Southern Halo, a country music trio made up of sisters Natalia, Christina and Hannah Morris, have recently been added to the lineup for the kickoff concert of Pepsi MidAmerica’s Country4Country Campaign. The concert will take place at Rent One Park in Marion, Illinois on July 21 and feature headliners Lady Antebellum, Chris Janson, Jordan Davis and Tucker Beathard. In addition to Southern Halo, other opening acts are scheduled to include Ashlyn Grayce, James Robert Webb, Lexanna and Elvie Shane.
The Country4Country campaign raises awareness and funds for veteran organizations, including Honor Flight, Folds of Honor and the Wounded Warrior Project. The campaign will continue with a 32 million on-can promotion in various national markets.
Southern Halo has looked up to Lady Antebellum since they were children and they called the opportunity a dream come true. In the past week, they have also shared the stage with Dylan Scott and Travis Denning.
The sisters have been performing together from a young age. Christina said music was in their bones and they wanted to play music. “In a funny sense, our instruments found us before we could find any other purpose in life,” she said. Christina, who is the middle child, play drums and said that drums felt like the perfect instrument for her. Natalia, who is the oldest, plays guitar, piano and is the primary songwriter in the group. “It was just so natural for her to find the guitar before any of us found our instruments,” Christina said. Hannah, the youngest, is the group’s bass player. “Honestly, we like to say the instruments found us because of our personalities,” Christina added.
Natalia said they were around 8, 9 and 10 when the started playing shows. They were even younger when they started singing. She said they would sing songs like “Seven Bridges Road” by The Eagles, You Belong With Me,” by Taylor Swift and “Boondocks” by Little Big Town. “We just loved really any song that we could figure out harmonies to,” Natalia said. “Christina was always the best at picking out the different harmony parts. Since we were musicians ourselves, it was a lot of fun to learn how to play those songs as well.”
Natalia, Christina and Hannah listened to different groups in different genres when they were growing up. They listened to country groups like Lady Antebellum and Little Big Town. They also listened to classic rock bands like The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and Beach Boys. Natalia said Christina started gravitating toward rock bands such as AC DC and Guns and Roses. “We each have our own different personalities and different likes and interests,” Natalia said. “When we bring them together, instead of basically picking one genre, we kind of create our own sound, which is what you hear in Southern Halo today.”
Southern Halo released a self-titled debut album in 2015 and released their “Just Like The Movies” album last year.
Natalia wrote or co-wrote most of the songs with Nashville songwriters. Southern Halo takes pride in taking a very hands-on approach when it comes to their music including writing and producing.
Natalia said you can tell we really love about learning about it just by listening to their music because so much has already changed. “We’ve been more hands-on with this last one than we were with the very first one,” she said. “We just released our second album last year, but it’s so crazy how the girls and I are growing even more and discovering even cooler sounds.”
Natalia said the next album is going to be a big step up from the last one. Their current single is called “Sunshine” and they see it as a growth from the previous album. The song was actually written in January and they were wanting a song that could be a summer-time anthem. It is described as a song about that one beach trip that you’ve been anticipating so you could feel the sun on your face and the sand on your toes.
According to Southern Halo, it isn’t difficult to write a song about summer in the winter because that is when you yearn for summer the most. Natalia wrote “Sunshine” with Stephen Liles and Eric Gunderson, who are known professionally as country duo Love and Theft.
Southern Halo has new merchandise related to “Sunshine” available on their website at www.southernhalo.net. The shirts were designed by Southern Halo’s guitar player.
Natalia, Christina and Hannah are active on their social media platforms and they invite people to come say hello.