Southerland’s self-titled EP is out now. The duo, made up of Matt Chase and Chris Rogers, released their eponymous project on April 21, co-writing all six tracks alongside hit tunesmiths like Marv Green, Jim Beavers, Derek George, Jessi Alexander and more.

“We’re in a really awesome spot right now, where we’re getting a lot of new fans,” Chase tells Everything Nash. “We’ve been lucky to be on the road a lot this year, meeting and getting to know a lot of people who it’s their first-time introduction to Southerland. So this EP is kind of perfect timing, to where it’s literally a one-stop shop of, if you want to get to know us, this is who we are. We’re the crack of beer on Friday and let’s get on the dance floor and have fun. But we’re also the, ‘Let’s put a love song out there and connect with that significant other.'”

Southerland already released “World Without You,” a song they penned with Alexander, inspired by Chase’s upcoming marriage to his fiancée,  Abbie Beineman.

“it wasn’t even a song to put out,” Chase reveals. “I said, ‘If I had to write a note to Abby’ — ’cause I knew I wanted to marry her —  ‘and put it on a piece of paper, slide across the table and give it to her, what would that sound like?’ It was one of those songs that just fell out in the room. Sometimes you write songs and they just happen. And once we wrote it, we started realizing that it was far more than me and Abbie. This is not something that’s just for her.  I feel like a lot of people can relate to it. … In the grand scheme of things, our ultimate goal as artists and writers is to put fans’ stories in our music.

“It’s for them in the first place,” he adds. “We’ve gotten a really great response that’s come out so far. A lot of people are really engaging with it and they’re, they’re putting their pictures and their stories behind the song. We’re thankful for that.”

Southerland might not have ever become a duo, if not singer-songwriter Ray Fulcher, who introduced Chase and Rogers, after they were both performing as solo artists

“He’s probably one of our best friends,” Chase shares. “We all were in town, just getting started. I was a solo act, [Rogers] was a solo act, but we would play cover band shows together …  just to pay rent and get out there, and make a little beer money. So we would play literally anywhere under the sun that they had a place to set up a speaker, and we could play acoustically.”

While the men didn’t realize it at the time, it was those cover shows that were the beginnings of their ultimate formation as a duo.

“After a while, after every show, it seemed like people would come up to us like, ‘Man, y’all are really great. What’s your group name?'” Chase remembers. “I’m like, ‘I’m Matt. This is Chris. We’re just two buddies. There’s a tip jar over there.’ But it became very clear that we’re stronger together than we were separate, and Southerland was born out of that.”

Both Chase and Rogers were so focused on their solo endeavors that it took them a bit to realize that they were better off making music together. Still, once they did, both men became passionate about the music they were creating as Southerland.

“I thought that I was kind of giving up in a sense for coming together and becoming a duo, and he thought the same thing,” Rogers concedes. “That’s really one of the reasons that we probably didn’t come together sooner than, ’cause we were riding that train for about a year. Because in my mind I was like, ‘I’m literally forfeiting all this work that I’ve done.'”

“It seemed like a foreign concept at first,” adds Matthews. “‘Cause we got just enough going on in town with working with people to where starting this whole brand new venture seemed like you were turning the page into the unknown. Honestly looking back, it was the greatest thing we’ve ever done.”

Find all of Southerland’s music and upcoming shows at SoutherlandMusic.com.