The U is Silent; We Aren’t-Episode 8
Country Roads & Family Ties: Wilson Fairchild’s Life in Harmony
What happens when you grow up with country music royalty—and decide to carve your own path without forgetting your roots? In this episode, country duo Wilson Fairchild (Wil and Langdon Reid) take us behind the scenes of their musical journey, from writing heartfelt lyrics to reviving Staunton’s beloved Happy Birthday America celebration. With trademark humor and undeniable harmony, they share stories of growing up as sons of the Statler Brothers, the hilarities of the road, and why staying grounded in Staunton, Virginia is their secret sauce. It’s a conversation about family, legacy, and discovering a rhythm all your own.
About This Podcast
The U may be silent, but Staunton has a lot to say. Join Visit Staunton as we sit down with inspiring individuals at the top of their craft. We’re chatting about what drives their passion, the actions behind the impact, and a little about the place where they’re making it all happen.
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TRANSCRIPT
All right, guys, welcome back to The U Is Silent, We Aren’t podcast here in Staunton, Virginia, brought to you by Visit Staunton. I am super excited for our guests here today. We just, we love their music. We love their story. We love the events and the way they give back to Staunton. And I know you guys will too. And we have, we have a lot of fun.
9 sec.
We have a journey of stories to cover with them, so please help us welcome Wilson Fairchild. Thank you guys so much. Langdon, Will, thank you guys for joining us here today. Thank you, Samantha, for the invite. We thank you for letting us in. A lot of people don’t let us in for interviews. I had to tell them to unlock the door. Great, great, great. That was a good start. We get clearance today. Because we’re used to breaking in the end, so this is good. Thanks for unlocking the door this time.
28 sec.
you’re welcome. I thought I’d, you know, no, I’m kidding. Thank you guys so much for, for joining us. And I feel like anytime, um, we do chat, you guys have some type of,
52 sec.
wild story or what you’re working on and just like across. I’m like, okay, all right. There’s a lot of life lived there. So I’m sure it’s a lot of the way that you guys write your songs and what you work on. So we’ll dive into some of that. But for those listening, many of which already know and love your music, but some that may not like tell us a little bit about yourselves and kind of describe your sound and and
1 min. 4 sec.
Wilson Fairchild as a band and yourselves as well. Well, sure. If we were on social media right now, which I guess we really ultimately will be. In some ways. Yeah. Check us out on any platform. Or on stage. Yeah. We would start out with, hello, my name is Wil Reid. And I am Langdon Reid. And we are Wilson Fairchild.
1 min. 28 sec.
Country music duo, dynamic duo. Dynamic. Dynamic. Terrific. Somebody has been reading the thesaurus. I’m impressed. That’s good. And you know what? That’s funny. We find in this age, too, with everything being so spread out digitally, right, that you can’t brand yourself enough.
1 min. 46 sec.
You know, you can do it for 10 years and then the next time there’ll be five people. I didn’t even know y’all were singing, you know? And they live down the street from you. Exactly. What, like really? Yeah, well, in Minneapolis they know who we are. Right. So we do that a lot. One question we get a lot with Wilson Fairchild is how we got that name. This is what I was curious about before. Please share. Yeah.
2 min. 9 sec.
So a few years ago, Lang and I have been doing this for a long time, and we’re not going to tell you how long we’ve been singing together. But we wanted a more duo-sounding name, so we came up with Wilson Fairchild because that’s our middle name.
2 min. 31 sec.
Mine is Wilson. His is Fairchild. We’re always going for the creative side of things, and we thought it sounded good. But we also did it that if the music thing didn’t work out, we’re going to open up a law firm.
2 min. 46 sec.
Wilson and Wilson and Wilson and Fairchild. Oh, okay. So that’s another take. Yeah. Or Wilson, Fairchild and Associates. Okay. Wilson, Fairchild, Esquire. Okay. I think the more that you put on the end of it, the more you can charge. Legit, it sounds. Yeah. And you can charge more. Yeah. Then you can go to like a 10 minute range. Right. And we don’t even know any Esquires, but we’re going to use that. Or what lawyers charge, and we’re not lawyers. No.
3 min. 2 sec.
But if we do this, we can come back and do another podcast for the law firm. And we’ll have a whole different, yeah. We could meet with clients and have billable hours and everything. This is good work. So we don’t even have to at the end ask what’s coming next. You know what? Right. Law school. Right. That’s what’s coming up. But as of today, our law firm sings. Exactly. We entertain. Right. As of today. Right.
3 min. 25 sec.
singing non-lawyers what we are okay right now yeah but as a that’s back to Wilson Fairchild that’s who we are right you asked so you got that story you know what you said at the beginning there’s a lot of adventures and a lot of wild stories going on so listen it’s
3 min. 51 sec.
It’s what’s in the brain also. And right now, Esquire. That’s what’s happening. There you go. So the connection with Wilson Fairchild to Staunton and to the musical legacy that we come from is our dads, Harold and Don Reid, members of the Statler Brothers. Yeah. It’s where we come from.
4 min. 7 sec.
So growing up, you know, in and around the music business with our dad’s home being in Staunton, but being worldwide celebrities was an interesting ride. But it inspired us from an early age to write and play and sing and sing.
4 min. 25 sec.
Did you guys go on the road very often or times with your dads? As much as we could. Yeah? Yeah, that was a lot of fun for us when we were kids. And especially in the summers, they would play fairs and festivals. Those were always fun shows to go to. Yeah.
4 min. 40 sec.
And so, yeah, we would go out on three or four day weekends with them. Did you go on the bus? Oh, yes. Yeah. Rode the bus and slept in the bunks and watched the movies and ate popcorn up in the lounge. And, you know, the whole experience, we learned it early on and firsthand. When you guys were on the road, and I don’t know kind of what ages, I know you started playing music yourself pretty young, but were you guys watching at that point and listening?
4 min. 56 sec.
On the side of like, okay, let’s take notes of how do they interact with the tech crew at a venue? And, you know, from like that side of things. Or were you guys still in the mindset of like, we’re kids. We’re here to play. Like, you know, hang out. And where were you guys kind of at during that time? You know, it was a mix of both. It was. We were always eat up with every detail of it. From our dads to showing up at a county fair in Iowa. And they had sold 8,000 tickets.
5 min. 21 sec.
I mean, you know, because they were headliners. There’s no secret to how they ended up in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Right. But they had three decades of really big success. So that was Langdon and I’s childhood, those three decades, you know, and growing up in those times. So on the one hand…
5 min. 51 sec.
We just loved the music. We loved the band and stage sound and the sound production and the laughs. And so we ate all that up. But also when we were young like that, you know, we’d get off the bus and go out to the fair, you know, and they would be coming on stage. Buy the cotton candy first. Exactly. Yeah. Cotton candy was still important.
6 min. 8 sec.
Um, but, but we loved everything about it and that’s what inspired us so much. Just. So when you guys did kind of come to the decision of, you know, like, I think we kind of like this music thing. How did your family respond to it? Cause I can imagine it can be either direction. It can either be super excited or especially like having your family be in it and they know the difficulty. They know what it’s like being on the road. Were they excited for you guys? Were they hesitant for you all? What was that like?
6 min. 28 sec.
process like when you guys were like yep we’re doing music when we made that decision when we were in high school that we want to pursue music and
6 min. 56 sec.
And it goes back to 14 and 16. You know, I was 16, Langley was 14. And I remember that distinctively because I could drive and he couldn’t drive yet. And I’d go pick him up at his house and we’d go have band practice. And that’s where that all started. Go ahead. Yeah. And so, yeah, our dads and our parents, our families, everybody could see that this is, we had our sights on this. Very supportive. Always. And our parents have always been supportive of what we want to do.
7 min. 7 sec.
And so, yeah, for the music business, they were in the music business. So it’s funny. And they’ll tell you, they’ve told the story as well. They would never be in a business and then discourage anybody else not to. Especially a business that they were in for multiple decades. Exactly. Yeah. And so, no, they were to answer that question. No, they never said, I don’t know about that. I’d go, you know. Have you thought about being an attorney? Yeah.
7 min. 33 sec.
that may have been the one that they discouraged. Yeah. No, that was us on the attorney part. Yeah. That was on us with the Wilson Fairchild. Exactly. Um, no, but along with that, you’re exactly right. So no, they always encouraged it, but another unique part of our story that really is unlike anybody else in the entertainment business, our dads would not sacrifice Staunton, Virginia and their home for their career. Yeah.
7 min. 59 sec.
They had offers to go to LA and Nashville and New York. And they unanimously agreed, no. If we can’t do it from the Shenandoah Valley, then we’re not going to do it. And they made it work. Why was that? Why were they so committed to… Because…
8 min. 22 sec.
that’s who they are. This is them. And you know, if, if you know them, if you’ve ever seen them, talk to them, seen them in their shows, as he said, you know, they, they have worldwide fame and they impacted a lot of people. Oh, we still get calls all the time, all the time. But they, uh,
8 min. 38 sec.
by being in Staunton and around their people and going to their church and going to their grocery store and, and living in their neighborhoods. And it kept them humble. It kept them grounded. And they’ll, that’s a new secret there. They they’ll tell you that as well. And it’s really nice to see that. From their experience, but also your guys’s, cause you guys do a lot of songwriting as well, in addition to performing, but you,
8 min. 55 sec.
I know it was really important to them to keep home, home and work, work. But do you think, do you feel like living here inspired any of how they wrote or performed? And same for you guys? Oh, yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Absolutely. So when they found their niche, you know, and we don’t have enough time to talk about the history of the Statler Brothers because we know it all because we care. But when they found their niche in about 1970 with nostalgic songs.
9 min. 21 sec.
That’s what all that was rooted in. All their hit songs, if you go back and look, where their experiences here growing up, being teenagers, the Dairy Rite, those type of things is what built their career. Yeah, it was a huge part of their story, but it was real. That’s what worked for them.
9 min. 50 sec.
And then you guys now, why do you guys choose to still stay here and create? We love it so much. We do. And I’ll say this. We’ve often questioned all the dead-end roads that Langa and I have been down in the music business. Nashville’s only eight hours away. So whether it’s recording or it’s TV, it’s never been an inconvenience. We love the drive. We’ve been doing it for a long time.
10 min. 10 sec.
So we might have missed that somewhere along the way to say that was the Statler Brothers story of them being in Staunton. But it was just so entrenched in us. It’s like, why can’t we do it from here too? Yeah. You saw that there was an avenue for it. And that it worked. So it has worked.
10 min. 37 sec.
you know. And we’ll say this too, that we, we just came back from being in Texas for a couple of weeks and beautiful scenery and food. And, and then we’ve been to the Midwest, we’ve been all over and there’s just great, it’s great scenery everywhere you go. And you always think, man, I don’t know, could I live here? But there’s nothing, not a better feeling than when we come back through the Shenandoah Valley and see those mountains and the farmland and, um,
10 min. 55 sec.
And that is home. Yeah. And it still inspires. It is. Yeah. It really is beautiful. So for anybody here living in Virginia and living in Staunton, don’t take it for granted because it is nice. That’s good advice. Yeah. That’s good advice. This is easy to do, right? Like we get so used to it. It’s like this stuff actually isn’t normal.
11 min. 19 sec.
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And we run into people all over the country that have either visited here or been in the valley or the mountains like, oh, it’s so pretty up there. And it’s like, you know, we’re just we’re blessed. This is where we’re from. But we’re also, you know, a long standing tradition of being Virginians to, you know, not only the history of how long it’s been here, but but from the mountains to the valleys to the coast.
11 min. 36 sec.
We love all of Virginia. Yeah. We just do, you know? Yeah. You guys were talking about earlier, you know, the nostalgic sound really became synonymous with the Statler brothers. But for you guys, when you did decide to pursue music, like was country always kind of the lane for you guys? Or did you think like, I’m going rock, I’m going grunge? Exactly. You know, because sometimes it can be –
12 min. 2 sec.
encouraging but also intimidating when you’re a second generation performer and it’s like do you do what you know and you’re already good at and you love or do you go a different lane just to go a different lane yeah you know yeah no that’s a great question we get asked that a lot second generation is that’s a different kind of monster maybe to to tackle um you know what’s the famous song i’m living in the shadow of a very famous man uh from from hank jr to hank jr
12 min. 30 sec.
And so we understand that. And it can be tricky. And because we never wanted to ride any coattails and be perceived that way. And again, we were a duo. They were a quartet. Sometimes it gets tricky when people expect something from you. Okay, you’re part of the Statler Brothers, so you’re going to come sing these types of songs with this four-part harmony. It’s almost a tribute show. Right. And we’re like, no, we’re not that. Right.
12 min. 58 sec.
So you have to get past the expectation of what people are thinking of you. But then we did. That was a journey. We wrote some, maybe on the fringe, different kind of music at times or experimented differently to find our niche, to establish ourselves.
13 min. 24 sec.
But it really comes back home to when we decided to embrace who we are, our legacy, our family. And as we say and tell a lot of people, you know, we kind of look like them. We kind of sound like them. And it is so cool to hear people when we do a show. And I promise you, this is one of the better comments and compliments that we get is when they say, you know, you guys, you got your own sound going. Right.
13 min. 44 sec.
But it is so cool to hear the Statler Brothers sound come out as well. And so somehow we satisfy both of those things. And it’s not intentional. We don’t necessarily sit down and say, well, let’s try this.
14 min. 9 sec.
It is who we are, and we’re very thankful for that, that people can hear who we are, Wilson Fairchild, but as well, it’s very reminiscent of who our dads are. Still feel connected. Absolutely. Sure, and along with what he said, and it is part of our story, is in the early days,
14 min. 24 sec.
We tried to establish our own thing. This is our songwriting. We’re a duo. And rightfully so, because if you’re going to make it in the music business at any level, you’ve got to have your own thing to offer. Just that simple. You know, with talent of some sort. And but, you know, 10 years ago, maybe, you know, when we said, you know what?
14 min. 41 sec.
We’ve got to embrace this. We don’t mind people seeing and hearing our dads through us. It’s just how do you incorporate that instead of separate it? It’s been the best thing we’ve ever done. Every fan at every show has the same reaction. They hear that Statler Brothers sound and they’re like, oh my gosh, we thought it was gone since they had retired, but we got to close our eyes and hear it again. That means the world to us. That’s what we do. Especially in the…
15 min.
evolving landscape, I would say, of country music. It probably does feel good for people to be able to hear the unique sound that you guys have that is…
15 min. 28 sec.
There’s a very grounded sound, but there’s also a sound of like the rooted true country that got people to love country initially, you know, that that we don’t hear quite as often anymore. But there’s such a desire for it. There is. And so now, yes, now in this age, there’s this booming thing going on from like 90s country and traditional. And it seems to be, you know, huge on social media. But another part of me and Langdon’s story, separate from the Statlers, is we got 70s music in our ears when we were young.
15 min. 39 sec.
and it is all a derivative of that. And that’s even country and rock. And everything we’ve ever done, it kind of just evolves back to that. That’s what we love the most. 70s decade was the best decade for music across all the genres. That’s our opinion. That’s our opinion. But it was very different. And we’ve all…
16 min. 7 sec.
We were born in the 70s, but we always go back to… If you look at our playlist right now, it’s going to have about 80% of 70s music on there. Which song are you guys most likely to play on repeat the most on the road? Like from the car, I’ll say, not perform.
16 min. 31 sec.
Yeah. Well, while you’re thinking about that, I just add to that, you know, because, you know, we were just kids in the 70s when our dads were having those big hit records and selling millions of records and the whole thing. But I mean, then into the 90s when, you know, after we graduated high school, college, early 20s, you know, we’re listening to cassette tapes from the 70s. Yeah. Like that was just where we were, you know. And so then we fought the traditional thing for years because the industry was going in a different direction. Yeah.
16 min. 47 sec.
but now it seems to have come back around, you know, and the music business always does that. It is. Yeah. It really is. And we’re both the babies of our families. So we’re the youngest ones. So we have older siblings.
17 min. 14 sec.
So whatever they were listening to, we were listening to as well. But it always came back to country music for us too. So we know a lot of music, even if we heard it secondhand in the house. All the 80s rock that we know came from our brother and sister’s bedrooms, but we could hear it. So it’s all in there. The egg stage. Yeah. Do you think of a song?
17 min. 28 sec.
A song of what is on repeat? Yeah, what do you play the most? Mm-hmm.
17 min. 53 sec.
you know it music is so about the mood for me well when we talk about yeah i want to talk about classic country stuff you know i talk about you know gene watson uh farewell party you know if we talked about george jones we talk about he stopped loving her today you know those are the type songs if i hear i’m not changing right don’t you dare touch that channel exactly uh you know haggard that’s the way love ronnie milsap tammy winette
17 min. 59 sec.
But even going back to the Loretta Lynn coal miner’s daughter, if I hear that come on, I’m going to… Yeah, that’s my neck of the woods. There you go. I’m going to listen to it. Yeah, nothing will get you pumped up like Fist City. Take down the world if you need to. This is the greatest… This is. She just referenced Fist City. Hey, you better be careful. People are going to know you’re from Kentucky. Oh.
18 min. 24 sec.
You don’t want that word getting out. Let me tell you. So where she’s from, everybody calls her Loretty, like her family. So, yeah.
18 min. 47 sec.
Maybe I can talk to us about Little Loretty. We’ll talk about that anytime. The Coal Miner’s Daughter is arguably one of our top five favorite movies of all time. It never gets old. And we quote from that all the time. That’s one of those movies when it’s on, if you pass by it, you’re like, all right, I don’t know what I’ve done. Shut down the evening. We’re not doing anything. I’m watching it. Yeah. So you mentioned George Jones. We got to chat about him. So you guys are connected to him in many ways from performance. Tell us about him.
18 min. 55 sec.
tell us the george jones story also pause how um awesome of a life is it that i can look at you and say tell us the george jones story like see i love it we oh it makes me feel so important i really appreciate that that’s amazing he tells a good he knows the george story tell that that’s good yeah so we uh yeah you just sit there that’s fine um
19 min. 24 sec.
So I don’t know how many years ago, let’s say 10 years ago, close to it. I heard that George Jones was coming to Charlottesville over at the amphitheater. And we had never seen him in concert before. And, you know, of course, he was older in a later part of his career. But I called Langdon and I said, hey, George Jones come to Charlottesville. We got to go. He said, oh, that’d be great. He said it’d be even better if we could open up that show.
19 min. 47 sec.
And I said, yeah, it would be. I know. If I had dared him, I just like, I bet you can’t do it. I bet you can’t do it. So I said, well, let me, let me call somebody. So I found out who the promoter of the show was and I called him and I said, Hey man, uh, we’ll read Wilson Fairchild. I said, uh, you got George Jones coming in, right? And he’s yep. We sure do. And I said, uh, do you have an opener? He said, no, we don’t. I said, well, I said, we would love to open up that show. And he said, okay.
20 min. 11 sec.
Well, I don’t care if you open, but I’m not going to pay you. I said, no problem. What time do we be there? We’ll be there. Yeah. And this is one of those things in everybody’s musical career that you just grab opportunities, you know? So we did. We got to open up that show with our band and it was great. You know, it was a great night. Something to remember. Something we could tell our grandkids, you know? Because the other thing that we’ve always fought with our Stout and Brother connection, people just assume we know all the stars, right?
20 min. 40 sec.
People just assume. Just call them up. Yeah, of course they open for George, but it doesn’t work that way. So after the show, it was great, but it was like, that’s just not enough. So I got on the computer and found out that he was going to be in Pennsylvania at Penn’s Peak the next weekend. So I called that promoter and I said, hey, man, I said, we’re on tour with George Jones. What time do we open? No, you didn’t. Yeah, I did. Oh, I did. Yeah.
21 min. 10 sec.
And he said, well, I don’t care if you’re going to be the opener, but I’m not paying you. We’ve heard that before. I said, no, I said, don’t worry. We worked for free last weekend. And so we did it again. We drove to Pennsylvania for free.
21 min. 38 sec.
And that time it worked. We got to meet George and we got to meet his wife, Nancy and the band and everybody was so nice. And see, at that time he was still out doing the classic country things. Our dads were retired off the road. They weren’t working anymore. And so that worked. So then for the next three to four years, we would drive around in Langdon’s truck with two guitars and they would let us open up their shows.
21 min. 54 sec.
They were on the bus up in front of us, and we were in the truck following behind. Yeah. And we would do 30 to 40 minutes before his shows. Yep. That’s amazing. What song did you guys typically close your set with? Oh, that one? It could have been one of ours. We got a song called Country On that we do, that we’ve written. It’s out there. And it’s a real upbeat thing just to attribute to loving country music and never let it die type thing. We might have finished with a Statler song before.
22 min. 17 sec.
The cool thing about in those audiences, so he would be at theaters that might have 1,000, 1,500 people, that type thing. But we would literally get in front of them and all those people came to see George, right? And they would have no idea who we were, but by the end of our 30 to 45 minute set, we’d get a standing ovation. They were with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, isn’t that the best feeling in the world? Yeah, it is. Like, yep, they’re with us. It is, and all those examples is what inspired us to keep going and keep going and keep going, you know, and build our own thing.
22 min. 46 sec.
It was nice. Yeah. So now that you guys – so especially like your songwriting –
23 min. 15 sec.
Where do you guys normally kind of draw your inspiration? Do you feel like it is a lot of real life, or do you just kind of make up a story, or is it like reminiscent on chasing down George Jones, and that’s what inspires the story? How do you guys come up with the songs? All the above. Go ahead. No, as a songwriter or as a writer, you always have your antenna out, and you’re always looking for a hook. We were…
23 min. 20 sec.
We are very observant guys that we’re, um, um, and it’s cause you never know where the next idea, where the next title, uh, we’re just aligned and we’ll, we’ll say that to each other and say, Hey, I was at the bank and I went through the drive-through and the teller said this to me.
23 min. 48 sec.
is that anything? I mean, if it worked for Jolene, it can work for, you know. Exactly. That’s right. So it’s great, too, of our relationship, how honest we are with each other. And we use each other as a sounding board when it comes to that. And like, oh, yeah, I can see that. Like, you know what it could be. And then it’ll grow and snowball into a song, hopefully. And then some other times you’re like, yeah, I don’t know. Put it down in your book, but we’ll see. Next time we’ll talk about it.
24 min. 4 sec.
Um, so I think you just have to be tuned in and, um, always aware and looking for where the next idea might come from. And it’s something we enjoy doing. So, uh, but you’re saying where does, you know, are they true or do we make them up? It’s, it’s all of that. Yeah. You draw on your own experiences. Um,
24 min. 30 sec.
And whether – I’ll challenge any writer out there from a book to a song to a poem to whatever. You may have a good creative imagination, but you’re still – there’s going to be a little bit of truth in whatever you’ve just written. Yeah. Because you’re going to draw on your own experiences some way because I think a good writer, they write what they know. Mm-hmm. And so –
24 min. 49 sec.
there’s going to be a part of them, him or her in the writing. Well, that was something even we’ve, we’ve talked on the podcast coming up with Kalayla Williams, who is a local, an author from, or that lives in Staunton now. And we were talking about that even with, she has a,
25 min. 12 sec.
fictional book but as when you even when you edit though or or how long it takes to get a book from idea to publish to out in the world um how much her own experience shifted what the final product of the book was even though it was fictional like her own experience in life very much shifted from the editing to just what what is finally released out there yeah oh for sure and and it’s all over the place um and i wanted to share also i was thinking as lagna was talking
25 min. 28 sec.
So we went through a period of real creative when we were younger, you know, before we had wives and families to where we were writing all the time and, you know, putting them in the folder. And we’ve got tons of songs to this day that nobody’s ever heard before, just because we would demo three, go playing for people in Nashville, you know.
25 min. 56 sec.
they tell us how bad they were. The record label would say, ah, y’all sound pretty good, but we don’t need that right now. Then we’d go home. That’s one of those dead end roads. He was talking about. We’d write three more songs. We’d go to town, do it all over again. Uh, and I tell you all that to say this to, to inspiration for anybody out there writing, uh, we’re in between, uh,
26 min. 13 sec.
records right now with the Gaither Music Group. We released one last year, but we just finished recording the next one that’ll be out next year. And we got them to agree for us to record one of the things that he and I had written together. And the song is called Amazing What a Hug Can Do. And it’s just a real upbeat, positive life story type story song. And that song’s been in the
26 min. 32 sec.
Over 20 years. Over 20 years. Close to 25 years. So how much of it do you think is also… I mean, there’s the whole thing about right place, right time. But it’s also, I think, somewhat the same with whatever product we put out. Even music is…
26 min. 59 sec.
They may have said, hey, this is a bad song. Well, no, it’s not. It just may not be connecting with you and what they’re seeing as a trend or the topic of the world at that point. Sure. And it sometimes is so often just like the timing of it. Timing is everything in the music business.
27 min. 14 sec.
And as a writer, I’ve always felt too that it doesn’t necessarily have to be good because good is subjective. But it has to be relatable. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I can feel like, man, I wrote a bad song. But if it relates to you, then that’s the best song you’ve ever heard. You’re like, oh, that spoke to me or that’s exactly what I was going through. Yeah.
27 min. 29 sec.
um, that made me feel this way. Well then it’s a great song. Uh, but maybe you can break it down and like, it doesn’t rhyme and it’s not a meter. And you know, you can say, well, that’s a bad song. So that one actually just is. Right. But it’s, uh, that’s something we always try to do in our songwriting is be relatable. Uh, you know, country music is, is real stories about real people and real situations. So, uh,
27 min. 50 sec.
That’s what we did with this song in particular he’s talking about. It’s amazing what a hug can do. Just because it’s 25 years old doesn’t mean it’s an old song. If you haven’t heard it, it’s not an old song. Brand new, yeah. And only we know that, how long it’s been in the folder. But if it was good then and we still feel like it’s good here, then it is. It’s the timing thing. It’s the timing of it, yeah. So as a duo, how do you guys…
28 min. 15 sec.
balance like the final product or the process even like when you guys are creating music or even a performance that’s like all right we’re gonna we’re gonna lay out this set or somebody’s like ah guitar is a little too much in this one or how do you guys balance each other from a creative standpoint
28 min. 40 sec.
I think the easiest answer to that is he and I are so much alike in so many ways. I bet you just read each other’s minds at this point. Yeah, we do. And our relationship has always been that way because we’ve been so tight since we were kids. Everything from when our dad’s from the roads and we were with our moms. We were in some ways more like brothers than cousins. Yeah.
28 min. 59 sec.
um we’d always like i’d call his mom and act like him and they couldn’t tell the difference they couldn’t tell the difference that’s true i’m sure people all the time assume you guys are our brothers anyway yes we get that and it’s just easier to go along with it absolutely your brother over there yep right that’s him that’s him yeah we’ve only heard it about a thousand times and um but um no i think to sum up our relationship musically whether it’s got to do with guitars or a song lyric or it’s got to do with singing
29 min. 22 sec.
One of us will speak up if you’re just not seeing it, hearing it, like it and say, Hey, you know, that might be okay, but what about this? And most usually we just work it out, but most usually we’re on the same page. And I think too, there’s two things there. We’re honest with each other and we’re also open to discussion.
29 min. 50 sec.
Throw out a crazy idea. Yeah. You know, I mean, it’s not, we don’t want everything. I’m not honest, but I guess he thinks he’s honest. That’s funny. I don’t imagine that. Yeah. I don’t think I could picture being like not honest. Sure. So we’re open to that. Like, okay, well, let me hear it one time and let’s see if it works. But so you have to be open to new, fresh ideas.
30 min. 10 sec.
crazy wild outside of the box ideas but at the same time still uh rein each other back in and know who we are yeah do you think being family has helped you guys like come to solutions more
30 min. 30 sec.
Sure. Yes. And I’ll tell you this, there was a piece of advice from a good friend of ours in the music business a long time ago. And we were talking then about who we are, our sound, what should we do? What shouldn’t we do? And he was a great, again, sounding board. And, and he told us then, and we never forget it. He said, you guys push yourselves, but believe me, he said, I know you all well enough. You’re, you’re not going to go outside of the box where you’re uncomfortable.
30 min. 42 sec.
comfortable and be somebody you’re not. And you’re not going to go too far. Right. And we, and he trusted us that we could trust ourselves that way. And, and I think he’s right. And so that was good to hear that from somebody else who knew that about us and said, you know, go ahead and, and,
31 min. 11 sec.
Uh, try to push yourselves in different areas, whether it’s your writing or your sound or your music. But believe me, you’re not going to go too far to where it’s, it’s not going to be believable. Yes. Right. Yeah. All right. You guys have spent a lot of time on the road, either, you know, with your, your dads, but also yourselves. Any, any like standout road stories, story. I’m sure it could be endless. See, we got a lot of those three and a half years. We were with George Jones. Those are, there’s some stories in there.
31 min. 31 sec.
We were out in South Dakota, North Dakota somewhere one time, and there’s this park called Bear Country. Bear Country USA. I don’t know if it’s still there or not.
32 min. 1 sec.
I think it was South Dakota. It was South Dakota. Yeah. And it’s called Bear Country, and you pay to drive in where all the bears are. Oh, you pay to go into Bear Country? That’s not a place I would pay to go. Well, I don’t know if it’s still like a legal establishment or not, but when we were there years ago. We had a day off. We had a day off, and we’re like, we’re going to Bear Country. We want to see a bear. So we were in a lease bus.
32 min. 10 sec.
And the guy, our buddy who was driving, he’s like, are y’all sure y’all want to do this? Like, absolutely. So we, it was like the safari park down in, you know, natural bridge, but it was bear country. And so we paid and we drove through with the bus through bear country. And sure enough, it was like, like cows out in the field. They had bears everywhere. But the funniest part was when we got in there and we stopped, we were all looking at the bears. Langdon opens the door.
32 min. 34 sec.
to scare the driver because there’s like a bear. There’s like 100 bears in this park. And he’s yelling, close the door, close the door. You know what’s going to happen if that bear gets up in here with me? And that was fun. That was on the road. An old bear was sticking his head up in our butt. What’s going on here? And our driver’s like, shut the door.
32 min. 59 sec.
And you guys paid for that. We did. We paid for that. Do you guys remember when Gypsy Hill Park had bears in it? I don’t. I just had this conversation the other day with one of my kids. I don’t remember it, but I knew about it. But again, our older siblings remember and have talked about, oh, yeah, we go to the park and see the bear in the cage out there. And I know. I know that it was true, but I never saw it. It was before my time. A real story happens. Speaking of the park…
33 min. 18 sec.
You said it as an unexpected segue. Sounds good. Good segue. I like. The bears are not there anymore. No. But let’s do talk about Happy Birthday America. And I will say Gypsy Hill Park, it is just, oh my gosh, we are so blessed to have this park. It’s huge, but it is one of the most stunning city community parks I’ve been in. It is. And coming up on 4th of July, we have Happy Birthday America, which is just like a full-time,
33 min. 45 sec.
celebration. And so tell us about how it started, which you guys are connected to, and how we got to where we’re at now and what we can expect this year. Sure. This is important to us as well. Again, back to our family in 1970, the Statler brothers were always being asked to be part of different charities and events and offer their time. And they wanted to say yes to all of it, but they just couldn’t.
34 min. 14 sec.
they just couldn’t. So they came up and said, you know what? Let’s just have our own celebration. Let’s do it on the 4th of July in the park. And, uh, and that way we’ll invite, uh, organizations and civic organizations and charities. Everybody just gather together. Uh,
34 min. 41 sec.
And they offered to do a free show. Yeah. And it was free. And it was also a way for, again, all these other organizations to make money, to come sell food or games. And this is also, I mean, they were starting when they were, they were at their peak, like all the way through when they were doing this. Yeah. 1970, they were still with Johnny Cash. They were with his show. Um,
34 min. 56 sec.
But this is something that they wanted to do for the city of Staunton. And so it did. It started out and there was about 500 people who came to that first one in the 70s. And then it grew. And kind of their format was, you know, I always have a parade and old cars. And they would have a special musical guest. And at the time they were with Johnny Cash.
35 min. 16 sec.
And he said, you know, he said, I’ll come play it. And he came and played it for free. And from then on, that was the structure for 25 years. They did it from 1970 to 1994. They called their celebration Happy Birthday USA.
35 min. 39 sec.
And it was huge. Our town grew to over 100,000 people over that week. And we’re a town of 25,000 people, less than even. Right, exactly. Wild. We always, again, it’s something we’ve always known in our lives. Yes. And we saw it grow and we saw how big it became. And it hit us too, on their plaque.
35 min. 53 sec.
in the hall of fame, it mentions happy birthday USA. We thought, wow, that is, that, that was, that really was a big deal. Not only to us or to Stauntonian, we just enjoyed it, but it was a really big deal and a big feather in their cap and in their career, what they did. Um, so anyway, that was their way of giving back to the community. And
36 min. 18 sec.
Then they stopped doing it after 25 years. The celebration continued on in a different committee, and they renamed it. But it still continued for the city of Staunton. And then in 2017, that committee approached me and Will and said, would you guys be interested in getting back involved? And we were. And we thought about it and said, yeah. So we then went out and we got our own committee.
36 min. 39 sec.
of some wonderful volunteers and different people in different places. Oh, they’re amazing. Yes. Throughout the community. And started our own nonprofit to do this. And that’s, we called it Happy Birthday America. So, and it’s been going on ever since, the same place. And it takes place at John Moxie Stadium, which is the baseball field in Gypsy Hill Park.
37 min. 8 sec.
and we set up a big stage in the center field um and it’s entirely free for you to be there and and to do a show in our times in 2025 uh to be able to offer that for free uh full day basically yeah and on july 3rd we have we start to kick it off with a vesper service uh and we got a beauty pageant that happens before that but we have a parade of 150 entries um and
37 min. 29 sec.
and a five cave, just games, food. It’s all family, uh, oriented. And, um, It’s just, it’s a time that, um, the days feel good. Like the days feel, they, they feel without so much worry and they just, they feel like real community and yeah. And, and, uh, and I’m serious. You have no idea how much we appreciate you saying that because when we jump back in, uh,
37 min. 57 sec.
we had enough support and said, you know, this is the right thing to do. And we wanted to bring it back for all those same reasons. And we wanted to do it like our dads did it. We wanted to offer a free show. Langa and I do it for free. The sponsors have lined up to help us get artists in here, which is great. Cause that was a key component to say, you know, we can’t ask them to come for free, but if we can get sponsors to do it, we can make, we can orchestrate this and make it happen, you know?
38 min. 23 sec.
And, um, that, that’s what, that’s what we get out of it too. We missed the feeling of the fourth. I’ll never forget the first or second year that we jumped back in. We rode with our dads out there when they were setting up the midway and all that. And they said, you know, it feels like the fourth again for the first time since they had walked away years ago. And, uh, but no, the, the, the community spirit and the, the people that are helping us do this, uh, make it happen.
38 min. 48 sec.
And everybody wanted it. And that’s what Langdon and I said. If everybody wants to do this, we will, you know, because we can’t do it by ourselves, you know. But back to the credit of all the people that we asked. And we got some pretty good friends in Staunton. And, you know, firsthand, too, being with tourism here in Staunton, we have meetings throughout the year. It’s not like, oh, yeah, the fourth is coming up. It’s like there’s a couple weeks off after.
39 min. 13 sec.
After the event happens, it’s like, okay, everybody catch your breath. And then planning goes right back in. We still have a meeting in July, at the end of July, for everybody to bring their notes to say, hey, what was good? What do we need to tweak or any of that? But we meet with the city and parks and rec and public works and tourism, the police, the fire, all the way down through everybody, those important components in the city. And a high five to every one of you all for that.
39 min. 38 sec.
It’s a good team, for sure. It is a good team. That’s how we met you. I mean, you were so nice in a Zoom. I wasn’t expecting it. I’m known to be just a terror. Right. When I saw you on the screen, I’m like, well, she’s going to be hard to deal with. Right. And then all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, my gosh, she’s from Kentucky. Like, this is great. Does it? I bet she knows it’s on Fifth City. Right? Heard it a time or two. Yeah. I bet it makes your dad super excited.
40 min. 6 sec.
proud or happy or like feel good that the you guys are now year-round meetings with the city like as as important as Staunton has always been to them and them very much so to Staunton like to now see you guys not only here and still loving the city but having that relationship with the the community as a whole i’m
40 min. 33 sec.
But I imagine that’s, you know, for a parent, that’s all you could wish for is to see that work continue. I know that’s true. And of course, of course, it is true. And certainly that’s not something that me and Lyle can think about. But it goes right in line with everything else that’s been a part of our lives. We do things that we believe in.
40 min. 52 sec.
You know, if it doesn’t feel right, we’re not going to do it. That’s right. And, um, and we don’t, you know, we’re, we’re honest back to be honest people. We are, you know, but, but back to having kids and values and, you know, we’re very old fashioned, but, uh, with the Staunton connection, it’s just been really nice because it’s worked. Yeah. Oh, it’s such a fun event. Last year was my first year. And, uh, the number of people I met that, uh, especially like multi-generational families were coming because, you know,
41 min. 13 sec.
I can’t tell you how many people they’re like, I’ve been coming for 20 years or whatever. And they’re like, this is my grandson. He’s been coming for four years. We’re so excited he’s here. And then so many from obviously out of state, because I think that’s what’s special too, is like, it’s such obviously a great event for our community to come to, but it’s also one that’s like,
41 min. 42 sec.
Come sit at the table with us. The door is open. Like, come join us, especially on this kind of event. So it’s great, I think, for visitors to come, for people coming for the first time, or if they’ve been to Staunton a bunch, you get to see this whole other side of it. And it’s just a great place.
42 min. 2 sec.
come together, which is what celebrating America should be. It’s just, you know, everybody coming together. That’s exactly right. You know, with so many events or celebrations or whatever, there’s usually a purpose or it can get political or a cause or any of that stuff. That is not what this is about. It is who’s not going to be able to want to come out and celebrate America, you know? So it’s red, white, and blue. And it’s with your family. But there’s
42 min. 16 sec.
Um, and we hear too, by the way, in our travels, um, and people come up to us and they learn in our show that we are doing the happy birthday America again.
42 min. 45 sec.
And it’s so cool to hear people come up and say, oh, yeah, I was I went to my first Fourth of July concert in Staunton in 1983. Yeah. And I met the nicest people there and I’m still friends with them. And this person may live in Missouri and they’re like, but this person, my best friend, they live in Massachusetts and we still stay in touch. And you’re like, that’s really cool that they came there. There are friendships that have been born out of Staunton because of the celebration. And it’s that’s really nice to hear.
42 min. 57 sec.
I’m so excited. Fourth of July, things kick off on the third typically, but of course we’ll chat about and share all the places people can see the lineup and things to do and follow along with it. But I know you guys mentioned you guys have music coming up. What can we expect from you guys coming up?
43 min. 25 sec.
We do. Like I said, we are with Gaither Music Group, and we’ve signed with them, and we have two CDs that have been out. First one was called Statler Made, and we went in and recorded six Statler hits, and then three country hits and three gospel songs, which is really cool because those three genres of music are really who we are. Again, it’s what we grew up with, and
43 min. 45 sec.
It means a lot to us. So, and again, with the Statler connection, it just made sense for that to be called Statler Made. And so we came across that. We’re like, yeah, that’s exactly what the title needs to be. And then we have also released an instrumental Christmas CD with Gaither Music Group called Christmas Guitars. We both play guitars, and this was something that we’ve always had on the list to do, and we did. One of my favorite…
44 min. 10 sec.
I don’t remember what show it was, but on one of your guys’ YouTube videos, one of the comments was just, those boys can play guitar. It’s good. Yes. I don’t know if that’s their voice, but that’s how I read it. That’s how you read it. I couldn’t agree more.
44 min. 39 sec.
But anyway, what’s coming up? So that’s what has been. And then now what’s coming up is another CD. Yeah, we can talk about what it’s called and everything about it. Well, absolutely. And we’re in between. We don’t know exactly the release date yet, but we finished doing it. But again, we kind of found a home with Gaither. They’re super nice people. But that company has branched out from not just doing gospel stuff. They’re releasing these records of ours as country records.
44 min. 56 sec.
So it fits their audience, but it also gives up the opportunity to give it to our audience. And it’s just a really nice fit. So the next one we’re pretty sure is going to be called Wilson Fairchild American Songbook. But it’s a collection of big, huge American songs. Yeah. You’ll know the words to all of them. Some of them we stretch that our fans will probably say, well, that was really cool, but we didn’t see y’all doing that song. Yeah.
45 min. 25 sec.
Okay. So even for the first time, we stretched it to Americana, Big American Songs. Oh, I can’t wait. Yeah, we’re really excited about the record. And along with what Lydon said, we’ve been producing in our own music for years now. And all that stuff’s everywhere, of course. You can stream it and find it as long as you look up Wilson Fairchild. But yeah, this next album’s got a little bit of maybe some rock music on there. A little pop. A little 70s rock? Absolutely. Absolutely.
45 min. 52 sec.
a little, of course, country and gospel. You do. It sounds like Wilson Fairchild. It’s our take on all of it. We’ve got the greatest producers, two of our best friends, and we’ve only known them for a couple years now. Those guys fell in love with what we did, and we fell in love with them, but
46 min. 21 sec.
they got it immediately. They were like, it doesn’t matter what y’all do. You always put your own spin on it. And that’s, and I, and you know, we thank the good Lord for that. Cause that’s just the way it comes out. But yeah. Um, yeah. Put the W W F spin on it. Michael Sykes and Johnny Minnick are the two producers he’s talking about and friends we got, but it’s fun recording with them and what we bring to the table. Those guys would kind of look, all right, wait a minute, wait a minute. I wasn’t expecting y’all to sing that part. Let me think about it. Hold on a second. Hold on.
46 min. 41 sec.
It just, it was, I wasn’t sure you wanted to do it like this. Let’s just do it again. That’s hilarious. Why don’t we look at it this way? Right. Yeah. That kind of team is so important though. It is. Like you said, push you to try new things, but also kind of know your sweet spot and find how to cultivate those together. And again, to be honest with each other with it. Yes. You know, we’re…
47 min. 9 sec.
What’s this honesty word you keep bringing up? I’m not familiar with it. What does that mean? Be honest about the honesty, hopefully. No. Well, thank you guys so much for your time today, for the work you guys do in Staunton, especially with Happy Birthday America. I can’t wait for it this year. It’s going to be great. I know the weather’s going to be in our favor. And even if it’s not…
47 min. 34 sec.
You know what? It was great last year. We had a little liquid sunshine, I like to say. Right. And people were still so happy. Uh-huh. Yeah. So happy. It was just – I could go on forever, but it was great. But thank you guys so much. Thanks for joining us. And I know you guys are on the road a bunch, so a lot of opportunities for people to catch your shows. Really awesome.
47 min. 54 sec.
All over yonder. All over places. We are at wilsonfairchild.com. You can keep up with us there. Of course, all the social medias. To see a full list of the lineup and everything that’s happening for Happy Birthday America, that’s at happybirthdayamerica.org.
48 min. 14 sec.
But we’ll be splashing some news as we get closer to July 4th as well throughout social media also. But in all seriousness, if you Google Wilson Fairchild, it’ll just take you to places and everybody will know how great we are. Do it now. Well, do that after you… The Google search. How great is Wilson Fairchild? They’ll find out. We’re just going to start infiltrating all the AI systems. Right.
48 min. 30 sec.
Fantastic. The world’s best thing ever. Are they as awesome as they say they are? And by the way, you are a wonderful addition to Staunton with your job with tourism. You guys are so nice. We have such a good team. We really do. The community as a whole, it’s so fun when like,
48 min. 58 sec.
community-wide people just they lean in and they’re like let’s let’s grow let’s create something great let’s let’s keep making things even better and and more welcoming and and new and yeah it’s it’s a great place to be what a cool thing you’re doing here too oh this is great thank you shout out to to nomad media for making us look good
49 min. 14 sec.
bad media absolutely we like you Kyle thank you guys for joining us and listening in happy birthday America coming up on July 4th make sure you make plans to come to Staunton and join us check out Wilson Fairchild their website to purchase their music streaming services all the things make sure you follow them and catch a show coming up and if you like what you heard today tell a friend tell a neighbor tell a stranger just enjoy it yourself give us a five star review and share the word we’ll see you guys soon. Thanks so much!
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