EXCLUSIVE: The Shires star Ben Earle has revealed the blunt warning BBC DJ Bob Harris gave him early in his career as he prepares for his upcoming headline shows alongside Crissie Rhodes
Crissie Rhodes and Ben Earle
Bob Harris knows a thing or two about music, so when he gives you a stark warning you have to sit back and listen. And that’s exactly what happened to Ben Earle before his impressive rise to fame in the music industry.
Ben, who alongside Crissie Rhodes is currently smashing the UK Country music scene as duo The Shires, revealed that he was given a blunt bit of advice by the legendary BBC DJ as he travelled to Nashville over a decade ago.
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror, Ben said: “He said to us before our first trip to Nashville, ‘the guy delivering your pizza will be a better musician than you’.”
As Crissie laughed, Ben continued: “And I know what he meant. At the time, I took it very personally! But he was basically saying that the talent there is incredible, and you’ve got to learn, and just when you get there, just be open and just learn as much as you can.”
Ben admitted he still finds Nashville “the most magical place” over a decade on. “I always think about that whenever I jump in an Uber in Nashville or speaking to someone behind a bar or whatever, or someone who’s serving you in a restaurant. I’m always like, ‘they could be the next Luke Combs or the next Lainey Wilson or something’ and it really is that kind of place.”
Thankfully for Ben and Crissie their hard work and talent has shone through and they’ve released six studio albums. The pair, whose hit tunes include Getaway Car and Daddy’s Little Girl, recently took to the stage at Hyde Park in front of thousands.
They were on a bumper day of Country music that also featured the likes of Zac Brown Band before Garth Brooks closed the show. “To see the amount of people that had turned up for us was incredible,” Crissie said. “It was just like a sea of people. We got everybody line dancing with us as well, which was really cool.”
And Ben admitted that he was able to enjoy the experience a lot more now than past occasions, where he confessed stage fright would often get the better of him. “Generally, the bigger the stage, the more anxious I would feel,” he said.
“And because of that, looking back at some of the memories of some of the shows, some of them I can’t remember at all.”
But he praised Crissie for her support and introducing her to people who were able to help him prepare for a show. And Crissie said that despite knowing Ben’s fears at the time, they would never come across on stage. “You would never sense Ben’s anxiety at all on stage,” she said. “Like he would be like kind of falling apart, but no one else could witness it.
“Nobody else knew that was going on. I could kind of look over and be like, “Oh yeah,” and then, you know, he’d just storm it out all the time.”
Now, the pair are preparing for a number of headline shows over the coming months, including a performance at Gateshead’s The Glasshouse on the banks of the River Tyne. It will see them play their best tunes as well as tunes from their new album, Bonfire.
The album is the duo’s first in four years and they believe it comes at a time when Country music in the UK is booming. Crissie said of the rise: “I think people want more, like, authenticity. I think with so much AI stuff going on, I think people just want real life, and I think that’s what country has always brought.
“It’s for the working people, it’s for genuine people that are just living their daily lives. And I feel like it was kind of laughed upon for such a long time, because often people thought it was like about just divorces and their dogs and stuff like back in the day. But it’s it’s it’s so universal now, and I think it crosses all of the generations as well.”
Check The Shires’ latest tour dates and tunes at www.theshiresmusic.com
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