BY ALISE CHAFFINS
One doesn’t often consider going on the road a homecoming, but singers and husband and wife team Drew and Ellie Holcomb have titled their latest tour “Feels Like Home.” The couple explained no matter where they are, if they’re with family, it feels like home.
“While it definitely is tiring because Ellie and I don’t really tour together the rest of the year, we just have this short run in February,” Drew said, “our kids come with us for about 60% of the tour, so it really is taking home out on the road. We spend the rest of the year recording and writing and touring separately, so it really is a fun, unique way for us to spend time together.”
Ellie added, “It’s the culmination of all the things we love most: our family, music and travel. So we kind of bring what feels like home to us on the road, and we hope to make everybody feel really welcome.”
The tour, which stops Wednesday at the Metropolitan Theatre in Morgantown, is a mix of Drew and Ellie’s solo work, as well as music they have recorded together. We asked them about the challenges of working together as a married couple.
“It’s been 20 years of trial and error, for sure. After this long of doing this together, the biggest thing that we do is to try to make a lot of space for each other. About a third of the set are songs from my catalogue, a third are from Ellie’s catalogue, so on those parts, that person is in charge,” Drew said. “The other songs that we’ve done together, that’s where we have give and take. But in general, I think a lot of trust has built up. And more than anything, we’re just fans of each other’s music, so that makes it easy to play along with each other because we respect what the other does.”
Home and connection are regular themes for the couple in their work, with the tour name coming from the title of one of their most popular songs. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to balance the feeling of home with the demands of touring. It requires effort, the couple said.
“Normally, we take the days for our family,” Ellie said. “We usually use the days for exploring and family time, and then in a beautiful way, as our kids have gotten older, we kinda switched to working as a family at night. We’re trying to pull them along and give them a job. It continues to kind of be a blend of inviting our family into our work life.”
One benefit to touring together is that the couple is able to use the time to write songs together.
At this concert, Ellie said people can expect “an intimate night of story and song.” One aspect of their concerts is that they open up a section to include fan suggestions.
“It really is special because every night is different based on who is in the crowd and what songs they want us to play,” she said.
Tickets for the “Feels Like Home” tour are available at morgantownmet.com. You can find music for Ellie at ellieholcomb.com and for Drew at drewholcomb.com.
