Nashville, TN · country · pop country

Old Dominion

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Country's most consistent hit-writing band — they wrote a chunk of Nashville's catalogue for other people before keeping the songs for themselves.

Old Dominion is a five-piece Nashville country band made up of singer Matthew Ramsey, guitarist Brad Tursi, keyboardist and guitarist Trevor Rosen, bassist Geoff Sprung and drummer Whit Sellers, formed under that name in 2007 and named for the old nickname of Virginia. Ramsey and Sellers grew up in the Roanoke region and once played drums for rival high school bands before their paths crossed in Nashville.

Ramsey studied at Virginia Commonwealth University and worked as a solo songwriter before pairing with Rosen, who is the one member without Virginia roots, having grown up in Michigan. Sellers met Sprung and Tursi at James Madison University; Tursi had previously played in the Washington, D.C. rock band Army of Me before joining in 2012.

Before recording as a group, the members built a career writing for others, with credits including Luke Bryan's "Light It Up," Cole Swindell's "Up," Kelsea Ballerini's "I Hate Love Songs" and Blake Shelton's "Sangria." That background shows in the band's own records: conversational, punchline-aware lyrics set to bright, mid-tempo arrangements leaning on pop and soft-rock structures as much as traditional country instrumentation.

Their debut album, Meat and Candy, arrived in 2015 with the singles "Break Up with Him" and "Snapback," followed by Happy Endings in 2017 and a self-titled album in 2019 that included "One Man Band" and the Grammy-nominated "Some People Do." Time, Tequila & Therapy followed in 2021 and Memory Lane in 2023, and the band has been repeatedly named group of the year by the CMA and ACM.

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