Meet SmithField: American Songwriter’s Road Ready Talent Finalist

American Songwriter scoured thousands of entries for the finalists for its The Road Ready Talent Contest. 

The Top 3 artists will compete live for the Grand Prize, including $20k in cash and more. The Road Ready contest broadened its horizons beyond songwriting to include stage performance and audience connection.

On April 22, the finalists—Beachmont, Joe Jenneman, and SmithField—will vie for the money and the title live at Nashville’s Basement East in front of a VIP audience and American Songwriter’s panel of judges.

We are doing a Q&A story with each artist.

Meet SmithField:

American Songwriter: What does winning this contest mean to you?

SmithField: It’s a huge honor to be picked as one of the first ‘road ready’ finalists because American Songwriter is such a prestigious, well-respected outlet in the music community around the world. Some of our biggest musical influences and heroes have been featured in AS, so for us to now have that opportunity gives us hope, excitement, exposure, and encouragement that we are on the path we are meant to be on in our musical journey. We have not had an easy road in Nashville. For almost 13 years, we’ve written hundreds of songs, played every dive bar and “not-so-glamorous” shows we could, spent countless hours on the road in a van playing shows all over the country, and built a fan base. We picked ourselves up after a folded record label never released us or our music, and we have had so many ‘start over again.’ Regardless of all the ups and downs, we have pursued our dreams relentlessly and have built an independent career alongside our fans, of which we are so proud. Moments like these with American Songwriter keep you going for your dreams to be even bigger in the future. It means the world to us to have this opportunity. These kind of things don’t come around often in your journey, so when they do, they are worth being celebrated.

American Songwriter: What about the Road Ready experience do you think will most impact your development as musicians?

SmithField: The Road Ready Contest has the potential to make massive impact on our journey as musicians. It’s an opportunity to garnish national respect within our musical community just by simply being featured in the magazine. Trey produces all of our music and has built a home studio where we record everything for Smithfield. The potential of putting more gear in our home studio will allow us to elevate our music even more. The ability to be mentored and/or meet new connections within our industry could be huge in our next steps on our journey of finding the right label or publishing partner. However, funding your career as an independent artist can be the most challenging part so that the cash prize would be one of the biggest game changers for us. We put out part one of our debut album in May 2024, and we have been trying to save up to make part two of that album. This contest would directly impact our ability to create, make, and put out the back half of our album. There is no greater impact than being able to put out music to our fans and to be able to keep going for our dreams.

American Songwriter: How would you describe your music to a new listener?

SmithField: We are both huge coffee people. In fact, most of our song ideas have happened over ‘coffee talk’ as we like to call it. Imagine sitting down and having a cup of coffee with your best friend and discussing everything that you’re going through. Your innermost thoughts, dreams, hopes, letdowns, your exes, relationships, friendships, family,  etc. You’re pouring your heart and soul out to this person in a trusted space and probably saying things that you wouldn’t tell anyone else but this person. That is what Smithfield does but in a song. We are inviting the listener to sit down with us and hear all of those personal thoughts and conversations in our music, because our music is true duets from two perspectives. You can’t get that from any solo artist out there. It makes our music and storytelling very unique. It’s heartfelt, harmony-filled country songs that make you really feel something. It’s not just “tailgates” and “Friday nights” type of country music in our atmosphere. We take a deeper dive into what country music can be. Or as we like to call it ‘Country with Heart’. Country music is so widespread now as a genre, so there’s a home for it all now.

American Songwriter: Describe yourselves as performers. What can people expect from your shows?

SmithField: Our live show is where we both shine the most! It’s like our alter egos light up when we perform. There’s a natural chemistry between us both that’s not manufactured but that stems from a trusted bond of almost 25 years of knowing each other that we both have on stage. We grew up together and have known each other since we were 10 years old. Our families go back three generations to a small town in Texas, and Smithfield, at its core, stems from family. When you come to a Smithfield show, we want you to not only feel like our friend we are doing life with but want you to be a part of our family. We sing about life, loss, love, and everything in between from two perspectives. There is a song and something for everybody to relate to in our show and music, and we want it to be a safe place where everyone is welcome and feels seen and heard. We always say if we didn’t make at least one person cry and feel moved, we didn’t do our job that night. You will probably either cry, smile, reminisce, hold your loved one tight, dance, laugh, or all of the above on the same night.

American Songwriter: What’s the one song in your catalog you’re most proud of, and why?

SmithField: WOW. This is a hard question. It’s like picking your favorite child. There’s a few standouts that we could name, but if we had to pick just one it would be “We’ll Figure It Out”. It was written at such a crucial time in our career. It was 2020, and we had just gotten out of our second record deal and publishing deal. We didn’t own any of our music anymore, had no way to make a living, all of our shows and touring were canceled, and a worldwide pandemic had hit. We felt defeated and completely lost. This was a day we truly thought, “Maybe it’s time to move on from music.” One of us said to the other (and to this day, we swear we can’t remember who it was, and tell the story differently each time as to who said it lol), “I don’t know what to do, but as long we stick together, we’ll figure it out, cause we always have.” From that moment, a song poured out of us that day. It was a song that was never to be released, just one that we needed to tell ourselves to keep going. A love letter to ourselves and our music career. It was a never a single that was pushed or marketed in any way. We released it almost one year later after we wrote it as encouragement to our fans, who were feeling the exact same way we were feeling that entire year.  To our surprise, hundreds upon thousands of comments and messages came back to us saying, “This song has helped me get through one of the toughest times in my life,” “I just lost my job,” “I just lost my loved one, and this song got me through,” or “This song helped me and my marriage when we were going through it and working things out.” We also gots countless messages of people using in their weddings and for their first dance songs.

The list goes on and on, so we began to post about it on TikTok and Reels in 2022, and from there, it has taken a complete life of its own. It has over 20 million streams completely organically, over 10,000 UGCs have been created with it, and over 100 million shares, all on social media. It’s not just a song that has incredible numbers, but it’s a song that tells the story of Smithfield as a whole and who we are, and it’s truly helping and healing people. It has helped us get through such a tough time, and it’s helping others in the world too. We rebuilt the next chapter of our music career off this one song. If it weren’t for this song, we wouldn’t still be making music. We’re most proud of it because we were honest in our writing and saw firsthand where vulnerability and honesty in a song can take you.

American Songwriter: What are your goals as artists?

SmithField: Our goal is to always write songs and put out songs as artists that are genuine, different, heartfelt, and unique in the genre that we exist in. We want to make people really feel something when they hear our music. There hasn’t been a female/male duo breakthrough in the traditional country music space in almost 15 years. We want to be that next generation of Lady As, Little Big Towns, and Sugarlands. We want to be selling out venues like the Ryman, where people really come to shows to listen to lyrics and take in the music. We want to be the next CMA duo of the year and make music that wins Grammys.

American Songwriter: Who are your influences?

SmithField: As a duo, our heroes and biggest influences are Lady A, Little Big Town, and The Civil Wars. Early on, before we started writing songs together, we covered these artists’ songs a lot, and just like a pro athlete would do watching game film to learn about their opponent, we would watch performances from these artists. Learning and observing how to interact and sing with one another. As individuals, we have very different musical influences: Trey grew up on rock ‘n’ roll, with his biggest influences being The Goo Goo Dolls, The Eagles, and Boston. Keith Urban and Garth Brooks are the two artists who influenced Trey and helped him find a home in country music. Jenn grew up on 90’s country music, with her biggest influences being LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill, and Shania Twain. Her first CD was a Patsy Cline Greatest Hits album. Country music has always been where she has felt at home and belonged. This blend of genres and musical influences is what makes Smithfield special and different.

Featured Image provided by SmithField