The Reklaws Deliver Musical Tribute to Late Mother on ‘Outliving (For Mom),’ Launch Flo Walker Stardust Fund

When the Reklaws first appeared on America’s Got Talent on June 11, 2024, the country duo, made up of brother and sister Stuart and Jenna Walker, used their audition to bring attention to mental health awareness with their original song “People Don’t Talk About,” which the siblings wrote the song after the 2022 death of their mother from suicide. The live version of the song from AGT closes the duo’s new EP, a tribute to their mother, Outliving (For Mom).

“This is by far the most personal music we have ever shared,” said Jenna Walker in a previous statement. “So many people reached out to us with their own stories after hearing ‘People Don’t Talk About,’ which made us realize how many families have had similar experiences, so we wanted to share more of our story with this new music.”

People don’t talk about / When it’s 2 a.m. you’re talkin’ to yourself again / You’re diggin’ a hole, sing the siblings on the moving ballad, which they co-wrote with Callum Maudsley. Outliving is rounded out by the title track and “Don’t Quit Your Daydream,” which they co-wrote with Maudsley, Michael Blum, and Emily Reid. “These three new songs really reflect our journey over the past few years,” said Stuart Walker.

The penultimate “Stardust” on Outliving, co-written with Reid, Nate Hall, and Scott Helman, is also the namesake of a charity the Walkers created in their mother’s name. “It seemed like ‘Stardust’ has this image of fairy dust that you can share with people,” Jenna told American Songwriter, “and bring a spark of light and joy.”

In September of 2024, the Flo Walker Stardust Fund was launched in partnership with Kids Help Phone, a Canadian charity that offers phone and text-based mental health support to youth throughout Canada. To kick off the charity, the Walker family added a six-figure donation to fund during their The Reklaws’ YEE HAW Fun-Raiser in Toronto on September 27, on what would have been their mother’s 60th birthday.

The now Nashville-based Reklaws—their last name, “Walker,” spelled backward—grew up in the town of Kirkwall in Ontario, Canada, and their family ran the amusement-style Yee-Haw Adventure Farm on their property, where they would perform, Stuart on banjo and Jenna singing, for patrons. They even wrote and recorded a song about growing up on a farm, their 2024 single, “I Grew Up on a Farm.”

Jenna and Stuart spoke to American Songwriter about their journey long before and post-America’s Got Talent, the songs their mother inspired, and the Reklaws’ next chapter.

American Songwriter: Following the death of your mother, when did the songs start coming together for the new EP?

Jenna Walker: We lost our mom two and a half years ago, and it was a wild time. We were dealing with a lot as a family, and also individually, and these songs were getting our feelings out a little bit, which was special. We did write individually. I wrote “Outliving, “Outliving,” and Stuart wrote, “Don’t Quit Your Daydream.” We didn’t even tell each other about them until we were driving one day, and we just showed each other. We were feeling the same thing, but we didn’t know until we showed each other those songs.

Stuart Walker: Then we got together with our main writing group at our house in Nashville and wrote “Stardust” together, and it rounded out the album. We put the America’s Got Talent version of “People Don’t Talk About” on there as well, but it came together organically. It was more of an outlet for us to explain and just write out our feelings, and all of a sudden, it became this EP and happened to land on our mom’s 60th birthday. So we had to release it.

The craziest part about those two songs that we wrote separately is that we wrote them with the same guy, Michael Blum, and we listened to the vocals afterward. Usually, we do vocal takes for a week, but we could not beat what we sang the day we wrote it, because it was so emotional, and there’s so much thought and heart in our vocals. So it was the first time in a long time we didn’t redo the vocals on those songs.

AS: It seems like these songs had to get out for you both. Comparing Hometown Kids (2017 debut) and Freshman Year (2019), have you always had the same process for writing?

JW: For the longest time, we leaned on each other to get into those rooms and write the songs that we liked, but it’s been cool to break off and do our own thing. Working for the same purpose, you get double the songs, and it’s special because it gives us each a moment to write what we want. Sometimes as a brother and sister, you may want to write a love song about something you’re feeling but maybe not with your older sister in the room.

It’s nice that we have that opportunity. Some of the best songs we get are together, which is pretty cool, but it’s been a journey of figuring that out. We’ve leaned on each other to get to the point where we can be comfortable enough to go into rooms ourselves.

[RELATED: 5 Things to Know About America’s Got Talent Sibling Country Duo The Reklaws]

AS: Even though it’s been five years since your debut, and only a few years have passed, it was still a different place in time for you both. What is your connection to those earlier songs now?

SW: Every winter, when it dies down, the busy season of traveling and festivals, we listen to those songs again, and we’re like “Oh, we’re doing “Long Live the Night” (2019) again. Then we play it, and it’s the most reactive, incredible song of the night—every time. It just goes to show the power of a song. Some people drive 10 hours to come to our shows to hear that song. It means more to us that they love it to the extent that they have, so we will always play the songs that have changed our lives, whether we’re sick of them or not.

I heard the Eagles say the same thing. I owe the song too much, to not play it.

AS: Playing songs live is always an entirely different dynamic.

JW: Sometimes you have the song for a year, two years, five years before it comes out, and then they’re like, “Oh my gosh, play this song, it’s so new,” but it’s so old. You’re like “Is this even cool anymore?”

SW: Sometimes it’s the right place, right time. The World Junior Song (“Roots,” 2018) we were playing before the Grey Cup in Edmonton, and the CFL [Canadian Football League] and all of TSN [The Sports Network] were there, and they heard us play “Roots.” The song was originally about a guy who was a football player, and the second verse was about a girl who was pursuing her music career. When they heard it and were like “We love this. Could you make it about hockey?” Then it just turned into the Whole Junior Song for two years straight.

It’s wild what songs can do. We played the song and it changed our lives again.

AS: Since your time on America’s Got Talent is still fresh. In retrospect, how was the experience for you both? Did you learn anything from your time on the show?

JW: It was really cool. We got a call from them asking if we could do an audition, and it was a big decision for us. At first, were said “Do we really want to do this? Do we want to put ourselves out there to get judged by something that’s already a career for us?” It’s scary to put yourself on the line like that, but we both agreed that our career has not been a straight line, and doors open and sometimes you have to walk through them because you don’t know what will come. And this opportunity was awesome. I mean, it’s quite a production.

It’s definitely a reality TV show, but we felt so lucky to be able to play the song that we did for the first audition, “People Don’t Talk About.” That kicked off everything for us by giving us inspiration for this EP. It was about mental health and about our mom, and the amount of people who reached out after that was unbelievable. People need to hear more of this, and that’s kind of why we put this EP together. It opened up this door for us to realize that this world’s pretty crazy, and a lot of people feel alone.

AS: Aside from these four songs, is there a bigger album in the works?

SW: We’ve been sitting on songs, some of them are five to seven years old, so we’re picking our favorite songs that we’ve written in the last six years and putting it on this record, whether we want to save it or not. Hopefully, everyone reacts in the best way possible, but there are some songs that we have been excited about for years, and it’s time.

We have a few more shows before the year closes out, and for the first time, we’re putting out two Christmas songs. The one that’s going to be for country radio will be, it’s very playful and fun. It’s about a drunk Santa Claus Christmas story.

AS: Outside of the lyrics, sonically, is there anything different you want to explore next?

SW: I think we’re always going to try to write pop songs, whether they pop off or not. It’s always a fun experimentation when we do that. And country music has become more than what it used to be. It’s almost like punk rock was in the 2000s when everybody was jumping in. So it’s cool to be a part of it right now and push the boundaries as far as you’d like.

AS: It’s been two and half years since you lost your mother and while the music is definitely an outlet for you both, how have you been coping with this loss otherwise?

JW: I don’t think it gets easier. You can start to see how it all happened from a different perspective. Time helps with that, of seeing her and understanding what she was going through, even though it sucks. Grief is weird we’ve and it’s something the number of people we’ve met have come and told the same story … the same thing happened to them, and they still are emotional about it. It could be 25 years since it happened to them, but that doesn’t change how they feel.

AS: Along with all of the music, and the EP, to further honor your mother, you started the ‘Flo Walker Stardust Fund’ in partnership with Kids Help Phone.

JW: When our mom passed away, we started a GoFundMe right away, and we raised a bunch of money, which was amazing. But we were all in shock. We needed to grieve, and we didn’t know what to do with the money, so we kept it for two and a half years. People that did give to that were like “Are you guys going to do anything with it?” And it was tough because it’s hard to know where to put money. But we found Kids Help Phone, and they were on board right away.

Our mom went through a lot when she was young, and we think that her life could have been a bit different if she had gotten the proper help when she was young. So it seemed important to us to partner with Kids Health Phone. So on the 27th, which would have been our mom’s 60th birthday, we did an outdoor concert in downtown Toronto, and we raised $350,000 for Kids Help Phone, which was unbelievable.

SW: We realized in June of this year, that the 27th of September would have been our mom’s 60th birthday, so that was our deadline. It was the North Star of the whole thing, and the songs just came with it.

Photo: Austin Chaffe