Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips chats with Tom Wolfe, bass player of Australia’s fave country rock band The Wolfe Brothers about life in isolation, the brand new single No Brakes, plus their announcement of a global recording deal with BMG.
Friday 17th April is a momentous day for The Wolfe Brothers; they release their new single No Brakes and announce a global recording deal with BMG. No Brakes is the most conceptually and musically bold song The Wolfe Brothers have ever put to tape. A joyful fusion of country, rock, and pop, No Brakes, like Country Heart, is a portrait of where the brothers are at this point in time — only this time, it shows them going full speed ahead, pushing forward with no cares in the world.
“We’re drawing from pub rock, from old country, from new country,” lead singer Nick Wolfe explains. “Maybe it’s a bit confusing, but we do what we do and write what we love.”
A song about going full steam ahead in a relationship, No Brakes works as an accurate metaphor for where The Wolfe Brothers are in their career. Co-written and produced by Lindsay Rimes in Nashville, it presents the last few years of the band’s journey and where they want to go.
“It’s been quite a long time since there’s been an Australian country act who’s been a huge, huge crossover,” says Nick, signaling, in part, where he and brother Tom’s ambitions lie.
No Brakes is the first single released via The Wolfe Brothers new label home; BMG. The exclusive global recording deal with BMG means The Wolfe Brothers now have a global label partnership to further build their career internationally. In the USA, The Wolfe Brothers join the BMG owned BBR Music Group (BBR was acquired by BMG in 2017) who will represent the band’s releases stateside. They join the star-studded roster on the powerhouse Nashville label, home to the likes of Chase Rice, Granger Smith, Jimmie Allen, Runaway June and Blanco Brown.
“We are thrilled to welcome one of Australia’s truly great artists to the BBR family,” says Jon Loba, EVP BBR Music Group. “The Wolfe Brothers. Nick and Tom write world class songs and are incredible live performers. The minute our staff heard their first single No Brakes they were in and wanted to be involved. We look forward to partnering with our amazing BMG Australia team to bring their music to the US!”
The Wolfe Brothers are thrilled to be joining the Broken Bow Records/BMG family for the next phase of their career. “To be joining a roster that includes Jason Aldean, Dustin Lynch and Lindsay Ell is truly a dream come true for us,” says bassist Tom Wolfe. “With the help of the dynamic and creative teams in the BMG offices around the world we are looking forward to taking our music and our live show internationally. We feel we are creating the best work of our career at present and look forward to the road ahead with our recording and publishing rights being managed by the passionate Broken Bow Records/BMG teams headed by Heath Johns and Jon Loba. We can’t wait to see where this journey takes us.”
Humility is as baked into The Wolfe Brothers’ DNA as music is, but it’s clear that, at this point in their career, it’s time for something bigger: radio crossover, stardom, the massive American market. Tom and Nick Wolfe will always remember where they came from, but No Brakes feels like the song that could take them a step further. It may be far cry from their roots, but as Tom says, ‘we’ve never been the kind of band that stays in one lane’.
No Brakes follows seven years of success for The Wolfe Brothers; the band have had 12 consecutive #1 radio airplay singles in Australia, all four studio albums have debut at #2 on the ARIA chart and #1 on the Australian Country Music Album Chart, and the band have been nominated for 16 CMAAs and winning Group Of The Year, Album of the Year and Song of The Year in 2019.