It’s said that a great band is like a gang or perhaps a family, united by music, sweat, passion, and blood. That is certainly the case with Matrimony, an exhilarating new band whose interpersonal connections run far deeper than your average combo. Fronted by the husband and wife duo of Ashlee Hardee Brown and Jimmy Brown, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based band are accompanied by Hardee Brown’s talented brothers, Jordan and CJ, resulting in an intuitive collaboration that is both immediately affective and utterly their own. MONTIBELLO DRIVE, the band’s eagerly anticipated debut album, takes its title from the Hardee family abode, a bucolic homestead where multiple generations of friends and family all sang and played together.
The Northern Irish-born Brown initially made his way to the States via China, accompanying a real estate developer friend on a business trip that wound up in Charlotte. He played guitar in a fellow Belfast ex-pat’s band while simultaneously working on his own songs with a rotating roster of local musicians. One of them, a certain Jordan Hardee, suggested Brown meet his sister Ashlee, herself a gifted singer/songwriter. The two hit it off from the jump, co-writing a song their very first time together, ultimately tying the knot in July 2010 in North Carolina. As they continued to pursue their respective musical careers, both soon realized that there was little point traveling separate roads when they should in fact be sharing the journey.
Matrimony began their musical life as a duo, performing in clubs and cafes around Charlotte. Brown veered from electric guitar to acoustic, while Hardee Brown adapted her indie influences to fit a folkier frame. 2010’s THE STORM & THE EYE EP was quickly recorded, earning the couple considerable local acclaim for their melding of rock, country, gospel, and the great Irish and American folk traditions. To replicate the EP on stage, Matrimony absorbed other musicians and friends into their live sets, coalescing with the official membership of Ashlee’s brothers CJ (banjo, mandolin) and the aforementioned Jordan on drums. Matrimony performed relentlessly, sharing the stage with a diverse range of acts from Langhorn Slim to Passion Pit. They refined their distinctive sound by cutting a series of demos, both at home as well as with producer (and Interpol drummer) Sam Fogarino at his Normal Studio in Athens, Georgia. In July 2012, the band headed for Nashville to finally begin their full-length debut, this time with Jay Joyce (Brandi Carlile, Cage the Elephant, Eric Church) at the helm.
The songs of MONTIBELLO DRIVE reverberate with memory and feeling, embodied in both the band’s layered instrumental interplay as well as the Browns’ individual talents for powerful, evocative lyricism. “This record kind of sums up where we’ve been,” Hardee Brown says. “We all grew a lot, just living there, so there’s a lot of emotion that runs through the songs.” Having made an album that sings of home, Matrimony are now poised for life on the road. This band of lovers and brothers are keen to bring the sublime songs and extraordinary character of MONTIBELLO DRIVE to the stage, where their camaraderie and connection come full to the fore. “We just want to write great songs and we want to play,” Brown says. “It’s not about anything else. We love traveling together and hanging out, there’s no bigger dream for us than just being able to write great songs and play them as much as possible.”
