Trio puts cool into country

THEY’VE released charttopping albums and hit singles, shared stages with their musical heroes, and are arguably Australia’s best country rock band.

So homegrown stars The Wolfe Brothers have loftier goals for their fourth album

Country Heart, which comes out tomorrow — they want to make country cool.

Country music is big business in North America, and there’s no shortage of fans across Australia — as evidenced by the popularity of brothers Nick and Tom Wolfe and their mate Brodie Rainbird.

But country doesn’t get a lot of love from commercial radio and songs rarely rocket up the mainstream charts.

“In the US, country is cool,” Nick Wolfe said. “It’s the main deal, the biggest genre.

“But it’s really hard for country acts in Australia to get that mainstream coverage — and when they do, there tends to be a sarcastic tone taken, like ‘here come the bootscooters, wheel out the hay bales!’.

“But country is not really like that. I’d like to see it be taken a bit more seriously, because there’s some amazing country music coming out of Australia. People don’t know what they’re missing out on.”

Featuring lead single Ain’t Seen It Yet, Country Heart introduces a fresh new sound for the Wolfe Brothers, who have experienced some major ups and downs since releasing their previous album, This

Crazy Life, in mid-2016 — touring the world playing the biggest shows of their career, but also enduring the loss of Nick and Tom’s father ‘Mildoo’ Wolfe later that year.

“Hopefully with this album we can show that country has a much broader appeal,” Rainbird said.

“We can show Australians what country music actually has become — and that they do like it!”