Toria Richings is a UK born, Australia residing, country and americana singer. She is appearing all over the UK throughout June on her tour this year.
Ahead of the big trip back to British soil, Richings joined Tea with G for a chat about her upcoming tour, her new EP, ‘Bend and Break,’ and what it’s like to play at Australia’s biggest country music festival.
Prepping for an overseas tour is never straight forward, with booking venues and selling tickets lending itself to elevated stress levels. Add in there that you’ve never actually met or rehearsed with the band you’ll be touring with, and you’re somewhere near how Toria Richings feels. “I’ve probably got a day, I think,” she says as I ask how much adjustment time she’s got when she lands before she starts playing, “I’ve put this band together and I’ve never met these guys so I’m kind of getting there and going straight into rehearsal.”
Richings new EP, ‘Bend and Break,’ has also contributed a little stress. The EP was originally set to come out during the tour, but some production delays have meant that it will now be out later. “Things just don’t line up when you want them to, really,” she says about the delay, “so it’s probably going to come out in the UK, I’d say July time.”
Everyone writes their songs differently and for Richings, that can happen anywhere. “I’m the insane person in the supermarket singing into a phone to capture the tune I’ve got in my head.” Once there’s a tune, Richings finds herself back in her living room and writing. The storytelling nature of the genre remains at the heart of it all, with inspiration coming from her own tales, or those of others. “I’ll always write about something or somebody or a story I’ve heard,” she says about her writing process, “they’re generally people’s pain songs, they’re not mine…my husband gets paranoid and thinks that everyone will think I have a miserable life because I write a lot of sad songs but they’re never my stories, really.”
Written at her home in Australia and recorded in Nashville, this EP will hold a special memory for Richings as the first time she was physically part of the Nashville recording scene. Her last EP was produced by the same team, but during the socially distanced months of COVID, which meant Richings wasn’t part of the studio time and instead, recorded her vocals at home in Australia. “This was the first time with the same guys that I got to be in the studio and watch it all happen,” she says about being part of the process, “it was such an amazing feeling.”
It's no secret that Nashville is home to the top talents in the country music industry and Richings got to experience that first hand while she was over there. “Every time you set foot in Nashville, you’ll go and see someone else and everything’s jaw dropping.” It’s every country music artist’s dream to go to Music City and be part of it, rather than just observing it. “To be amongst it and part of it and have people play my music,” Richings beams about the trip, “I had the band playing in the studio and it was a proper pinch me moment where you’re like, wow, this is what I wrote just sitting in my lounge in Australia, just singing to myself, and suddenly these guys are playing it. It was so special.”
Richings was humbled by the help and support she received over in Tennessee, with people that “could not do enough to try and help me and my music”. Coming together in a shared passion, Richings found herself surrounded by people helping to lift her up and grow her career. “We’re all trying to do the same thing, you know? It’s nicer to support each other that it is to be competitive.”
A big moment for Richings was meeting Emmylou Harris over in Nashville. Performing at the Americana Fest, Richings spent a lot of time listening to other artists at events and shows. “I saw she was going to be at one of these talks,” she says about Emmylou Harris, “so we went along and it was amazing to hear her chatting, and she was just walking around afterwards outside so we just went up to her and was just talking to her!” In the presence of greatness, it’s always hard to maintain one’s composure and commit to coherent sentences and it’s nice to know that Richings also struggled with this, “I was a bumbling idiot and couldn’t speak for, like, the first five minutes”.
Richings is frequently compared to Harris’ sound but unfortunately wasn’t able to pass her any of her music. “It was just, you know, brief chats – courteous chats – and then it was over…you never know, she may have gone and looked me up.”
Another bucket list moment for any country music artist is playing the iconic venues like The Bluebird Café. “I seemed to be ticking every dream thing when I was in Nashville this last time,” Richings laugh as we continue to discuss the big life moments. “I was playing the Americana Fest, which is how I ended up playing the Bluebird, which was just amazing. It’s so iconic and it lived up to everything I ever thought it would be.” With an audience of around seventy people, Richings remembers the evening as ‘intimate but not intimidating’.
“Sometimes you just play the same songs over and over,” she says about what she played for her audience, “I thought, I’m just going to go for it, so I just played a new one as well.” With audience members coming to chat to her afterwards and everyone leaving smiling, Richings looks back on it fondly.
How does one go from living in the UK, to emigrating to Australia, to recording an album in Nashville, you might be wondering? Well, after a long illness in the UK and a longing to be back in Aus, Richings and her family made the decision to move out there full time. However, during the move, Richings sadly lost her mum, and her husband cheered her up with a studio booking. It was here that she recorded her first EP. “I got a bit of radio play here, then I got on a few playlists on Spotify,” Richings tells me about how she was ‘discovered’ over in America, “and then Bill Wentz who I’ve worked with ever since – he does all my radio promotion and produces most of my music – got in touch with me and was like, ‘hey, I’ve heard your music and I’d like to work with you,’ and it just kind of went from there really.”
Australia is no stranger to country music and has a huge following over there. Tamworth Country Music Festival is one of the biggest in the world and Richings was fortunate enough to play it. “The first time I went there, your senses are just blown every moment of the day,” she says about the festival, “I’ve never seen so many musicians. You’ve got buskers on every part of every street there playing all day and all night. Then you’ve got the bars inside and there’s bands and solo people. Then you’ve got songwriter shows. They have a main stage and a second stage. And it’s just all in this town. They just shut the roads and for a whole week, it’s just a huge country festival.” It’s exhausting just hearing about it!
You can catch Toria Richings touring the UK across June and her schedule is here. Follow her through her website, Instagram and Facebook.
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