You’d be hard-pressed to find a more Northern Beaches story then that of Tom Jordan and Mitch Thompson.
The pair met at The Seaforth Kindergarten at age three, played for Seaforth Football Club for years and attended schools in the area, in the meantime sealing their lifelong friendship.
So, when the time came for the burgeoning music duo to choose a name for their act, a nod to their beloved hometown seemed appropriate.
“We were looking through all these hundreds of names and ‘Seaforth’ stuck out. I think we both had this moment where we were like, ‘This is where it all started’ and we wanted to keep that story with us,” Mitch says.
Back then, the two singer/songwriters were still cutting their teeth on the local scene, unaware of the incredible success to come.
While their peers were listening to pop and rock, the pair were drawn to the country stylings of Keith Urban and Morgan Evans. It wasn’t long until this obsession drove them to head out on a songwriting trip to the heart and soul of country music – Nashville, Tennessee.
Seaforth’s Mitch and Tom at their sold out show in Nashville in December.
Fast forward a few US trips later and the duo was offered three record deals before eventually signing with Sony Music Nashville.
“What we were doing before Seaforth was essentially country [music] without discovery country,” Tom explains.
“Discovering country was that thing I feel like we both had been looking for. We just instantly connected to it.”
The pair have since permanently relocated to the USA, releasing their first EP Love That in 2019 before swiftly following it up with their second EP What I Get for Loving You in August last year.
Through the whirlwind ride, the duo has been eager to keep true to themselves, showcasing their distinct Aussie humour through songs such as Good Beer and affectionately referring to Urban as their ‘Uncle Keith’.
Mitch and Tom backstage in Omaha, Nebraska.
“When they [the Americans] find out we’re Australian, there’s something interesting about that because it’s so foreign,” Mitch says.
“I feel like people over there, for the most part, love Australia.”
And with 143 billion streams on Spotify last year and a sold-out Nashville show, it does seem the Americans just can’t get enough of this Northern Beaches pair.
“If someone has never listened to country music before, I don’t think it would be what they would expect country to be,” Tom says.
“Someone said to us, ‘It’s almost like country music with a global approach’ because we are from Australia. It’s our version of country music.”
Having just finished up their first Australian headline shows at the end of last year, the duo says it’s ‘crazy cool’ to see how they’re being embraced by the home audience.
“People that were there were there to see us, and they were singing the words to deep cuts off our first EP from three or four years ago,” Tom says.
“Discovering country was that thing I feel like we both had been looking for. We just instantly connected to it.”
“We’re so proud to be from where we’re from. You see home in a different way when you don’t live here. You realise this is an insanely beautiful, friendly, and lovely place to be from.”
With their USA headline tour kicking off in February, the boys from the Beaches say they’re keen to keep writing and releasing ‘as much music as they can’.
“So, we can grow our touring and increase the amount of people that know us, because we just have so many songs that haven’t seen the light of day yet,” Tom explains.
And while the US crowd may sometimes struggle with the pronunciation – they’ve been called ‘Sea Foam’ several times – Tom says they pair are ‘proud’ to represent the sleepy Sydney harbourside suburb.
“Calling ourselves ‘Seaforth’, we get to always keep that piece of home with us.”