George Birge and Cody Cooper, together known as Waterloo Revival, are still on a high from the release of their EP, ‘Front Row.’ It’s been an incredible ride for the pair, who have been writing together since they were teenagers. Throughout the years they’ve continued to grow as writers, developing their own unique sound and adding to their endless collection of songs. George and Cody narrowed it down from about one hundred songs to six and put together a record they couldn’t be more proud of. Just a few days after the EP’s release, we were lucky enough to catch up with the guys and learn more about their new music and what else they have in store.
The two have worked incredibly hard to get to where they are today. Their success includes a record deal with Big Machine Records and a heap of fans, Revivers, who are always eager to hear more from the duo. Finally, as of March 11th, fans got what they were asking for when the duo officially released their EP. “The biggest request we got from fans was just more music – something they can put on and listen to Waterloo Revival for 30 minutes while they were driving in the car rather than just having one song on repeat,” said George. “I think the whole reason Cody and I got into music is because we’re songwriters, and that’s our biggest passion first and foremost, so we were sitting on a huge pile of songs that we’ve been dying to share with the world. We were so excited to finally get the opportunity to put some of those down in the studio and share them with our fans,” he added. This album is a selection of songs that they’ve written over the past few years, and the pair gives credit to Nashville for taking their songwriting to the next level. Up until their move to Music City in 2014, the guys almost exclusively wrote with one another, Cody explained. “We moved out to Nashville, which is a town full of songwriters and some of the most talented people that you could possibly want in the songwriting world. A lot of them all have their own different styles… We really kind of learned to collaborate,” he said. “You can kind of see throughout the EP, working with different songwriters we got better at collaborating and finding different ways to kind of push certain boundaries or make certain things sound slightly different.” George and Cody have a wide array of musical influences ranging from Third Eye Blind and Matchbox Twenty to George Strait and Willie Nelson. In middle school, Cody introduced George to some classic rock like the Allman Brothers, and of course, the guys are huge fans of fellow Texans like Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen. “I think that our sound, as weird as this sounds, maybe is a mixing pot of all of those,” George explained. “And then lyrically we kind of draw from that storytelling of Texas country as well.”
Despite only having six songs on the record, ‘Front Row’ has something that just about anyone can relate to. “We wanted it to kind of reflect not only the diversity in our songwriting but the diversity in life. You know, everybody goes through highs and lows, and sometimes you’re in the mood to party and sometimes you get your heart broken and sometimes you’re the happiest person on the planet, and we wanted this EP to kind of look like that ride,” George said. “All these songs we put together were just based on our moods at the time and what we felt like writing,” added Cody. Incredibly, the pair wrote every song on this EP and each one is based on a true story. Even though the album was released only a few short days ago, George and Cody have been blown away by reactions from their fans. “They’ve been amazing!” Cody exclaimed. “It’s kind of surprising how many different people have different favorite tracks on the record because part of our idea was to get this out and kind of see what songs seem to resonate best with the general majority.” From the reactions on social media so far, each song pretty much has equal votes from fans. “I think that’s the most flattering part to us. It still has got us scratching our head as far as what to do for a single, but as songwriters that’s the biggest compliment ever – that every song stands alone as different people’s favorites,” said George. Cooper explained that within the next couple weeks, they plan on putting a poll system in place. “Maybe having a fan contest situation coming together to get people excited, motivated, and make it a fun process to help pick out the single,” he said. While fan favorites are all over the place, both Cody and George agree that their favorite song on the EP is ‘The Damn I Didn’t Give.’ “We wrote that song as soon as we moved to Nashville and it’s one of those that stood the test of time even as we wrote with the biggest and best songwriters,” explained George.
George and Cody are hoping that within the next few weeks, they’ll be able to have an official single out, but that’s not all they have in in the works. “Getting this EP out was a huge first step for us – just getting out a cohesive piece of music that we can share with our fans, but were also really excited to be putting a full album out,” said George. “Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.” The guys have gone so far as to refer to this EP as ‘the warm up’ on Twitter, George explained what they meant by that. “We picked these six to come out with as the precursor to the full album… We’re, right now, working on direction and strategy for that, but we’ve got the content, we’ve got the songs, we’ve got our relationships with our producers now. I think more than anything we feel like we found our sound this year and we found who we are.” It’s exciting news for Revivers who are already loving the EP. In the upcoming year, Waterloo Revival is planning on taking the songs from this record out on the road where they hope to continue to grow their fan base. And what better way to kick off a touring season than with a performance at the Grand Ole Opry! The duo stepped on the sacred stage for a third time on March 18th, and the guys raved about how special it is. “It’s sort of the mecca of all country music, it has so much history to it. It’s always a real surreal moment as soon as you step on stage, and it’s definitely one of the most exciting shows that we’ll be playing of the year,” said Cody. “We’re pretty much always just pinching ourselves each time we do it!” George added that even opening up for Toby Keith to a crowd of 30,000 people didn’t make him as nervous as the Opry does.“It’s so funny, I keep telling myself that I’m not going to get nervous when I go up there… the first time I took the microphone off the stand at the Opry my hand was shaking so bad!” he said laughing, “I still get butterflies every time we go on that stage.”
In addition to the show at the Opry, the guys have a number of festivals lined up including Crush N’ Country in Virginia Beach and Tortuga Music Festival in Fort Lauderdale. In April, Waterloo Revival gets to take their music home for 3TEN Austin City Limits Live. “[It] will be killer for us! Every time we go home it’s an amazing warm welcome,” said George. The duo also teased some shows with “a couple of big artists” that can’t be revealed just yet, but they advised that we be on the lookout as there’s much more to be announced. 2016 is shaping up to be a pretty exciting year for the duo. Fans have fallen in love with their EP, and the pair is sure to scoop up tons of new Revivers out on the road with their energetic and passionate performances. Since we talked to Waterloo Revival last November, they’ve continued to escalate their success, but we know the climb to the top is just getting started. Their unquestionable talent and fun-loving spirit makes it impossible not to love what these guys bring to the table.
Fans can purchase Waterloo Revival’s new EP on iTunes here.