Moonlight Social - Heading South (2012)

It’s not easy uprooting something you’ve grown for years and moving it from comfortable soil to unfamiliar territory. But in the summer of 2016, that’s exactly what Moonlight Social did. Jennica Scott and Jeremy Burchard loaded up the van, a trailer, a few other cars, the dog and the cat, and, with a bittersweet goodbye, put Austin, Texas in the rear view.

About 14 hours and 850 miles later, they planted themselves in Nashville, Tennessee — roots fully intact.

And then they got to work.

“We owed it to ourselves and to the amazing people who helped us over the years to give it everything we’ve got,” Burchard says. “There’s an attitude shift in Nashville that is embracing really cool, unique sounds in country music. You see it in artists like Little Big Town, Maren Morris, Brothers Osborne and Miranda Lambert. We’ve got an opportunity to be a part of something bigger.”

That opportunity manifests itself in the duo’s first multi-song release since 2012, the Make You Smile EP. Recorded at Prime Recording in Nashville, the 5-song body of work captures the pair’s unique dynamic and puts their originality on full display.

Jennica and Jeremy met in 2009 as members of the University of Texas Longhorn Marching Band. By 2010, they were uploading covers to YouTube and writing songs. Over the next several years they toured across more than a dozen states, playing hundreds of shows before landing in Nashville to bring their unique genre-bending sound to the next level.

Quite simply, nobody else sounds like Moonlight Social. And nobody else is making their kind of music.

In addition to Jennica and Jeremy’s rich vocal dynamic and Jeremy’s multi-instrumentalism, the EP features a cast of some of Nashville’s finest players, like bassist Paul Rippee and drummer Donny Marple (of Lee Brice’s band The Love Cannons), guitarist Tim Galloway (Gary Allan, Jake Owen, Josh Turner) and legendary pedal steel player Russ Pahl (Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert).

Following in the vein of their critically praised debut Heading South, Burchard co-produced the EP, this time with engineer Derek Garten. The collaboration allowed the band to capture and layer interesting textures, creating a project that feels both radio ready and decidedly left of center. There’s a bit of an unpolished edge to their well-produced sound, similar to Miranda Lambert and Eric Church. Yet there’s a catchy pop groove and melody at the center of every tune.

Burchard and Scott wrote more than 50 songs for the project, ultimately settling on five that showcased different aspects of their creative range while still capturing the nuances of their personalities. The titular “Make You Smile” (co-written with Jo-Leah Tilbury, who also co-wrote their award-winning “Rub A Little Dirt On It”) flips the typical “hook-up” culture concept on its head, using the pair’s mutual heartbreak as the underlying basis for a “misery loves company” theme rooted in musical therapy. Upon its release, The Huffington Post called the song “one of the best country pop songs of the year” and “simply irresistible.”

Follow-up single “Bad Side” comes from a co-write with Nashville pop darling Jenn Bostic. Lovingly dubbed “steampunk country” by Burchard, the song hints to the narrative tradition of country music with a thick-as-thieves story lyric. But the duo upends expectations by laying it on an up-tempo, driving musical foundation complete with stomps and claps, banjo, ripping solos, and just a hint of synthetic machinations.

“My Everything,” co-written with Byron Hill (who wrote classics like George Strait’s “Fool Hearted Memory,” Alabama’s “Born Country,” and Gary Allan’s “Nothing On But The Radio”), sees the duo tapping into their softer side, delivering a traditionally-tinged song that flirts between romantic and lovelorn, depending on your point of view.

The EP also includes “I Wanna Fall In Love,” a fan favorite and road-tested song written by the duo back in Austin. It underwent several growth spurts before developing into the fully realized song on the EP — a relatable frustration to just about anybody who has felt down and out when it comes to their love life.

The collection closes out with “So Close,” a song co-written with Canadian country star Patricia Conroy (whose song “God And My Girlfriends” Reba McEntire recently recorded). With a triumphant swell of acoustic instruments and thunderous drums, Moonlight Social uses “So Close” as an anthemic ode to optimism and embracing of failure as progress. It’s a fitting summation of Moonlight Social’s aesthetic.

They released the Make You Smile EP on April 13, 2018, debuting on the Billboard charts (Country Album Sales and Heatseekers — South Central) for the first time in their career.

As a band that traversed the country world and underwent all the growing pains associated with it, Scott and Burchard are poised to carve out and occupy their own space in an increasingly genre-less, borderless musical landscape. Despite the ever-changing popularity tides of the day, Moonlight Social has stuck to their guns and made the music they wanted to make.

And audiences large and small feel that passion and commitment. Even in story songs about morally corrupt couples on crime sprees, this band is genuine. They can laugh at themselves with a wink and a smile, deliver impassioned anthems with energy, or tug on your heartstrings with subtlety. And they mean it every time.

01. Moonlight Social - Heading South (4:09)
02. Moonlight Social - Hey Lonely (3:29)
03. Moonlight Social - Neither Are You (4:12)
04. Moonlight Social - The Finer Things in Life (3:16)
05. Moonlight Social - Burning Bridges (3:54)
06. Moonlight Social - The Better Part (4:01)
07. Moonlight Social - Slow Release (3:54)
08. Moonlight Social - Well, That Was a Mistake (3:47)
09. Moonlight Social - The Idea of Me (4:21)
10. Moonlight Social - Weight off My Shoulders (3:24)
11. Moonlight Social - Even If (4:07)
12. Moonlight Social - So Long (San Antonio) (6:28)