New label, new songs for husband-and-wife country act
Thompson Square, headlining Greene County Parks & Trails’ Caesar Ford Summer Fest at Caesar Ford Park in Xenia on Saturday, June 4, has scored four Top 10 country singles, including two No. 1 hits. However, working together wasn’t the original plan.
Oklahoma-born Keifer Thompson and his wife, Shawna, an Alabama native, both pursued separate solo careers even after getting married in 1999. They eventually realized teaming up was the true power move, and they were right, although it took several years to secure a record deal with Stoney Creek Records.
The label released Thompson Square’s self-titled debut in 2011 and the 2013 follow-up, “Just Feels Good.” The duo parted ways with Stoney Creek Records in 2017 and self-released album number three, “Masterpiece,” the following year. In early April, Thompson Square released “Country In My Soul,” its first single with Quartz Hill Records. The follow-up, “Nothing
More Beautiful,” released digitally on May 27.
The Thompsons and young son Cooper were at their home in Orange Beach, Alabama, when the couple took time to answer some questions.
Q: What are you two doing today?
Keifer: We’re home with the beautiful water, palm trees and pool. We’re getting ready to go hunt for hermit crabs again and maybe some sand crabbing tonight. Cooper has two pet hermit crabs. He and his friend found about 60 of them down at this little restaurant we were eating at yesterday.
Q: “Country In My Soul” has been out several weeks. How has the reception been?
Shawna: So far, the reception has been amazing. We started playing it live and the crowds are really loving it. We kind of had hopes for that because Keifer and I loved the song so much. The first time we were pitched the song, it just made us feel good. We’re super excited to have something back on the radio again. It’s pretty cool.
Keifer: Yeah, we’re starting to get messages from friends and snapshots and screenshots of the new song on radio stations. It’s really cool. It’s been received really well from radio. We had an amazing week the first week, and these last two weeks have been great. Stations are starting to push it up into higher rotations already. It was the right time for us to take another record deal and do this whole thing again. We took some time off to be with our son, and it feels like a good time to get back into the radio game.
Q: What’s it like working with Quartz Hill Records?
Keifer: Quartz Hill is kind of like a family reunion for us. It’s the same guy and a lot of the same people that worked at the label we had all the hits with before, so we’re seeing a lot of old friends. Some of the people who were at Stoney Creek were really great. We have people on the radio team at Quartz Hill far superior to that. We’re thankful for them and how excited they are about us, how much they believe in us and how much they believe in the music we’re putting out. That’s something we lost at some point at the other label. It’s really refreshing to have this renewed sense of passion for Thompson Square, what we do and the music we’re putting out.
Q: What is your release schedule?
Shawna: We’re releasing songs pretty fast right now. When “Country in My Soul” came out, we released another song called “Are We Gonna Dance.” It’s a song written by David Lee Murphy and Jim Collins, who wrote our biggest hits for us. We’re pretty excited about that one. I don’t know if it will be a single or not. How you release music and what’s decided to be a single is just so different these days.
Keifer: It’s interesting. You used to release one single to radio and you wouldn’t do anything else until you put the album out. The way it works with music now is just so different, but we’re excited about getting these songs out instead of just holding and waiting.