Gasoline and Matches are a country duo from Birmingham, UK. Their sound and their ethos epitomise what the UK country scene is all about – supporting each other and having a damn good time.

This year marks the band’s second appearance at The Long Road and, after their performances at C2C in London earlier this year, Gasoline and Matches are definitely a household name amongst the UK country family.

The duo are also committed to elevating other artists through their regular writer’s round and full band nights in Birmingham and Wolverhampton where they showcase their own music as well as guest artists.

Aside from their musical talent – which is truly undeniable – the independent artists are holding space for other up and comers, providing platforms for them to generate a fanbase and kickstart their career.

Taking shelter from the ‘summertime’ showers, Sally Rea Morris (SRM) and Stephen Marks (SM) joined me on some hay bales to chat about their busy summer of shows, their own writers round, Nashville Sounds in the Round and why it’s so important to them to support other artists.

Gasoline and Matches, hello! This is my first time meeting you guys, how are you, how’s things?

SM: Firstly, great to meet you, thank you for having us. We’re really good it’s been a great weekend.
SRM: We love this festival, we’ve come to every one.

What’s happening for you guys, what’s been going on?

SRM: we’ve actually played just the busiest summer of festivals. Since we played at C2C this year – it was our first C2C.
SM: Actually, since The Long Road last year, it has just elevated since then. We’ve been attending this festival every year since the beginning. It’s always been a dream for us to play it and we got our chance last year on The Front Porch and it was people as far as you could see and it was just wonderful. Everything about that show was just so memorable. Since then, like Sally said, we jumped to C2C for the first time and we played three shows over the weekend which was a game changer for us. Since then, it’s been a great summer of festivals. We’ve played some great gigs.
SM: Yeah all kinds of stuff. So many things popping up around the country – some of them are smaller, a bit more grass roots and some of them are quite big production actually for first years of festivals. But between all that we’ve been working in the studio on what we keep saying is going to be our album but we don’t know what the kids are doing these days and if you actually put albums out so we’re not sure if we’re just being…old.

No I think there is still a real appreciation for a body of music and the artistry that goes into the bookends of the album and the way the tracks are formed so definitely do it…and then put it on vinyl and send me one.

(they laugh)
SRM: that is the plan!

Can you tell when you do a festival like C2C or like this, do you feel the influx of new fans? What does that look like?

SM: Yeah! An example, this weekend, we only played three tracks as part of a writers round so it was a very short performance for us but there was one guy in the audience with his wife who was so aggressive in his delivery of “you guys are the best thing I saw last year” and it was so nice to feel that. We’re so fortunate that so many of our friends wear our merch and they follow us to every show. It’s always great to see that as well.

And you have Clewes Country Presents at the Bedford coming up – that’s super exciting headlining that gig! Have you played The Bedford before?

SRM: I believe we did…did we do a Live In The Living Room there?
SM: Yes we did.
SRM: We love getting to play shows in London because we’re based in Birmingham so it’s nice when we get to come to the bigger city so we’re really looking forward to that. We’re being supported by Chanel Yates and Megan Rose. There are still a few more shows we’ve got in the diary for this year as well. We host a few of our own events up in Birmingham. We host a writer’s round – Nashville Sounds in the Round – so we’ve got another two of them before the year closes out in October and December. All the details for that are on our socials.
SM: It’s in its eighth year now.
SRM: Yeah we’ve got some great artists that feature on that. We’ve also started a full band night in Wolverhampton at Rodeo’s called Wish You Were Beer – that’s our full band and then we have guest artists, too.

So music is in the works but not ready yet?

SM: It’s pretty much there
SRM: Yeah it’s just coming up with our plan – we’re a completely independent band so everything we do we have to use our own brain power to come up with strategy and figure out how we’re going to do it.
SM: You know what, we’re super proud of how far we’ve come without any help. We’re super proud to be on the crest of the wave of the UK country scene and, you know, we don’t make any secret of that. We are always up for conversations with bookers and agents and management and all that stuff, so if you’re listening give us a call! But we are doing extremely well as an indie.

You’re a known name now too especially on the UK circuit, everyone knows Gasoline and Matches.

SRM: We genuinely love the music that people are putting out so you will see us at shows – any country artists that are coming through Birmingham, we’re going to be at their shows. But also, one of the reasons we built Nashville Sounds in the Round was that we wanted to give Birmingham a regular event that people could attend and build a community there as well. We’ve got to know so many musicians and artists and the allies and people say it all the time, ‘it’s one big country family’ but genuinely, we all do
have to support each other because it’s still a relatively small scene, although it’s growing, so it’s so important to us.

There’s a phrase that I love – lift as you climb – and it’s great that that is what you guys are doing.

SM: We see a little bit online that people prefer the American artists, but we’ve just got to keep building, you know. We always talk about it but, throughout history of rock and roll, it’s been Atlantic tennis – The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Stones, Aerosmith – it’s been back and forth. We are proud of our heritage in the UK, we don’t try to be an American act, we are a British act.

Yes. I think it’s really important to hold space for the UK acts because we are just as good, but no one is ever going to know if we don’t give them the platform, so I love that that’s what you’re doing.

SRM: I think festivals like The Long Road have been the representation of the UK scene here. One of the festivals that does it so well is Buckle and Boots and that’s somewhere that we’ve really grown with them because I think that was probably the first festival that we played. Hopefully we might be back there next year. So, things like The British Country Music Festival, it’s great to see the support for that. It’s got to blend in. Country growing as a genre is going to help us and help everyone anyway but yeah, I think the support that we’ve given other artists is probably how we’ve got our name out there a little bit.

And who have you enjoyed seeing this weekend and who are you looking forward to seeing?

SM: Flatland Cavalry definitely. We saw those guys in Boston a couple of years back and they were awesome with Luke Combs and Lainey Wilson. Obviously Russel Dickerson is a good guy, love Russ.
SRM: There’s some new bands – I’m really excited to check out The National Parks mostly because I’m an absolute geek and I just love going to National Parks so when I saw that they were on the line up, I did a bit more research about them and I actually really like their stuff.
SM: There’s so many artists. You’ll find us here at the beginning of the festival and we’ll be the last to leave because we genuinely love music.

Gasoline and Matches are headlining a show at The Bedford, London, 6th October and tickets can be purchased here