By Luke Voogt
The Sunny Cowgirls and Sara Storer will hit the road together for the first time this month, winding through country Victoria on their way to Geelong.
Sisters Sophie and Celeste Clabburn are regulars at the Gateway Hotel but 17 February will be their first time playing there alongside Storer.
“Lessie and I are huge fans of her’s,” Sophie said.
“Before we even hit the industry we were listening to all her albums and knew the words to all her songs.”
The Love and Land tour will be the first time Sophie has toured since giving birth to first child Jack last March.
“(Celeste and I) were pretty much touring up until two months before he was born,“ the 35-year-old said.
And Sophie reckons Jack might have developed a of love of good vibrations on tour in the womb.
“All babies love music but a he really seems to have taken a shine to it,” she said.
“He loves it when I sing to him and I pick up the guitar. I will continue to try and drum it into him – especially the country music.”
The Sunny Cowgirls recorded the song Twelve Trees with Storer in 2010, so touring together was the next logical step for the trio.
“We always thought it was a good match because we all sing about and write about rural Australia,” Sophie said.
“She never gets too stressed out which is a good thing. You don’t want to be touring with someone too highly strung and that’s not Sara.”
Sophie first picked up the guitar at age 10, learning her first song at 11.
She “roped” her younger sister into playing country music, inspiring Celeste to teach herself bass guitar.
The Sunny Cowgirls take their name from the family farm Sunninghill at Dunkeld, near the Grampians.
The sisters grew up in in both WA and regional Victoria, cutting their teeth performing at rodeos and shows across WA.
They were in their teens when they released their debut album in 2005, after catching the eye of producers at Tamworth’s Academy of Country Music.
Their album Little Bit Rusty peaked at number three on the ARIA Country Charts.
The two have played with numerous Aussie country greats, as well as opening for Taylor Swift in the Snowy Mountains eight years ago.
Storer has won 21 Golden Guitars at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
