Maddie and Tae recover in style
Madison Marlow and Taylor Dye met as teenagers, and moved to Nashville after high school hoping to get famous, which they soon did.
Their first single, the bro-country broadside “Girl in a Country Song,” hit when they were 19. A successful full-length debut, “Start Here,” followed, but the duo’s record label soon collapsed underneath it. Maddie and Tae didn’t release another album for almost five years, a potentially perilous gap for an emerging act.
The duo’s sophomore release takes the form of three EPs, two of which have been released. “One Heart to Another” dropped in April, and “Everywhere I’m Goin’ ” comes out this week. In a recent phone interview, Dye and Marlow, who are each engaged, talked about growing up and getting famous.
The following excerpts are from that conversation:
They were as surprised as anybody when their first label shut down
Dye: We were pretty oblivious; (there was) no heads-up. We were in the middle of making our second record, so we had our heads down, writing every single day.
We were in the studio, and the last thing we thought of was, “Oh, we won’t have a label to put this out on.” It just kind of happened in the blink of an eye, and we were left with a lot of questions.
Marlow: There was definitely some fear that crept in, but we had to shut that down, keep going and not get discouraged. We were given the gift of time, even though we didn’t really want it at the moment. … I think when we look back on this time in our career, we’re going to be like, Man, we overcame so many obstacles, and came out stronger.
This album is a reminder for us to never give up when the going gets tough because great songs come out of those moments.
On growing up, and getting famous, in between albums
Marlow: I think we were ready in the fact that we were — and we still are — very grounded in who we were as people, so the success didn’t really get to our heads. We still shop at T.J. Maxx and clip coupons for fun; it really didn’t change us. We still look back and we’re like we had no idea how successful we were at 19. We’re 24 now and we’re like, “Oh my gosh, we’ve accomplished so much at such a young age.”
Dye: Although (our lives are) very different now, we still go through the same emotions, just kind of feeling lost and figuring out life every day and falling in love and just trying to find purpose.
Marlow: I thought we would’ve had more of our lives figured out by now. We just realized that we have nothing figured out, and we’re a little more OK with it now than we were then.
On the decision to release their sophomore album as three EPs
Marlow: The label knew how important this project was for us, especially with what we’ve been through the past couple of years. A label shutting down in the middle of a sophomore record, and just having to rebuild from scratch after having so much momentum and being on top of the world. … We thought it’d be cool to tell the story of love, loss and redemption three times over, in three different ways.
Nov. 3 birthdays: Actress Roseanne Barr is 67. Actress Kate Capshaw is 66. Comedian Dennis Miller is 66. Actor Dolph Lundgren is 62. Actress Antonia Thomas is 33. Musician Courtney Barnett is 32. Reality show personality and model Kendall Jenner is 24.