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AUSTRALIA'S FAVOURITE COUNTRY DUO
AUSTRALIA'S FAVOURITE COUNTRY DUO
For homegrown country duo the Sunny Cowgirls, there’s a whole lotta road strung out behind the battered old red WB – and plenty of dust coating the guitar cases rattling and shifting in the tray. But after 15 years on the road, sisters and now mothers, Soph and Less Clabburn show no signs of slowing down.
“We’re still alive – and we’re still making music!” Less jokes.
With eight acclaimed albums, a monumental live CD and two stellar DVDs already to their credit, the Sunny Cowgirls have been delighting Australian audiences and fans ever since their tearaway debut album Little Bit Rusty landed in 2005. Now with more than 83,000 likes on the Facebook page, the Sunny Cowgirls rank among the best-loved artists in the country.
Key to their devoted following and unique place in the Australian music landscape, the nine-time Golden Guitar-nominated Sunny Cowgirls sing about their own experiences living and working in rural and regional Australia, capturing the spirit of the bush and the bustling energy of life on the land. From the breakout Dust Will Settle (2008) to Summer (2010) to What We Do (2013) and My Old Man (2014), the Sunny Cowgirls have never failed to deliver the perfect blend of heartfelt feeling, an irreverent sense of fun, and recognition of the value of hard work, mateship, and community.
Growing up on their family’s idyllic Sunninghill property at Dunkeld near Victoria’s Grampians, the Sunny Cowgirls served out their apprenticeship in song performing at rodeos and ag shows across WA. It wasn’t long before Soph and Less packed up their guitars and set off across the Nullarbor Plain in their trusty ute, bunking down in swags beneath the ageless desert stars and picking up work as rousabouts along the way.
In 2005, swapping starlight for the bright lights of Tamworth, the Sunny Cowgirls attended the renowned Academy of Country Music. It was there that Less and Soph, then just 18 and 22 respectively, wowed Aussie country icon Adam Brand, who promptly invited them to join him on a national tour.
Little Bit Rusty followed later that year, rocketing to a Top 5 position on the ARIA Country Chart. Since then, the Sunny Cowgirls have cemented themselves as mainstays of Australia’s biggest country music festivals: returning year after year to the Tamworth Country Music Festival, Gympie Music Muster, and sharing the stage with local and international superstars at CMC Rocks. Not to mention an unmissable annual pilgrimage to spiritual home ground the Deni Ute Muster! In between, they’ve collaborated with the best and brightest in Australian music, from Sara Storer to Adam Brand.
Since the release of the chart topping, multi-award-nominated Here We Go in 2016, the Sunny Cowgirls have kicked plenty of goals, both personal and professional. The film clip for Here We Go lead single ‘Cowboy’ has racked up close to 2.4 million views on YouTube and counting. It’s a massive figure in the Australian music industry, in any genre, and further proof that the Sunny Cowgirls continue to expand their reach both at home and right across the globe.
Here We Go itself debuted at the No.1 spot on the iTunes Country Albums Chart, soared to the No.3 spot on the ARIA Country Chart, and cracked the top 15 on the overall ARIA Albums Chart. On the back of that success, the Sunny Cowgirls were nominated for Group or Duo of the Year and Australian Artist of the Year at the 2017 CMC Awards.
Soph and Less have also marked more than a few personal milestones since the release of Here We Go, with Gunnedah-based Soph welcoming the arrival of three Sunny babies, and Less welcoming two!
To celebrate a decade and a half on the road, the Sunny Cowgirls kicked off 2019 by setting up shop in the historic Gunnible homestead outside Gunnedah to record some new songs with great mate and sought-after producer Matt Fell.
“We had some new songs,” Soph explains, “and we thought the way to get it done would be to record at home – to bring the studio to us! We wanted to go into an old shed or a homestead to get a different sound and a different kind of vibe.”
For the Sunny Cowgirls, recording in a beautiful old farmhouse was a natural homecoming.
“It was really organic and natural and fun,” Less says of the experience. “Far less contrived and manufactured than going into a studio and clocking on at 9 o’clock. It felt really homely and natural.”
Also adding to the experience were a few hard-earned stubbies on the verandah after a hard day spent behind the microphone. The resulting EP finds the Sunny Cowgirls at their joyful, authentic, laidback best.
“There’s 6 songs on this project,” Less explains. “2 new songs, 3 of our old songs that we’ve re-done acoustically and put a different spin on them, and there’s a cover on there as well.”
Also featured on the EP are two new tracks bursting with the usual Sunny Cowgirls magic. ‘Raining Pineapples’ celebrates those special moments in which a long awaited fall of rain settles the dust at last and breathes new life into paddock and pasture. With its intoxicating mandolin and fiddle, it’s a classic Sunny tune about a good old rainy day.
The other new track is the delicate, candidly autobiographical ‘Sunny Days’.
“Spose we’ve grown along the way, but deep down we’re those two young girls crossing the Nullarbor Plan in an old red WB.”
“That song is about the last 15 years,” Less explains. “It has been a lot of hard work, but we’ve had so much fun along the way. It’s a little wrap-up of where we’ve been so far.”
“We wanted to tell a story of the journey that we’ve had,” Soph adds.
The Gunnible sessions also gave the Sunny Cowgirls an opportunity to revisit some of the best-loved songs from their incredible career to date, and to record a few earthy, re-worked acoustic versions. Representing Less and Soph’s early rousabout days and countless Friday and Saturday nights filled with singing, dancing, and a little straight-arm drinking, Little Bit Rusty opener ‘Rousy’s Life’ has long been a crowd and fan favourite. A celebration of both hard work and a hard-earned cutting out party, it’s an indisputable cornerstone of the Sunny Cowgirls story so far.
From 2006’s Long Five Days comes ‘Cuttin' Up B & S Style’, a fired-up good-time anthem that has set countless pairs of boots kicking up the dust and festival mud the country over.
Rounding out the classic Sunny Cowgirls tracks represented on the EP is the phenomenal ‘Cowboy’ – a song that, in a few short years, has become a personal anthem for spinsters in search of a bachelor of their own at B&S balls Australia wide.
Rounding out the EP, Soph and Less revisit an old personal favourite in Lee Kernaghan’s iconic ‘Hat Town’, a dedication to all those Aussies hailing from a one-street town in the Sunny Cowgirls’ beloved outback.
As thousands of fans Australia-wide know only too well, the Sunny Cowgirls deliver a live show like no other. After a tearaway 25-date national tour in 2016, Soph and Less hit the road with great mate Sara Storer in 2018 for the landmark Love and Land tour.
Having rung in the year with another jumping show at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January, the girls are plotting a massive return to longtime stomping ground the Deni Ute Muster in October. At the end of the day, the Sunny Cowgirls’ message is clear.
“We’re letting everyone know that we’ve done a lot in the past 15 years, we’re really happy, we love what we do, and we’re gonna keep on going!” Soph says.
“We’re still making music and we have every intention of continuing!” Less adds.
One thing is certain: the Sunny Cowgirls are set to fuel up the ute for another fun-filled 15 years.
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