Last fall Sarah and Austin McCombie invited their patreon subscribers to their farm in North Carolina to listen to Be Real With Me, the husband and wife duo’s latest album as the breezy folk group Chatham Rabbits. At the overnight listening event, the group’s loyal supporters got to experience the country and bluegrass-hued folk LP as a September twilight faded into night.
Five months later, Be Real With Me has now found its way off of the duo’s farm and into the ears of listeners near and far with its Valentine’s Day release. In just nine tracks, the new LP takes on daunting subject matter including the loss of friends, reckoning with religion and the choice between a career or family. But in spite of these at-times heavy themes, Be Real With Me sounds far from a downtrodden wallow. Even as Sarah contemplates loss and existential forks in the road, her voice carries the tunes high with her sweetly subtle Southern drawl and light as a feather airiness. Mature and clear-eyed, the duo looks beyond the confusion and sadness that can often permeate the past and gazes into the future — no matter how daunting or uncomfortable that may be.
Ahead of a U.S. tour this spring and a week before the release of Be Real With Me, the McCombie’s chatted with Melodic Magazine about songwriting, creative catharsis and the best way to listen to their new album.
Congratulations on the new album that’s coming out just over a week from now. How are you feeling?
Sarah McCombie: I am feeling like this has been a long time coming, because we’ve worked on this record for like two years. I’m just relieved that it’s finally gonna be out in the world. Even more than that, what I’m focusing on is selling tickets to our album release shows and just getting my head in the game for being gone for like eight weeks on the road.
Does this release feel any different from the previous albums that you guys have put out?
SM: I’m biased, I guess, but I think this is our best record yet. It’s the most mature, it’s the most progressive and the furthest away from the Bluegrass world, so that feels really exciting.
Is there any rhyme or reason for releasing the album on Valentine’s Day, or was that just circumstantial?
SM: We knew it was going to be [released in] early 2025 but this record is very much a record that Austin and I only could have written having been married for almost 10 years now. We are so intertwined with not just our relationship on a romantic level but, you know, being business owners, being landowners together, everything is so interconnected, and the Valentine’s Day thing did kind of seem like tongue in cheek to to release the record.
Are you guys usually writing songs separately and then coming together to finish them, or is it more of a collaborative process the whole way through?
SM: We’re pretty much writing separately. I mean, Austin is the type of person that he’ll, like, have an idea in the middle of the night and, like, wake up and work on it. I am the type of person that I keep running notes and voice memos in my phone at all times, but I had about three weekends or four weekends away where I booked an Airbnb or a cabin or whatever, and I went with all my songwriting material and just locked myself away for 48 hours and would work on it. When a song is like, 99% of the way done, we’ll bring it to each other, and there’s maybe a word change. The song “Childhood Friends” had a completely different melody and I brought it to Austin, and I was like, this is not gripping, it’s too slow and it’s just not fitting. He came up with the [current] riff and the melody for that tune. So, to answer your question, we write very separately, and then come together and try to fine tune it.
How do you guys decide what kind of ideas are kept just for you guys as a couple versus meant for the stage and the music?
SM: First and foremost, we are very passionate about looking at what will bring our fans joy and connection, and if a song is going to be something that people can relate to or find hope in or inspiration in, then that is more important than our feelings, I would say. But this record does touch on some subjects that, like in our own marriage, have been very difficult and [have taken] a lot of therapy to overcome. Sometimes when you write a song years later or talk about it on stage, it’s like ripping the scab off something that was [already] handled. Ultimately, we really try to think about what would be helpful and inspiring to our fans, and that typically trumps our own personal feelings about it.
Do outside influences — whether that’s music, movies, TV, or other media — have any sort of bearing on the music you guys are creating?
Austin McCombie: I definitely think it does. But I will say, I think a lot of the influence comes when we’re not actually in the studio. I think when we’re in the studio, the doors are kind of locked in terms of what do these songs need? Musically speaking, sometimes outside influence can hinder your perception of what those songs need. So I feel like we do try to shut that part of our brain off. I’ve been watching Mad Men again recently, and there’s this quote that Don Draper talks about when he’s trying to make the best ads he’s like, “All right, think about this to its fullest extent, and then forget it. And then an idea will come to you,” and to me that is how it is in the studio. It’s like, consume him all this influence be really into all this — even music way outside of our genre. Let that marinate in your mind, and then walk in the studio and just pretend like it doesn’t exist and see what happens.
SM: I don’t think people would ever know this, but when I wrote “Gas Money” and when we were recording it, the album I was listening to nonstop was GUTS, the Olivia Rodrigo record. No one would be able to tell that. It’s just infused into what I’m thinking about, but in my own Chatham Rabbits way.
I know that there’s several moments on this album that are very personal to each of you. When releasing personal subject matter, does it offer some sense of relief or is it challenging to go back to that place?
SM: It feels very cathartic. The world right now feels so out of control and like I cannot keep up with what is happening with legislation and things that actually really affect our daily life and so many people we are around. Being on stage and like getting to perform these songs how we want them performed, it feels like the teeniest bit of cathartic control.
AM: It’s also our contribution. We all feel like we can’t wrap our heads around what we can do to better society and better this country, but one thing we can do is share our art.
If each of you could choose an ideal environment for listening to this album in, what would it be?
SM: For me, it’s all about listening in the car, and it doesn’t matter what kind of speakers, just turn it up loud enough and it’ll be fine. Just like driving by yourself and listening to something top to bottom. That, to me, is reminiscent of when I got my driver’s license, and I was listening to Brandi Carlisle and the Avett Brothers and Ingrid Michaelson and I was obsessed with that kind of stuff.
AM: It’s a requirement in the perfect scenario that someone would have decent over the ear headphones — not even necessarily noise canceling but like some quality headphones — and like just laying down in their most comfortable environment. Whether that’s like cozied up in their bed or like out in the woods on a hammock or something and just listening to it top to bottom in an environment that they’re already comfortable in to be able to really focus on the record. It’s the way I listen to my favorite music — I’m listening to it in a place that I’m already enjoying being in, and it’s like I can just focus on the music, because I’m already happy.
To catch Chatham Rabbits on tour this spring, visit their website here for ticket information.
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