A UK country pop trio have spoken out about the lack of women in country music.
Singer-songwriters The Adelaides debuted in 2017 and will be the only European band to play CMA Fest in Nashville this year – a significant event for the country music scene in the US.
Paris Georgia, Alicia Alba and Abi Phillips said it was an “honour” to join the line-up as women are typically underrepresented in the genre.
Ahead of the announcement, Georgia told the Press Association: “It’s really good, especially over in America, there’s this big thing about how female country singers aren’t being played on the radio.
“It’s very male heavy in that way, so for us to be from the UK and we’re all female, to be able to go to America and perform is one in a million.
“I don’t know of anyone else that’s been able to do that, so it’s a real honour for us.”
Alba, 22, from Wolverhampton, added: “We’re all about girl power, definitely, that’s the goal.”
The currently unsigned group are set to release their first single in the summer and will record the rest of their upcoming album in the US.
“We worked with a lady called Femke Weidema the first time we went to Nashville, we actually wrote our single that’s coming out with her,” 24-year-old Georgia said.
“It’s funny because when people say who’s your producer, and it’s nothing to us to say it’s a woman, but for a lot of people that’s surprising.
“She’s so good, she’s so talented, and she’s done our songs amazingly.
“To have our album produced by a woman is a really cool thing.”
The trio first began performing together in 2017, after Georgia and Phillips, who met through pub gigs, found videos of Alba singing on YouTube.
Phillips previously found fame in Hollyoaks – where she played Liberty Savage – and then on The Voice UK, where she reached the knockout stages.
Speaking about her decision to leave the soap, the 25-year-old said: “It came to a bit of a crossroads.
“Hollyoaks is contracted so your first priority has to be the show, which obviously you’ve got to be willing to drop everything.
“I did really, really love it, but it felt like my music was taking a bit of a back seat.
“I’d be in the studio and they’d ring and ask if I could come and film. It was such an amazing opportunity but I felt towards the end that my heart wasn’t in it.”
The Adelaides’ debut single Good Love will be released in early June to coincide with CMA Fest, which runs from June 6 to 9.