Maddie & Tae Reveal Their Break up Whereas Avoiding the Time period ‘Breakup’ (Unique)

Don’t name it a breakup, say Maddie Marlow Font and Tae Dye Kerr. However after 15 years as Maddie & Tae, they’re about to do one thing they’ve by no means accomplished earlier than: go their separate methods.

The platinum-selling duo share their massive information with PEOPLE completely as additionally they reveal their particular person plans. Kerr is putting her profession on maintain for the foreseeable future to give attention to her household, which incorporates her husband, Grammy-winning songwriter-producer Josh Kerr, daughter Leighton, who turns 4 subsequent month, and son Chapel, 13 months. And Font is now laying the groundwork for a solo profession as she continues to navigate life as a spouse to stay-at-home husband, Jonah Font, and mom to their 2-year-old son, Forrest.

“We’re leaving this so open-ended as a result of, you already know, we’d make one other report in the future,” Font, 30, says. “We would go do some tour dates in the future.”

“Completely,” Kerr, 30, affirms.

“However simply on this season,” Font provides, “it would not really feel aligned for us to do it collectively.”

 So is that this a pause? A separation? A hiatus?

The 2 girls are battling what to name it as a result of, they are saying, whereas they might be excising the skilled “&” between their names, additionally they supply wholehearted assurances that the non-public “and” stays in place. Their connection, they are saying, is deep, agency and everlasting.

“Although we’re not gonna go on this journey as Maddie & Tae collectively, we’re nonetheless strolling and doing life collectively outdoors of it,” says Font. “And I believe I’m actually excited to simply be greatest pals and nurture our friendship and never have to fret as a lot in regards to the work and nonetheless get to boost our infants collectively. None of that modifications.”

But none of that, they know, takes away from the importance of this determination. There’s no denying that that is an ending. And, they share, they’ve arrived at this place by way of no small quantity of soul-searching and tear-soaked dialogue.

“It’s been such a tough, laborious — truthfully, heartbreaking — determination,” Kerr confesses. “This was the one dream I’ve ever had since I exited the womb. I had a really particular imaginative and prescient of making music and singing music. Once we met at 15, that is what we got down to do, and we’re each simply so grateful that we’ve had the journey that we’ve had. This profession has been every little thing we’ve ever needed.”

However ever for the reason that arrival of their kids, the 2 younger mothers have been open, in interviews and in music, about their day-to-day struggles to steadiness their private {and professional} lives.

Notably, they channeled their conflicting feelings into “Chasing Infants & Elevating Desires,” a standout monitor on their newest album, Love & Gentle: “It’s tears rolling down backing out of the drive / It by no means will get simpler saying goodbye / To candy brown eyes begging, ‘Momma, please keep’ / It is hell on the guts to drive away.”

Someday final 12 months, Font reveals, she felt her first inkling that the household sacrifices, particularly on the street, have been changing into an excessive amount of for Kerr.

“I’m a mom, too, so I completely perceive the pull,” says Font. “We each have been very conscious of T’s coronary heart simply not being in touring as a lot.” In the meantime, Font says, her ardour to be onstage and make music remained robust.

Their variations lastly got here to a head this previous September throughout a cellphone name. Sensing a second of fact was upon them, Font pressed Kerr.

“Maddie was identical to, ‘Inform me the place your coronary heart is,’” Kerr remembers. “And I used to be like, ‘My coronary heart is at dwelling.’ And he or she mentioned, ‘Okay. Then that’s what we have to do.’”

The 2 girls, Kerr says, sobbed by way of the remainder of the dialog. Even at present Font tears up as she listens to Kerr recount it.

“We each knew this dialog was coming finally,” says Kerr. “I by no means imagined it might be on the cellphone. I all the time thought we’d get to be in particular person and hug one another.”

Calls to administration adopted the following day to share the information. “And we’ve form of been sitting on this secret for months, which has been laborious,” Font admits.

Each girls say their religion has performed an infinite position of their decision-making.

“It’s all been the place we’ve been feeling led by God individually,” says Kerr. “I believe that’s what makes it so laborious. We’ve been hooked up on the hips since we have been 15 years previous, and we all the time felt God pull us in the identical course. All of our selections have been straightforward.”

The 2 girls first met in 2010 by way of their vocal coach, who was based mostly in Dallas, a midway level for Font, who grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, and Kerr, who was raised in Ada, Oklahoma. That coach — and their mutual dream of a music profession — have been the least of what they shared: Collectively, their voices blended into an unmistakable blood concord that normally comes with the identical household identify. Their personalities blended simply as effortlessly.

Maddie & Tae, “Woman in a Nation Music”

The duo was fused and shortly Nashville-bound. In 2014, at age 19, they scored their first No. 1 with their self-written debut single, “Woman in a Nation Music,” a saucy sendup of the bro-country craze that had swept the style.

They’ve since gone on to notch many extra hit singles and a second chart-topper, 2019’s “Die from a Damaged Coronary heart.” Through the years, they’ve co-written and recorded 4 albums and 4 EPs, headlined a number of excursions and supported main acts. Trade accolades have adopted: 13 CMA nominations, together with 11 for vocal duo of the 12 months (and a win in 2015 for music video); 11 ACM nominations, together with 9 for duo of the 12 months; and 6 CMT Awards nominations, successful in 2022 for group video. Simply this previous Might, they achieved one other profession benchmark, headlining Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

It is a stellar listing of accomplishments within the male-dominated nation discipline, made all of the extra extraordinary given their option to have kids of their 20s, one thing few profitable feminine nation artists have accomplished at their age. But they wouldn’t have had it every other means.

“I couldn’t think about not having my household,” says Font. “Each of us couldn’t think about not selecting that. Infants in your loved ones — there’s nothing that tops it. … Our objective was by no means to be the largest stars on the planet. Our objective was to make music that mattered and impacted folks, and we achieved that …”

“… whereas having a wholesome dwelling life,” provides Kerr, ever Font’s harmonizer, in dialog, in addition to music. “That was all the time success to us.”

Nonetheless, Kerr continues, she couldn’t assist however really feel her priorities regularly shifting as she mothered her kids. “Life modifications, and there’re seasons the place your loved ones wants you extra,” she says. “I really feel very, very grateful that I’m within the place that I get to now select to remain dwelling and be with my household.”

If something, say each girls, they hope their very own fork within the street will encourage different moms to be happy to embrace no matter life they lead.

“Motherhood is so laborious and so lovely, and there’s nobody proper method to do it,” says Font. “I believe it’s unimaginable to determine to take a step again out of your profession and be a stay-at-home mother. I believe it’s unimaginable to be a working mother and nonetheless nurture your loved ones and discover that steadiness. We now have this chance to be an instance of either side, each lovely and fantastic … ”

“.. and price being celebrated,” Kerr provides.

“Sure,” Font concurs. “No disgrace.”

Maddie & Tae, “Die From a Damaged Coronary heart”

Right now, Kerr’s new dream is “changing into one of the best spouse and mom and homemaker that I can,” which, she admits, additionally contains lastly studying to prepare dinner. “I don’t know the way,” she confesses. “I’m genuinely unhealthy. You’ll be able to ask Josh. He’s like, ‘It’s important to take note of issues once they’re cooking.’ I both burn them or they’re undercooked.”

What Kerr appears ahead to essentially the most is giving her undivided consideration to her son and daughter. “Each single day they’re studying one thing new, doing one thing new,” she says. “And I’m simply attempting to soak all of it up.”

When Kerr thinks in regards to the day when Leighton is sufficiently old to know the alternatives that girls must face, she says she is aware of how she is going to clarify this determination: “I’ll inform her that I had a very, actually massive dream that God placed on my coronary heart, and I chased it all the way down to one of the best of my skills with my perfect good friend on the planet. After which in the future I noticed that she was rising up proper in entrance of my eyes, and I simply could not miss one other second.”

In the meantime, Font expresses as a lot anticipation over the working-mom path she’s about to chart. “I maintain saying I’ve a fireplace the dimensions of Texas below my ass that simply won’t exit,” she says. “And I believe that’s what retains me going.”

As her household’s main breadwinner, Font additionally has a extra sensible incentive to pursue a solo profession: “Momma gotta make some cash!” She readily acknowledges that her husband’s determination to hold the load of their home duties permits her to “maintain doing what I like.”

Font is now writing songs for her first solo venture with new releases anticipated “someday subsequent 12 months,” she says.

Although she grants that a lot of the music can have echoes of the duo’s pop-country sound, she additionally says, “I’m dipping my toe in some gospel sounds and a bit little bit of that R&B-soul factor that I like. However I believe my coronary heart is simply in making impactful music that reaches folks.”

In fact, what shall be lacking from the brand new music is Kerr’s seamless harmonies, although Font says they’ll by no means be too distant. “With writing, I naturally hear what T would sing,” she says. “The spirit of T is gonna be in every little thing I do.”

She additionally reveals she’s already requested Kerr if she’d think about making a visitor look within the recording studio. “In fact I mentioned sure,’” says Kerr.

Nonetheless, Kerr says, most of her singing shall be reserved for her household’s ears. “Bathtub time is my showtime,” she says with amusing. “Between my husband and me and my daughter, we’re consistently singing. We dwell in a musical dwelling.”

Whereas songwriting is extra appropriate with an at-home way of life, Kerr says she’s additionally planning to backburner that exercise in the interim. “No matter God presents to me, I’m open,” she says. “I’d hop on a few of my husband’s initiatives. That may be so enjoyable.”

With the sharing of this life-changing information, Font and Kerr are actually bracing themselves for his or her followers’ response — one thing they think about among the many hardest elements of this chapter-ending course of.

“I simply wish to be sure that our followers know the way a lot we love them and the way grateful we’re for them,” says Font. “We now have stored doing this for thus lengthy due to them. They’ve been the gasoline in our tank.”

Figuring out there shall be “a number of disappointment,” as Kerr says, the 2 are already planning “some enjoyable surprises” on the duo’s closing dates. They nonetheless have a couple of dozen reveals on their calendar by way of mid-June.

However, Font says, they gained’t be calling it a “farewell” tour, which “feels a bit too dramatic.”

If something, the 2 girls have prided themselves over time in creating their very own no-drama zone, which is without doubt one of the causes they’ve resisted calling this a “breakup.”

“It sounds so dramatic, and we don’t need it to really feel that means,” Font says. “You’ve seen different duos that break up, and so they hate one another and blah-blah-blah. I do know the world’s in all probability prepared for us to hate one another, particularly as a result of we’re girls. That simply occurs for some purpose. And that’s why we wish to do it this fashion, to indicate what it appears wish to be two robust, impartial, loving girls that …”

“… are embarking on separate journeys,” Kerr says, as soon as once more seamlessly ending her greatest good friend’s thought. Then, poignantly, she provides: “However nonetheless collectively.”