How The War & Treaty Got Their Name And More

04-02-2023

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(B2) The War & Treaty join Trailblazers Radio with Fancy Hagood on Apple Music Country to celebrate the release of their album "Lover's Game" and Fancy toasts to love as he talks about some of his favorite country music couples. Stream the episode here. 2b sent over these excerpts:

The War & Treaty Tell Apple Music How They Got Their Name...: Michael Trotter: Oh boy. This is a great question. Arguing. About changing the name for the eighth time? Oh my God. I was like, "I don't like that name." She goes, "Michael, I told you that this is not how you become professional. You have to stick with one name." I'm like, "well, we are. I just don't want to stick with that one name." And we wanted to have something just that meant something. And I was like, you know what? We have to have the word war in it. Because we literally were massive fans of the Civil Wars...So that's how we did that. And we were arguing about it and Tanya said, "you know what, Michael, this is not the war because I'm a war vet. And she's like, this is not the war and we need to come to some sort of treaty."

Tanya Trotter: And I was always the peaceful one, of course.

Michael Trotter: Right? Sure. And moving on from that line. Oh no. But I said, well, there it is. I think you just found the name. She's like, "what?" I was like, "The War and Treaty, the natural tug and pull of life. I feel that that's what it is." And she agreed. And then boom, we settled it.

The War & Treaty Talk To Apple Music On Moving To Nashville...

Tanya Trotter: ...so every time we're in Ryman and things like this happen, we get a standing ovation or we're now getting awards at the Americana Awards. It really does make me want to just cry because Michael wanted to move to Nashville. I did not. I was kicking and screaming. I was like, "No, I want to stay in my little town where everybody knows my name." But I didn't like it when I first moved here. And then we were touring so much. So I didn't really get a feel of the town. I guess I want to say once the pandemic hit, that was kind of like, oh, this is nice. People are really nice at the grocery store. The music community is really nice. We started doing writes with people and starting to get more involved in the culture in Nashville.

Michael Trotter: To be completely honest with you, Fancy, people like you, people like Brothers Osborne, Dierks Bentley, who intentionally reach out and intentionally want to do something with you and intentionally want to pull you out of that closet where it's like, come on, I want to do this with you.

The War & Treaty Tell Apple Music About Their New Album "Lover's Game"...

Tanya Trotter: Everything inspired this record. I mean, this was the first record that we actually came outside of ourselves and did co-writes and took a song from another writer/producer. So this was different for us, very different because Michael wrote a thousand songs during the pandemic. And then we wrote another probably 30 songs together after the pandemic. And then we got together with some Nashville writers. So it was great.

Michael Trotter: It was weird. Cause this album, this was a collective idea. It wasn't just me and Tanya and a lot of people would cringe at that thought. But this was our first offering to the mainstream situation. And everyone wanted us to write about that love and write about that thing. I am the darker version of this relationship.

Tanya Trotter: Yes, he is. He's the Pisces I'm the Libra. So I have to put him on my scale and balance him out on the scale. Just come on with a fish, get on the scale.
Michael Trotter: And it's bad because I am head over heels stupidly in love with Tanya. And all I want to do is write break up songs.

Tanya Trotter: I think that's your subconscious

The War & Treaty Tell Apple Music On Being In A Duo And Being Married...
Michael Trotter: I think that for me, also being in a duo with my wife, you got to be very careful with that. Because there's some aspects of our love that I really, honestly just want to keep for me and her. There's some things I don't actually want to write about. We got a song on the album called Ain't No Harm in Me. And that song, honestly, it comes from a area of me understanding the past of my wife and her understanding the past of me and us understanding our own demons and telling our demons, "You ain't going to show up in this." Put a chain on that thought. Calm that down cause that don't belong in this relationship. That's not that woman. This is Tanya. You know what I mean? So to me, those songs aren't written and they need to be written. And if they are, we need more of that. We need more of that truth. We need more of that facing and dealing with some real stuff.

Tanya Trotter: In any relationship, whether it's a friendship, it's with your kids, your parents. There's always going to be that balance of how you love them and what part of yourself you're willing to let grow. Because that's really where with this record and with the writing and where we are. Personally, it's like what do you want to do now to grow? What parts of you do you want to give to him? And you all go through this journey together because you can't do it alone because you can't see yourself from the outside. You think, "Oh, I got it together." This one can see how you are in the morning when you didn't get enough sleep and you think you're great.