Premiere: The Contenders strip ‘Line Across the Water’ at Southern Ground -

The cultural, social and political divides of America run deep. These days, every week stokes hot tempers, hate-fueled speeches and further division than we’ve ever witnessed as a once-great nation. “If your brother’s don’t come home / And you’re weary in your bones / Will you sell your soul, just to toe the line?” folk-rock duo The Contenders provoke on the opening lyric to a song titled “Line Across the Water,” a charged and pointed plea for the people to come together.

When musicians, singers and songwriters Jay Nash and Josh Day criss-crossed the country on a 2014 tour, those tensions were severely palpable in their musical adventures. “We were just starting to feel the growing cultural divide in this country. The chasm between left and right (or red and blue) was really becoming more noticeable and uglier than ever before,” Nash tells B-Sides & Badlands, premiering an extraordinary and timely live rendering of “Line Across the Water” inside Nashville’s Southern Ground Studio. Filtered in black and white, the players shed light on an important message. “Come all you pretenders / Come on out tonight / I do not condemn you / I share the stars in your eyes,” Nash urges, swapping anger for forgiveness.

Appropriately, many of the songs on the band’s most recent set, 2017’s Laughing with the Reckless, “have remained so relevant to these strange times,” he says. “At any rate, we are staunch believers that any critical perspective of the time and place that we live in must be accompanied by a hefty dose of hope. This song is meant to focus in on the idea how powerful our collective strength can be ⎯⎯ whether it is as a family, a nation or as a people.”

The sheer magic of the original recording is owed in large part to Nash and Day’s devotion to capturing the spirit of their live energy. “I went deep down the rabbit hole on this one, playing electric lap steel and acoustic slide with two complimentary parts playing off of one another throughout the song,” Nash explains. “It ended up providing this gritty and greasy compliment to the foundation of our vocal harmony and [rhythms].”

The dedication to live performance art doesn’t stop there. In the new video of “Live Across the Water,” in full below, the song is tightened even further. The performance is entrancing, able to push and pull inside such an iconic space. “We’re lucky enough to have some friends ⎯⎯ namely engineer and producer Brandon Bell ⎯⎯ who helped create the opportunity for us to record and shoot there. It’s an inspiring room to play in and a great sounding one, as well.”

Later this year, Nash and Day have high hopes of delivering a new record. “We are definitely feeling the itch to create some new music,” Nash teases.

Watch below: