Swon Brothers get help from hometown pal

March 13, 2016 at 12:05a.m.

One Oklahoma singer famously sang about having “Friends in Low Places.”

Perhaps another Sooner State country act, the Swon Brothers, should sing about having a friend in a high place.

That friend of course is fellow Muskogee native Carrie Underwood, who befriended Zach and Colton Swon years before she would go on to win “American Idol” and become a country superstar in her own right.

“We grew up in the same area, and I went to college with her,” said Zach, calling from outside Nashville, Tenn. “As soon as we got on ‘The Voice,’ before we even had a record deal, she was one of the first people to reach out to us and say, ‘When you get to Nashville I’m going to take you to dinner and we’ll just hang out.’

“She’s always been in our corner. I think it’s good to have good friends in the business, and she’s a great one to have. We’ve learned a lot from her.”

Seemingly the first thing they learned from Underwood was to give reality television a try. That move proved worthwhile when the siblings came in third on Season 4 of “The Voice.” The publicity from the show resulted in their self-titled major label debut, which included hit single “Later On.”

After parting ways with their Music City label last year, the outfit is now taking the independent route with recently released EP “Timeless.” The six-track project features a more soulful side of the band on tunes such as the high-energy “Just Another Girl,” the melancholy “Killin’ Me” and the fun “Throwback.”

“Coming off ‘The Voice,’ our record was kind of rushed,” Zach said. “We were thrown into a business that we had never been in before. We came straight off the show and started touring. We picked up songs that we liked but we didn’t write. And we didn’t have time to write.

“I think this EP just shows our growth and evolution as artists, and more than anything as songwriters. We either wrote or co-wrote every song on the EP. These have more of a style but that doesn’t mean we won’t evolve into something else.”

In terms of evolving as artists, next up for the Swon Brothers is an opening gig on Underwood’s “The Storyteller Tour – Stories in the Round,” which comes to Youngstown’s Covelli Centre on Thursday. Zach said landing the tour was as simple as sending their old friend a text.

“We were on the bus one night playing one of our own shows and she announced a tour,” Zach said. “I sent her a text saying, ‘We’d love to be on the road with you. We’ll baby-sit and walk your dog. Whatever we need to do.’ She responded, ‘I don’t trust you as a baby sitter, but I’ll see what I can do.’

“And then literally the next day we had an offer for the tour. That’s just how cool she is.”

So, have the Swon Brothers taken turns walking her dogs?

“We haven’t yet,” Zach laughed, “but I’d love to because she has some cute puppies.”