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- AWARD WINNING COUNTRY TRIO CALL IT A
DAY
Much loved and highly awarded Australian country trio, Sovereign,
today announced their plans to go their separate ways.
The decision was a hard one to make, but all members felt the time
was right to pursue separate projects.
Lead singer, Steve Eales, is currently in Melbourne recording his
debut solo album, “The Battler”, which is slated for a mid year
release. The first single, “Girls on Horses”, recently hit radio
and CMC and is gathering momentum as one of the hits of the year.
Ealesy’s unique solo sound is already being compared to Keith
Urban meets Big & Rich.
Drummer, Andy Hartley, has recently relocated to NSW and plans to
continue working in the country music industry as a drummer for a
number of top-line acts - while Steve “Stiffy” Hartley plans to
take a break from music for now.
“The legacy of Sovereign and our music will never die as we’ll
continue to work together in the future on various projects and I
plan to incorporate some of Sovereign’s signature hits like
“Tooraweenah Cowgirl” and “It’s My Town” into my new solo show”,
says Steve Eales.
“We’d like to thank all our fans and friends in country music for
their many years of support – we’ve had the ride of our lives”, he
concluded.
- RECOGNITION AT BUSH BALLAD AWARDS AND
VICTORIAN & NATIONAL CM AWARDS
RUM Entertainment would like to recognise Reg Poole,
Wolverines and Sovereign – all winners over the past couple of
weeks at two award ceremonies.
Reg Poole was named Male Vocalist for his stirring tribute song ‘A
Tribute To Slim’ at the 2007 Stan Coster Memorial Bush Ballad
Awards, held at Bungendore. The song is from his current album FOR
THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY.
Receiving Group of the Year at the National Country Music Awards
held at Whittlesea, were the Wolverines, for their hit single
‘Angel Eyes’, taken from their latest album GOOD TIMES.
And proud Victorian band Sovereign, were awarded the Victorian
Country Music Awards Victorian Group Of The Year for ‘It’s My
Town’, off their WILD ONE album.
All albums are available at all good record stores.
FOR THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY – Reg Poole
www.regpoole.netfirms.com
GOOD TIMES - Wolverines
www.wolverines.com.au
WILD ONE – Sovereign
www.sovereignmusic.com.au
-
- SOVEREIGN WITH TOP 20 HIT
SOVEREIGN are enjoying
unbelievable success with their new single UNBELIEVABLE.
Produced by Ross Wilson (Daddy Cool/Mondo Rock), Ross has given
the group a fresh injection of ideas, and it’s paying off.
UNBELIEVABLE is now #17 on the Top 30 Country Tracks chart - the
track taken from their forthcoming release.
However if you wish to hear more of Ealesy, Andy & Stiffy, then
check out their back catalogue including their previous album
WILD ONE, containing six hit singles.
www.sovereignmusic.com.au
For further information:
Publicist - RUM Entertainment
Ph/fax 02 4285 1461
(m) 0439 730 460
rum@rumentertainment.com
www.rumentertainment.com
 -
 -
- PAUL, GEORGE &
SOVEREIGN - ANNOUNCED AS MUSICOZ AWARDS FINALISTS
RUM Entertainment is happy to announce PAUL COSTA, SOVEREIGN &
GEORGE ROYTER being named as TOP 10 FINALISTS in the upcoming
MUSICOZ AWARDS.
Musicoz Awards is Australia's Premier Music Awards for Unsigned
and Independent Artists - nicknamed by street press as the
"Unsigned ARIA's". It's a National Music Awards - with 24 awards
that are drawn from entries/nominations in 18 categories of music.
The Musicoz Awards are one way of recognising the effort artists
have put in and the contribution they have made to the Australian
music industry.
Sovereign & Paul Costa have made the Top 10 Finalists in Country
Artist Of The Year, while George Royter has been selected in the
Top 10 Finalists for Folk Artist Of The Year.
These nominations are a nice finish to the end of a great year for
Paul Costa, having already been named 2005 ACRA's (Australian
Country Recording Awards) Male Vocalist Of The Year & his album
taking out Best Cover Artwork at the recent CMAA Australian
Country Music Achiever Awards.
Sovereign & George feel very privileged to be included alongside
other finalists such as Carter & Carter, Natalie Howard, Rebecca
Lee Nye & Luke O'Shea.
The awards are to be announced 1st December at the WIN
Entertainment Centre, Wollongong - for more information log onto
www.musicoz.org
- SOVEREIGN TRAVELLING
THE WONNONGATTA TRACK
- Nestled in the high plains of
Victoria among tall mountain ash and scrubby snow gums, is an old
brick chimney, a few broken down post and rail fences and some
very old European trees, the remnants of a once prominent cattle
property known as Wonnangatta Station. This is the setting of
SOVEREIGN'S latest single Wonnongatta Track.
Dubbed by media as ‘the men in black’, SOVEREIGN - Ealesy (STEVE
EALES), Stiffy (STEVE HARTLEY) and Andy (ANDY HARTLEY) have been
riding their horses up that way for years and have many a good
yarn to spin about their adventures. It’s a long ride beside the
crystal clear waters of the Wonnangatta River on the track from
Dargo. Riding through some of Australia’s most rugged bush, you
can be gone for days and see no one else.
The cliffs are so high in that part of the country, once sitting
astride their mounts on the edge of ‘the Bluff’, a light aircraft
flew past about a hundred feet down below the ridge line. The
occupants looked up and waved as they went past.
Ealesy always takes an old acoustic guitar and around the campfire
at night under the stars, with the sounds of the bush in the
background the boys can be found singing their favourites and
working out ideas for new songs. It’s the freedom of the great
Aussie bush that makes lasting impressions with the band - and
they try to recapture this experience in their songs &
performances.
With two successful albums under their belt and seven Australian
country music awards for their latest album Wild One, including
ACMLA Peoples Choice Award (Best Band), TIARA Group/Duo and
Victorian Album of the Year and Traditional Song of the Year at
the Victorian Country Music Awards - it seems SOVEREIGN is hitting
the mark they are aiming at.
The latest single Wonnongatta Track (NFS# 99 track 4) reflects the
band's love for their beloved High Country, and with a great story
and irresistible hooky chorus, it has that special factor to
ensure yet another chart hit.
WWW.THESOVEREIGNBAND.COM
WILD ONE - OUT NOW! - Distributed by OneStop Entertainment
For more information or interviews:
Publicist - RUM Entertainment
ph/fax 02 4285 1461
(m) 0439 730 460
rumentertainment@bigpond.com
 - SOVEREIGN
Australian Country Band of the Year 2004
Victorian Country Band of the Year. 2004
Victorian Male Vocalist of the Year (for Steve Eales) 2004
TAMWORTH 2005
TIARA for BEST GROUP/BAND
Australian Country Music Listeners, Peoples Choice Award
for BEST GROUP/BAND
Victorian and Nationals
Victorian Album of year Sovereign-Wild One 2005
Bluegrass and Traditional Country-Sovereign- Handful of Dust 2005
 - Album Cover
-
- Sale Memorial
Hall Fund raiser.
-
Sovereign
Announces the latest release of
“IT’S My Town”
From their album WILD ONE
Following the success of their recent
release “Tooraweenah Cowgirl, Sovereign have released a single
about a small rural town. When Steve Eales was asked “What
influenced Garth Porter, Col Buchanan and yourself to write this
song?”
Steve’s response was “We’d been discussing a previously written
song, glorifying a particular country town, when one of us said
…”my town sucks, there’s only one pub, one servo, a post office
and one shop, but it’s all I’ve got so don’t knock it”
It made us all laugh and we thought we ought to put a song
together and share the spirit. Behind the knocking, there’s always
a lot of pride in your home town.”
“IT’S MY TOWN”, is track 2 on NFS 88 or can be heard at
www.thesovereignband.com
Sovereign is also sharing the duet success with Travis Sinclair of
“Dream” Currently number 3 in the charts.
Sovereign would also like to thank everyone for their support for
playing their cd’s and would also love to do some interviews to
thank you. Sovereign will be conducting interviews from now
through the end of the month.
-
IS THIS AN ALL TIME RECORD?
“All I Have To Do Is Dream” TRAVIS SINCLAIR’S duet with
SOVEREIGN in a remake of the classic Everly Brothers hit, has
reached no.6 in the Country Tracks Top 30, Australia’s leading
weekly Country Music singles chart, compiled from radio airplay of
tracks in Australia.
-
Travis Sinclair has now had 7 consecutive TOP TEN singles from his
album + bonus disc “Rhythm of the Highway” – Tamworth
Edition.
The singles are:
1) Kick The Kenny @ no. 9
2) My Baby Loves My Rig @ no. 10
3) The Biggest Test @ no. 7
4) I’m From The Country – duet with Lee Kernaghan @ no. 1
5) Still Riding That Line @ no. 2
6) Eating Up Bitumen @ no. 5
7) All I have To Do Is Dream @ no. 6 in the current charts.
-
Currently, Travis is writing material with Garth Porter for his
upcoming album. The latest info for Travis can be found at
www.travissinclair.com
.
-
The boys have been playing and writing country music together for
years, although it wasn’t until the year 1999 that Steve Eales and
the brothers Steve and Andy Hartley actually formed Sovereign.
Big guitar riffs and catchy tunes feature prominently in
Sovereign’s sound but the main focus is in their unique vocal
harmony blend.
The first album ‘Too Hot to Handle’ was released in 2000. It had a
total of four top thirty songs including the title track, which
made the top twenty. The biggest hit from that record though was
‘See Them Ride’ which enjoyed a few months in the charts and rode
all the way into the top ten.
APRA nominated ‘See Them Ride’ in the top twenty songs of the year
for 2000.
Sovereign released their first video, which was aired by CMT; the
featured song was ‘See Them Ride’.
2001 saw the boys pick up their first major award.
• Country Band of the Year’ for the song ‘King of the Murray’, at
Victorian Country Music Awards.
In 2002 Sovereign signed a management agreement with Echidna
Music.
With Guenther Goetz heading up the management team the band were
brought to the attention of Australia’s leading country music
producer, Garth Porter. What followed was a merger of talent and
inspiration culminating in the brand new album ‘Wild One’.
The first single from the new album was ‘Company Man’ written by
Garth and Steve Eales. It had been over twelve months since the
last single release, so ‘Company Man’ was welcomed by the
Australian Country Music fans and soon found its place in the top
twenty on the country charts.
The next release was ‘Tooraweenah Cowgirl’ This was the first time
all three members of Sovereign had co-written a song, Garth also
co-wrote on this single. ‘Tooraweenah Cowgirl’ spent 12 weeks in
the top ten including four weeks at number three.
Sovereign was nominated in two categories for the Golden Guitar
Awards in 2004 making the final five for the ‘Tooraweenah
Cowgirl’.
The success of the new single was further extended when the boys
picked up three awards at the Victorian Country Music Awards in
February 2004.
• Australian Country Band of the Year
• Victorian Country Band of the Year
• Victorian Male Vocalist of the Year (Steve Eales)
Sovereign and Garth wanted to feature outback-Aussie
stories on the ‘Wild One’ album and have a stronger, more
traditional country style than the previous record.
With original songs like ‘Waiting on the Rain’, ‘Stomp” and ‘Long
Haul’ and a borrowed Lee Kernaghan song ‘Handful of Dust’, the new
record has achieved that goal.
‘Ring of Fire’ is one of the boys all time favorites and one which
has been included in their live set for years. It’s become a
tribute now with the passing of the original "Man in Black",
Johnny Cash.
Dubbed by the media as the Men In Black.
• Sovereign is now the Australian Country Band of the Year 2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For information regarding this event contact: Robyn Sheridan
Phone: 03 8302 0916 E-Mail:
accounts@pcau.net
All other information is available from Guenther Goetz at Echidna
Music Management
Phone: 0414 914 624 Fax: 02 9869 4547
E-mail:
guenther@echidnamusic.com
Website:
www.thesovereignband.com
- *CELEBRATES*
AT THE VICTORIAN COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS
STEVE EALES
“VICTORIAN MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR”
SOVEREIGN –“ VICTORIAN GROUP OF THE YEAR”AND
BEST AUSTRALIAN GROUP
Sovereign would like to thank the
Aussie country music lover and our mates
At radio for your continued support.
Tooraweenah Cowgirl video is still enjoying airplay on CMC (Auststar’s
national TV channel) so check out the new clip.
TV programs “On the Land and A Little Bit Of Country” are showing
performances of Sovereign live at the Denilliquin Ute Muster and
Gympie Muster on regional TV.
Tooraweenah Cowgirl and Company Man are just two of the brand new
delights on Sovereign’s album WILD ONE. The new album WILD ONE is
out on Cockatoo Records and is now available in stores and from
our website.
Sovereign concerts. A complete gig listing can be found on the
Sovereign website”
www.sovereignmusic.com.au
SOVEREIGN
WILD ONE STEVE EALES
Urged on by the persistence of myself and our manager Guenther
Goetz, we managed to get Garth Porter to come and watch one of our
shows at Blacktown in Sydney.
It was like a dream realized when Garth uttered the words “I love
those harmonies, I reckon I can do something with you guys”.
What followed was a more than just recording a bunch of our songs
with the bloke we have always thought to be the best CM producer
in Australia.
Over the following few weeks Garth listened to about 50 songs that
I had written or co-written with Andy, a lot where quickly put
aside for various reasons and we made a short list of about 10.
Our new producer was looking for that special element for the
album, real Aussie and real country.
Of the 10 songs that remained 2 were to be replaced by covers of a
Porter/Kernaghan/McCormack song ‘Handful of Dust’ and a Johnny
Cash classic which we’d been performing live for a couple of
years, ‘Ring of Fire’.
Three weekends of writing and re-writing, wrought some changes to
the last seven songs, that, as a songwriter I didn’t believe was
possible. Only one song remained untouched out of the original 50,
‘Waiting on the Rain’ my own composition.
A song called ‘Eden’ had a name change and an entire chorus
replacement, it became ‘Wonnongatta Track’. Garths ability to get
to the point of what I was trying to say in the song proved
exceptional. The song about belting through the bush on our horses
came to life . Now you could feel the cold mountain air and smell
the freshness of the damp, morning scrub as you listened to the
track. Andy and Stiffy who took the high country rides with me,
made great contributions to the lyrics, bringing their own
feelings of the experience into the new song.
The same approach was made to each of the other songs
individually, ‘Wild One’ is a song Andy and I wrote a few months
previously from a concept that he’d been mulling over for a long
while, about a blokes concern for his errant older brother. It too
was ripped apart with major portions discarded. When we sat down
at the studio to rebuild it there were five of us, Garth, Brendan
Radford, the Hartley boys and myself. I was amazed at how quickly
it came together. What emerged was sending goose bumps up my arms
and down my neck, it still does that to me when I hear the
recorded track..
Another concept came to light when we were writing, I had a song
about country towns which didn’t make the final 10. One of us said
“I can’t sing that, my town sucks, we’ve got one pub, one servo
and a general store that doesn’t open on Sundays”. Garth said “I
know just the man to help us put this one together”. So he and I
sat down to write one of the best tracks on the album with none
other than Colin Buchanan.
Colin also helped in the re-writing of one of my grittier numbers
about the heat of desire in the desert, ‘21 Days’ (on the Nullabor
Plains).
‘Long Haul’ is an Aussie ballad about a bloke working out in the
scrub wishing he was at home with his lady, there’s so much first
hand emotion in that song and it really shines through.
‘Stomp’ is a song we all wrote together a few years back and had
been performing it all this time, it was a mind trick trying to
perform it in its new form for the first time. We are always taken
aback when we see the partying cowboy crowds stomp their way
through our live sets, its even more thrilling on a wooden floor
in some of the public halls and outback pubs.
The project became an adventure in sound and creativity when we
laid the band tracks, there was myself on guitars, Andy on drums
and percussion and Stiffy on bass. We brought in the exceptional
talents of players like Brendan Radford for mandolin, blues harp,
acoustic and electric guitars, Laurie Minson for dobro, Mitch
Farmer played some drum tracks and James Gillard lent us his
considerable talent for further bass work.
A major highlight was the privilege of jamming along with the
likes of Mick Albeck on fiddle and Michelle Rose on pedal steel,
Rod Mc Cormack on guitar and banjo.
I was amazed at the kind of contribution a studio engineer like
Ted Howard can make to the overall sound of an album, how he was
able to squeeze that extra bit of life into each instrument he
recorded. He and Garth are an excellent team, complimenting each
others ability and producing that rare quality indescribable
except by the term X factor.
Recording the vocals for 12 songs over the period of about six
months is a fantastic way to register your growth as an artist.
Each song brought about a greater development in depth and feel
for the Australian country song.
Our producer understood how far we needed to push ourselves in
order to bring to the surface the kind of emotion and vocal
control we needed to make these songs really come to life. There
was coaching, coaxing, squeezing and wrenching. Some of the most
sweetest and gutsiest performances of our lives so far, are
captured on this thrilling new album and I have to say that I’m so
proud of it. I’m proud of my brothers in arms Andy and Stiffy and
dare I say it…proud of myself. I sincerely hope every Aussie
country music lover enjoys our new work.
TWO FINAL FIVE NOMINATIONS for…
BEST NEW TALENT and
VOCAL GROUP/DUO OF THE YEAR in the
2004 TOYOTA GOLDEN GUITAR AWARDS
Sovereign would like to thank the Aussie country
music lover and our mates at radio for nominating Sovereign in the
final five both categories.
SOVEREIGN also picked up 7 final nominations in the
VICTORIAN COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS…go boys!!
Meanwhile the Tooraweenah Cowgirl video is enjoying airplay on CMC (Auststar’s
national TV channel) so check out the new clip.
…And the Tooraweenah Cowgirl single is flying up the country charts,
it’s currently # 10…keep it going guys.
TV programs “On the Land and A Little Bit Of Country” are showing
performances of Sovereign live at the Denilliquin Ute Muster and
Gympie Muster on regional TV.
Tooraweenah Cowgirl and Company Man are just two of the brand new
delights on Sovereign’s album WILD ONE. The new album WILD ONE is out
on Cockatoo Records and is now available in stores and from our
website.
Look out for Sovereign at West Leagues Club during Tamworth Country
Music Festival this January with the Travis Sinclair and Sovereign
concerts. A complete gig listing can be found on the Sovereign
website”
www.sovereignmusic.com.au
Print out and have
the memories
|
Tamworth
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