“Some years ago we brought a guitar on family holiday and started jamming on the beach, doing covers. Some German tourists heard us playing and suggested we put the covers on YouTube - this was 2008 - so we started going busking on the streets of Dublin, and uploading the tunes. Through all this we built up a nice foundation to start doing it properly and then we moved from covers to our own original material.” - Hudson Taylor
From these modest baby-steps as “Harry & Alfie”, the brothers Hudson Taylor developed their songwriting skills and live performance chops on the streets of Dublin and other European cities. Drawing on inspiration from classic rock idols like The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel and The Beatles - seeing AC/DC aged eleven was a revelation - to more contemporary influences like Fleet Foxes, Villagers and The Tallest Man On Earth; Hudson Taylor released their debut album, the breezy, acoustic-driven “Singing For Strangers”, in 2015. Produced by by Iain Archer (James Bay, Jake Bugg), the album included three big hits - ‘Chasing Rubies’, ‘Battles’ and ‘Weapons’ - which helped established Hudson Taylor in Ireland and the UK.
The brothers add: "We spent 2015 and ‘16 playing tons of gigs and getting 'Singing for Strangers' out there and promoting it. When that started to naturally slow down we started writing new tunes and recording demos for the next album.”
2018 was a big year for Hudson Taylor. The brothers released the ‘Feel It Again’ 5-track EP in the spring, which delivered two huge airplay hits in the shape of ‘Feel It Again’ and ‘Run With Me’, and has gone on to enjoy over 14.5 million streams on Spotify. They followed this with an 8-track mini-album called ‘Bear Creek To Dame Street’, which brought together more new tracks produced in Seattle by Ryan Hadlock, best known for his work with The Lumineers and Vance Joy, and some of their best loved older songs, captured live in concert at a sold-out concert at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.
2018 also saw Hudson Taylor make huge steps forward with their live profile. Two sold-out European tours, plus key European festival appearances including Leeds / Reading (UK), Electric Picnic (IE), Rolling Stone Weekender (Germany) and Benicassim (Spain). In America, they toured with both Gabrielle Aplin and Hozier, and successfully completed their own debut US headline shows. They also made their first US TV appearances on Good Day New York (Fox), WGN-TV (Chicago), Good Morning San Diego and Fox 5 San Diego and wrapped online sessions for Paste, Baeble Music and Balcony TV. The brothers rounded off the year with six consecutive sold out homecoming nights at Whelans’ in Dublin.
Hudson Taylor kicked off 2019 with a successful US headline tour, which also took in TV appearances in Nashville and Chicago and sessions for Audiotree and Digital Tour Bus. The brothers returned to the States later in the year to record their second album with producer John Rausch, best known for his work with Taylor Swift and Birdy. The first single from these sessions, the ultra-catchy ‘Back To You’, was another hit for Hudson Taylor at radio and streaming.
2019 ended with the release of instant classic new festive song - ‘How I Know It’s Christmas’ - and a run of six consecutive sold out nights at Dublin’s famous Whelan’s venue the week prior to Christmas.
Hudson Taylor’s long-awaited second album - ‘Loving Everywhere I Go’ - will be released by Rubyworks on Friday 28th February 2020, and Harry and Alfie will be back out on the road in Ireland, the UK and Europe to promote the release.
Last word to the brothers: “We have never been happier with the sound and production of our songs, and we are delighted to be getting then out into the world and releasing our second full-length album!”