulls-eye. Everything fits on the same target, but thereâs stuff that leans a little more bluegrass and thereâs stuff that leans a little more pop,â Brad tells Nash Country Daily about the album. âEvery song on the record, you can hear it and say, âThat makes sense. That sounds like High Valley. That sounds like the same guys that recorded âMake You Mine.â I love people who are real. I think Miranda Lambert recording âThe House That Built Meâ was such a real thing for her to do. I think Florida-Georgia Line singing the big party songs is very real and authentic for them. I think High Valley singing songs about bluegrassy acoustic things, about family and farming and faith and all that stuff is very real for us. As long as people think our record sounds real, then weâve accomplished what we were trying to do.â
Two of six children, Brad and Curtis grew up in a farm town in Canada 500 miles from the nearest airport. Wheat fields as far as the eye could see, the Rempel family was secluded from pretty much everything. With no TV and no radio, the siblings relied on recordsâthey practically wore outâto fill their home with music.
âOur mom and dad loved music,â Curtis recalled to Nash Country Daily. âThey grew up as Mennonites, like the Amish. No electricity. They rode a horse and buggy. They were very, very old school. When they finally got electricity, they fell in love with music. We had a record player with Ricky Skaggs, Buck Owens, and The Everly Brothers, and those were the three records that were wore out.
4 Things Brad and Curtis Canât Hit The Road Without
BRAD: I take a diffuser for the bus, which is pretty important to me lately. Iâm obsessed with smells, so much so that my wife has googled how to make your home smell like Whole Foods.
CURTIS: Emergen-C vitamins.
BRAD: Itâs pretty important. Hair gel. Lots and lots and lots of hair product.
CURTIS: Pants. I never leave home without pants.
âWe listened to so much Skaggs growing up,â Curtis adds. âHonestly, we didnât have a whole lot of musical influence as kids and that was pretty much it. The acoustic vibes that heâs always brought impacted us hugely. Weâve just kind of kept that old school acoustic feel and brought that into the studio to our producer [Seth Mosley]âwhoâs a lot more hip and cool than we are. The combination just created what we have now.â
What they have now is Dear Life, their fifth studio album but their first major-label release. The album features 11 songs, three of whichââSheâs With Me,â âDear Life,â and current single âMake You Mineââthat were pulled from their previous album, County Line.
âWhen we were working on âMake You Mineââthat was before we had a record deal or anythingâthankfully, the song caught enough action on YouTube and on iTunes that all of a sudden, record labels got interested,â said Brad. âWhat we loved so much about Warner Brothers, when they signed us, is they said, âHey, we donât want you guys to change anything. Keep going to your buddyâs house to record.â Thatâs the only thing we could afford. They said, âKeep recording there. We want âMake You Mineâ to be the first single.â We were overjoyed. You here all these horror stories of bands signing record deals and all of the sudden losing all control and we have had the exact opposite. Weâve always tried to give our fans a lot of control, and thankfully, Warner Brothers has thought thatâs the smartest way to do it, and theyâve allowed us to keep doing that.â
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Allowing their fans to be a part of the record was important to Brad and Curtis. They even went so far as to allow them to pick the songs that would go on this album.
âWe let our fans hear a lot of our music and demos ahead of time,â said Curtis. âFrom day one, weâve always asked like, which t-shirt do you think we should print and have available at our shows? And theyâll vote. Or weâll ask, which shoes should I wear to the awards show? Just things like that. Then we were like why donât we ask them what songs they want us to record? So, we started letting them hear demos.â
âI think we played them 50 demos. Some were really bad quality,â adds Brad.
âWe gave them a bunch of demos,â Curtis continued. ââMake You Mineâ was definitely the highest votedâeasily way higher than any other song. We knew that we loved it, but we let them hear it and our fan club just loved it.â
The title track, written by Brad, Ben Stennis and Seth Mosley, came from an everyday situation Brad found himself in when dealing with his children.
âI came home one day and my wife said, âMan, our kids are growing up so fast. I feel like weâre hanging on for dear life.â I said, âOh, wait a minute. I think thatâs a song,'â recalls Brad. âI called Seth and Benâmy buddiesâand I said, âHey, Iâve got this title called âDear Lifeâ and I want to write it like a diary. Our producer [Seth] and his wife and kids and Ben and his wife and kids and myself and my wife and our kids, weâd all go to the beach together. âDear Lifeâ was the first song of the beach trip. We recorded it in Pensacola Beachâwe wrote it and recorded it. The lead vocals that you hear on the record are the same ones we recorded on the beach the moment we wrote the songs.â
The Canadian-born brothers are currently on the road with Martina McBride as part of her Love Unleashed Tour as they gear up for their own headlining European tour kicking off in February 2017. As the duo winds down the year, they look ahead to what 2017 will bring.
âIt looks busy. Very, very, incredibly busy. And I mean that in a good way,â says Brad of their busy 2017 schedule. âItâs what we signed up for. It starts in Europe and we got all the country thunders and country jam and country who knows what festivals. Weâve got so many great festivals coming up and a couple of them stand out to meâsome exciting placements where we get to play right before Alan Jackson. Iâm really looking forward to that. Itâs going to be a busy year and itâs going to be the first year where I think weâll feel like we can expect people to sing along to our songs. This last year, we were shocked every time it happened. Weâre just psyched for it.â