The War and Treaty Expands Its Musical Depth on ‘Plus One’: ‘Gospel Is Where Our Roots Are, But We Love Country Music’

Since married duo The War and Treaty’s Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter first joined their powerful voices nearly a decade ago, they’ve become celebrated performers on nearly every premier music stage, including the Country Music Association Awards and The Emmy Awards, to more country radio-focused events such as Nashville’s annual Country Radio Seminar. They’ve toured with Zach Bryan and Chris Stapleton, and worked with Josh Groban and John Legend.

The duo found an early home in the Americana scene, twice winning the Americana Music Honors & Awards’ duo/group of the year accolade, while its albums have steadily melded their gospel-soaked voices with elements of country, folk, gospel, soul and R&B. In 2023, the pair signed with Universal Music Group Nashville, with Dave Cobb (Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson) producing their 2023 album Lover’s Game (which earned the duo a pair of Grammy nominations). Last year, Michael and Tanya were Billboard’s 2024 Country Power Players’ Groundbreaker award recipients.

The War and Treaty’s latest album, Plus One — out today (Feb. 14) on UMGN’s Mercury Nashville imprint, includes plenty of vulnerable songwriting, powerful, soul-elevating vocal performances and the mesh of musical styles the duo is known for. Michael and Tanya nod to their Americana roots on the Billy Strings collab “Drink From Me,” blend in the banjo-sprinkled, country-rock track “Can I Get an Amen,” as well as the sultry, funky tones of “Mr. Fun” and revel in the horns-infused, hard-charging “Called You By Your Name.” They explore heartbreak anthems (“Teardrops in the Rain”), passionate love songs, and even music that touches on body image (“Skyscraper”).

But this time around, the duo also features music forged with Nashville writers and producers, leaning into country production and song constructions — and is aiming those songs squarely at country radio.

“We’re gospel-leaning, that’s where our roots are, but we also love country music,” Michael tells Billboard, adding that the response from performances at events such as CRS and the CMA Awards caused the duo “to pause and say to ourselves, ‘Why not? Why not push into it? Why not ask country radio to play us?’ I’m sure years ago, no one thought a voice like Chris Stapleton’s would be in country music, and that he’d be the reigning male artist of the year. But I think if you don’t present who you are and try to manifest what it is that you want, it’ll never happen.”

Plus One was recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and produced primarily by Michael, working with country and rock producers/writers Jonathan Singleton (Luke Combs), John Shanks (Sheryl Crow) and Jesse Frasure (Jelly Roll). The album’s leadoff opening track “Love Like Whiskey” was co-written with ACM Triple Crown winner Miranda Lambert.

“We sat down in the studio and [played Lambert] a couple of tracks until she heard this one,” Michael recalls. “She was like, ‘This is it. This is the one.’ So we wrote the song together, Miranda, Tanya, Jesse [Frasure] and myself. When we finished, we thought that was it, but she was like, ‘Oh no, go on over to the mic and sing, it’s time.’ She produced us vocally on that session — so everything you’re hearing [on this song] is her guiding us.”

The War and Treaty isn’t wholly unfamiliar to country listeners: The duo’s highest-charting song to date, the Bryan collaboration “Hey Driver,” soared to No. 14 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 and the top 5 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

“When you have that kind of community and people are embracing you and they’re also embracing your music and what you bring to country music, I think for us, we lean into it because we don’t have to change who we are,” Michael says. “However, country music does have a formula, it has a format. This is a genre that still values broadcast radio. It still matters if radio says “this is the next thing” or not. I love the fact that our genre tries as hard as to stay pure to the fans, and the fans have been patient with us — but we’re coming forward now and we’re very proud to say, ‘Country music radio, we’re ready to partner up and do the things to give the fans the best experience possible.’”

The Trotters have their sights on mounting a radio tour (“We’ve never done one and everyone tells me [about] the long hours but man, the relationships are so worth it,” Michael says) and they’ve already had early satellite radio champions. Michael notes that UMG Nashville senior VP of promotion Damon Moberly “called us and said, ‘[SiriusXM’s] The Highway picked up ‘Amen.’ Then another morning he said, ‘Sirius [XM]’s Outlaw Country is going to play ‘Save Me.’ That’s really the battle, is the people who are working it for you. If they are excited about it and they are seeing progress and we’re doing it one step at a time, that matters most to me and Tanya.”

The duo dedicates this new album to former UMG Nashville chair/CEO Cindy Mabe, who recently exited the label in an executive shake-up earlier this month and was a champion of the duo.

“Cindy took a chance on several acts that don’t look like the norm, that don’t speak like the norm, that don’t act like the norm in country music,” Michael raves. “She’s [one of the] very few country music female executives who was at the top of the chain. Cindy’s brilliant.”

“This record is the record that it is because of Cindy Mabe,” Tanya adds. “She trusted us to do it our way. She gave us the freedom to put Billy Strings on this record, to go and write this record ourselves and do it our way.”

Surrounding themselves with strong businesswomen has been par for the course for the pair. In 2023, they teamed with Virginia Prater to form Strong World Management, with The War and Treaty as the flagship client. Having businesswomen at the helm of Strong World Management was a priority for Tanya and Michael.

“I was raised in Washington, D.C., where I saw Black entrepreneurs all the time. My mother, my grandmother, were entrepreneurs and they built businesses, so I wasn’t afraid to do that. I saw women in power most of my life,” Tanya says. “When we got into this side of the business, I saw how underrepresented we are. It’s always been about your sexuality or if you talk a certain way and if you were pretty, if you had pretty privileges. So there was always that when you didn’t have women that were representing themselves in business. I thought it was necessary to have women in charge of our company. With this team of women, we did MusiCares, we did our first Grammys, we’re releasing our record with these women, and we want to empower them…That was very important for me to do and to put this company [Strong World Management] together, and watching these people flourish the way they have.”

Next month, the Wasserman Music-booked duo will launch the 30-city The Plus One Tour, visiting NYC’s Irving Plaza, Los Angeles’s The Troubadour and more iconic venues. But even as the duo widens its sonic breadth on the new album, make no mistake: this project is still classic The War and Treaty, as it makes clear on the album’s folk-rock closing number, “The Glorious Ones” — a song Michael calls “a hymn” that he and Tanya wrote for each other.

“I told her one of my goals before I close my eyes on this earth is to be able to look at her and to be able to say, ‘We did it,’ and ‘I’m so glad I never let you down,’” Michael says. “The song is a continuation of that conversation. In the song, we sing, ‘I don’t know…when this old body will lose power, but I’ve gained a second stride walking with you by my side.’ And that’s a very important song to us in this hour.”