Longtime friends and veterans of the Nashville music scene Caitlin Nicol-Thomas and Tyler Boydstun played in separate acts for almost 15 years before finally joining forces as TheThread. Individually, the two artists have graced the stage of every venue and honky tonk in Nashville: the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman, the Schermerhorn, The Basement, Bridgestone Arena, The 5-Spot, 3rd & Lindsley, Tin Roof, 12th & Porter, the Bluebird Cafe, and more, at one point playing over 300 shows a year each. But perhaps their pairing was always meant to be: Both admire Johnny Cash for his tendency to speak for the voiceless and his willingness to sing about “death, hell, and drugs.” (They filmed their first video at his old farmhouse in Bon Aqua, TN.) Both believe in using music to examine pain. And when they began to write their first songs together, both were reeling in the aftermath of divorce, abusive relationships, and intense struggle. “We each went through horrible marriages and divorces, where we gave up everything to just get out. Our music was our therapy. We did what all artists do: We wrote about what we were going through.” 

The result is a band that walks the line where Rock, Country, and Americana meet. Caitlin, a classically trained jazz violinist and graduate of the Berklee College of Music, brings to the table a melodic understanding and a carefully trained ear. She played fiddle in Dolly Parton’s recent Christmas Musical, and spent years touring with Pam Tillis, Lorrie Morgan, Trent Willmon, Maddie & Tae, and Jo Smith, opening for artists including Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Jake Owen, and Don Williams. Tyler took up the drums in high school after seeing a photo of his mom with a drum kit. He developed an innate, beat-driven sense for shaping a tune, and a knack for creating propulsive, dance-worthy rhythms. His 3-piece rockabilly band The Eskimo Brothers cut their teeth on Broadway before releasing 3 records and touring the country, opening for acts like Shooter Jennings, Clint Black, and The Marshall Tucker Band. 

Together, TheThread’s sound is rich, compelling, and badass. There’s a balance of emotion and attitude that make their songs feel personal, and even familiar-- like someone you’ve always known you wanted to be. Their debut album House on Fire, set for August 2020 release, ranges from the gritty, driving rock anthem “Where the Warden Won’t Go” to the delicate, fiddle-haunted harmonies of “Front Porch.” Bookended by a single song split in half, House on Fire shows off the range Caitlin and Tyler have developed through more than two decades combined performing in Nashville. But it also reveals a sound and spirit that is 100% TheThread, harnessed and refined through the work of moving on. “This record incorporates all the heartache and hurt from our pasts. The house, the stuff we’d built before -- we just wanted to set it on fire and walk out the front door.” Co-produced by TheThread and Wilson, House on Fire features an impressive range of instruments, from acoustic guitar and fiddle to organ, drums, and electric bass. “We went into the studio planning to record it live, just the two of us. Then we started tweaking, and adding parts to fill out the sound, and it grew. So much of the final record has a full band, but we were the ones playing every instrument. It’s still just us.” 

The first single “King of Me” demonstrates the pair’s ability to adapt each other’s style; What started as a slow, emotive violin song by Caitlin transformed into its current, foot-stomping form in Tyler’s hands. They like to make music this way: one writes, the other rewrites. The most classic country tune on the album, “Cry for You” offers satisfyingly tight, old-school vocal harmonies in a waltz duet, backed by bare bones guitar, violin, and very light percussion. It’s a deceptively simple song that starts and stops, ebbs and flows -- a lot like pain: “I don’t wanna cry for you no more /And I don’t wanna dry my tears as they hit the floor.” It’s a song about putting pain to rest, as all the best country songs are. Their cover of Appalachian folk classic “In the Pines'' seems to contain every past version of the song, from its earliest 19th-century iterations to Lead Belly’s blues take and Nirvana’s grunge update, blending eerie harmonies and wailing fiddle with a defiant attitude. It’s a good example of what TheThread do best. 

Images of darkness, smoke, fire, murder, misery, and struggle permeate the album’s lyrics, but the stories told in House on Fire are ultimately cathartic. They offer glimpses of how pain can enhance life, how good it feels to look back from the other side. Outlined in “Gold,” the message at the root of House on Fire is inspired by Japanese Kintsugi, or the art of restoring broken pottery with melted gold. “When you are broken, you have an opportunity to fill the cracks with something even stronger and more beautiful than what was there before. That’s what this album was about – building strength through beauty.”