The War and Treaty continue to revel in the art of collaboration with their new song with Zach Bryan. The husband-and-wife duo of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter were hand-selected by the elusive singer after they met during Willie Nelson’s 2022 Outlaw Music Festival Tour. Bryan came to their dressing room to drop off merchandise when the two acts hit it off. “He was really excited, very personable,” Tanya recalls to American Songwriter backstage at the 2023 Pilgrimage Festival.
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They ran into each other again at the 2023 ACM Awards where Bryan was blown away by their performance of “Blank Page.” “He was like, ‘Oh my God what you guys just [did] on the stage, me and my dad were freaking out, we gotta exchange numbers,’” Michael said of Bryan’s reaction.
Days later, Bryan called the Trotters and sent them a song he wanted them to sing with him. That song turned out to be “Hey Driver,” a poetic tune about a man going wherever inspiration takes him and has the three singers trading harmonies on such lyrics as, So take me down a road that’s a little bit windy / To a place they still put sugar in their iced tea / Where the women are fine and the love is fair / Hey driver you can drop me off anywhere.
After The War and Treaty sent Bryan a voice memo of them singing their part, they were surprised to see that Bryan promptly shared it on social media. “Next thing we know, it’s plastered everywhere on social media and our label doesn’t even know we’re doing this… he was like, ‘Bro, it’s perfect,’” Michael says with a smile. “It works how he wants it to work.”
“Hey Driver” ended up on Bryan’s self-titled, chart-topping 2023 album. It marked a career-high for The War and Treaty, as it reached the Top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. “It’s really changed our lives, and it’s opened up our audience a little bit more,” Michael affirmed. “That’s the power of collaboration.”
Photo by Catherine Powell/Getty Images for CMT
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