When Brett Eldredge and Meghan Trainor teamed up to tape a CMT Crossroads duet earlier this month, the pairing seemed a little out of left field; however, it’s really not as strange as one might think — the two have actually been good friends, and mutual fans of each other’s work, for quite some time.
“We first met at a CMA after party in 2014,” Trainor explained in a recent interview with CMT. “We both had the best time of our lives. I performed with Miranda Lambert, ‘All About That Bass, and he won Best New Artist and so we were living the dream. And that night we celebrated and raged with my dad. We danced on the dance floor until 4 AM, and I saw him at a couple other events. We’ve been friends since.
“Then my mom was a huge fan after that night,” Trainor continued. “She was like, ‘You need to write with him. You need to make songs with him. I love his music.’ To this day, she believes she knows where his soulmate is. She’s trying to set him up constantly as if he was my brother. I’m like, ‘You don’t have to do this, Mom. He’s going to be OK.'”
Though their sounds are on different ends of the musical spectrum, the two believe they have more in common than what people may think.
“We both rose up in the Nashville songwriting community together,” Eldredge explained. “We’re old souls. She loves [Frank] Sinatra. She loves that throwback vibe, and I do, too. I think songwriters in Nashville know a great songwriter for a great songwriter regardless of whether you’re country or not.
“If you’re as talented as Meghan is, people are going to want to write with you,” he continued. “They’re going to take a shot with you. Maybe it’s not like that in every city, but that’s the kind of shots people give you in Nashville. We both got those shots early on, and now here we are.
“We relate so much because we grew up in a similar path,” Trainor added. “Everything happened when it happened really fast, and we were both songwriters in Nashville just trying to get anything going.”
Tune in on Monday, September 3 at 10 PM ET/PT for Eldredge and Trainor’s CMT Crossroads event. This dynamic duo will be closing out the summer season with a full hour episode.
