(Exclusive) Maddie & Tae One Decade Later: Seeking Intentionality and Musical Justice

One decade after then-teenaged Maddie & Tae made their headline-grabbing debut with their tongue-in-cheek “Girl in a Country Song,” the girls are all grown up. Maddie Font and Taylor Kerr are now married and have children. Font is mom to Forrest, 1. Kerr, pregnant with her second child, has a daughter, Leighton, 2 ½.

Their new EP, What a Woman Can Do, is out now and mirrors their growth as artists and women.

“I hope that when people listen to this EP, they hear, ‘Oh dang, there’s just years of evolution poured into it,” Font said. “You can’t write songs like, ‘What a Woman Can Do’ and not have those experiences. Going back to when we were teenagers, we did have a lot to write about because even then, we had lived a whole freaking couple of lifetimes. Now, we’ve lived a bajillion lifetimes. It’s really coming out.”

Kerr’s husband, hit producer Josh Kerr, produced the EP with fellow popular producer Corey Crowder. The six-song collection includes the title track, which the women wrote with hit writers Luke Laird and Barry Dean. They co-wrote their infectious “Sad Girl Summer” with Matt McGinn and Josh Kerr. And Font wrote “One Hit Wonders” with Jamie Moore and Ryan Beaver.

Font based “One Hit Wonders” on her decade-old memories of how it felt for critics to dismiss her and Kerr as inconsequential based on the runaway success of “Girl in a Country Song.” She wrote it while Kerr was on maternity leave and said people already know the backstory because it is the duo’s story.

“When we first came out, that was the narrative,” Font said. “Remember, Maddie & Tae, one hit wonders. Then our record label went under, and we had no record deal.”

Maddie & Tae Are Relishing Musical Justice

The women remember being 20 years old and seeing a headline that declared them homeless.

“It was dramatic,” Font said. “We will never forget that narrative. I always typed ‘One Hit Wonders’ in my phone. I was like, ‘I want to write that, but in a positive way, use it for good but kind of pay homage to the freaking jerks that were calling us one-hit wonders.’”

Lyrics include: Who knows how long this song goes| If we follow it up or we’re just another number| All I know is, I’m okay with| You and me being one hit wonders

The women call it “musical justice.”

“I might not have been able to say what I wanted to say when that came out, but 10 years later, we did justice, musical justice,” Font said.

Both women are 29, but they’ve been a band for 15 years. Sometimes, they wonder what their lives would look like if their story looked more like Laney Wilson’s. While Maddie & Tae launched immediately with “Girl in a Country Song,” Wilson spent a decade paying her dues in Nashville before her music started to connect. The result, they say, is that Wilson knew who she was artistically as an artist as soon as people discovered her. Because Maddie & Tae were so young at the beginning of their career, the women had to hone their artistic identity in the public eye.

“We got the freaking crash course in the music business, what we wanted, what we didn’t, and we found ourselves in the business in the thick of it,” Kerr said. “I think God just knows how we work. I wouldn’t trade the wisdom that we’ve gained in the last 10 years for anything. Now we’re in this place where there is intentionality. We are finding balance.”

Taylor Kerr: You Can’t Have Creativity in a Box

The EP is part of a larger project that is on the way. But this portion of it — What a Woman Can Do—began with “Any Kinda Lovin,’” which they wrote two years ago. Font wrote “One Hit Wonders” the year before that, but the women weren’t sure it would sonically fit on the project.

“It hints to some other vibes that we’ve got coming with the full album,” Font said. “We’ve just been experimenting. We didn’t want to stay in this box. We were like, ‘Let’s explode the box and just see what happens.’”

“You can’t have a box in creativity,” Kerr added. “We just wanted to see what happens if we just take all the bumpers off and write.”

The duo, they said, will always have the sass of “Sad Girl Summer.” But other songs, such as the title track, reflect the intention and observance they’ve developed since becoming mothers.

“This is definitely us in a different phase of life,” Font said.

Since they’ve had children, they have more responsibilities. But they are laser-focused on penning something meaningful when they step into a songwriting appointment. If they have five hours, they’ll be in the moment and use every second.

“You Can Freaking Do Anything”

“I think the elevation and the maturity was not intentional,” Kerr said. “Truly, that’s just where we are right now. It’s just happening organically, and we’re getting to write a little bit less. So, we just have to make the most of it, which I feel like we are.”

“What a Woman Can Do,” the song and the EP, were conceived to embody the idea that nothing can hold them back as women. They remember a time in the entertainment business when getting married and having children was considered career suicide, but it’s different now. Maddie & Tae want their music to encourage women.

“You can freaking do everything,” Kerr said. “What a woman can do is insane. There’s a balance there. And we’re not doing it perfectly, but we’re giving it our all and trying to just show that you can feed many dreams at one time.”

(Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images)