The Weeping Willows

UPDATE: 1^st July: Wow, what a day!  We've finally had time to collect our thoughts after all you legends kicked us through our Pozible goal!  Thank you so much again to ALL of our supporters. :D

Don't worry, we're not going to spend the excess funds on a trip to Disneyland. ;)  There's SO much more we need to do to get this album out there!  Each and every contribution is still extremely valuable and greatly appreciated.  ** If we can get to $11,500, we can hire a professional publicist to promote the album release.  There's still time to pledge and we'd love your help!  All rewards are available up until our campaign ends on the 9^th July.  Thank you! :) **

“Do the things that scare you, that’s the good stuff!” – Jason Isbell upon receiving Album of the Year at the 2014 Americana Music Awards in Nashville.



After hearing those inspiring words uttered in the Mother Church of Country Music (Ryman Auditorium), The Weeping Willows have decided to do just that in 2015!

The Weeping Willows are Andrew Wrigglesworth and Laura Coates.  We are an Americana/Country/Folk duo from Melbourne, Australia.  Since releasing our debut album 'Till the North Wind Blows' in December 2012, we’ve been touring and playing at various Folk and Country music festivals around Australia and even had the chance to perform at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville in 2013 and 2014 thanks to 'Sounds Australia'.  All of these wonderful experiences have inspired an album’s worth of new songs that we want to share.


Photography thanks to Felicity O'Meara.

We have the amazing (yet daunting!) opportunity to record our next album in LA with 4 time Grammy Award winning engineer Ryan Freeland (Bonnie Raitt, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Ray LaMontagne, Ramblin' Jack Elliott) but we need your help!

It has always been a dream of ours to record in America and you can be a part of making that happen!  We will be funding around two-thirds of the recording, studio hire, mixing, mastering and pressing costs ourselves but need your help to get us over the line.  In return, we are offering a variety of different rewards, from signed copies of the album, to guitar lessons, to house concerts and more.  We will be so grateful for each and every contribution and send personal thank you messages to all who pledge!

** Pledge within the first week of our Pozible campaign to receive an exclusive FREE DOWNLOAD of our current single, 'Acorns', which is sitting at #27 in the Country Music Channel Top 50! **



So why Ryan Freeland?
We wanted to create another stripped back LP with minimal instrumentation so we began looking into who recorded some of our favourite albums.  One of the most beautiful sounding recordings is The Milk Carton Kids’ Grammy nominated 'The Ash & Clay'.  We discovered that Ryan Freeland engineered this album, as well as critically acclaimed works from Rodney Crowell, Billy Bragg, Joe Henry, Over the Rhine and Tift Merritt.

Ryan Freeland’s credits include:
Justin Townes Earle, Over the Rhine, Joe Henry, Hugh Laurie, Glen Hansard, Tift Merritt, Bonnie Raitt, The Milk Carton Kids, Billy Bragg, The Rolling Stones, Rodney Crowell, Art Garfunkel, The Weepies, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Ray LaMontagne, Aaron Neville, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Son Volt, John Fogerty, Grant-Lee Phillips, Loudon Wainwright III, Mary Gauthier, Bob Dylan, Crowded House, Guy Pearce and Jewel, to name a few.



We will travel to Los Angeles in September to record in Ryan’s home studio, Stampede Origin, where The Milk Carton Kids created 'The Ash & Clay'.  We will be recruiting top session musicians who have played with the likes of Ray Price, Jim Lauderdale, Carrie Underwood, Maddie & Tae, BoDeans, Lana Del Rey, Rick Price, Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson.

We are hoping (with your help!) to be able to get the album mixed by Ryan in LA, then mastered by Adam Dempsey of Deluxe Mastering, back here in Melbourne.  From there, we then need to organise artwork, press the discs and release!

We welcome you to follow our journey on Facebook by joining us over at www.facebook.com/theweepingwillows.

Thank you in advance for your support.  We are excited to have you as part of our project!

Regards,
-Laura and Andy.
~The Weeping Willows~

Photograph thanks to Bob Mcgahan.

“The Weeping Willows have created a real country-folk gem with their debut record. They take us back to what is beautiful about traditional country music: tender harmonies, wonderful guitar picking and lovingly crafted songs.” ~Les Thomas, ‘Unpaved’ (unpaved.com.au) – February 2013.

"This is music that mixes songwriting, storytelling, virtuosic playing and the simple delight of two perfectly matched voices singing in harmony to excellent effect." ~Chris Familton, ‘Post to Wire’ (posttowire.com) – April 2013 .

“The Weeping Willows – a new duo that draws inspiration from the fragile, Gospel-tinged work of Johnny and June Cash as well as more modern boy-girl outfits like The Handsome Family or Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings…” ~’Pearl’ Magazine – July 2012.

HUGE thanks to our US friends!

Your generous support will help us to cover around one-third of the costs of:
- Engineering/Recording
- Studio Hire
- Session Musician Fees
- Mixing
- Mastering
- Artwork Design
- CD Pressing
** If we can get to $11,500, we can hire a professional publicist to promote the album release. There's still time to pledge and we'd love your help! All rewards are available up until our campaign ends on the 9^th July. Thank you! :) **

If you're not in a position to pledge for a reward (we completely understand!), you can still help us out by sharing our Pozible project: www.pozible.com/theweepingwillows - thanks heaps! :)

Pozible is all-or-nothing crowdfunding: if we don't reach our target, we don't get any of the funds!  This would make it _very_ tricky for us to complete our album...

How To Pledge:
1. Once you have chosen your desired reward (right-hand panel), click the blue ‘Pledge Now’ button.
2. Login with Facebook or email, choose your reward and enter your payment details.
3. Tell all of your friends about how excited you are about the project and your reward by sharing the project link! www.pozible.com/theweepingwillows
4. When the target is reached your payment will be processed and you will be asked for your postal details (if your reward requires shipping).
5. We'll send your reward when it's ready!

If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask us via our Pozible email (see ‘message’ button under ‘Project Team’ heading below).

Thanks again for your support! :)
-Laura and Andy.