The Mastersons Fly South To Familiar Territory

Photos via The Mastersons on Facebook

"We're like migratory birds, we always head down to Texas for the Christmas holidays and stick around as long as we can," says Houston native Masterson from SugarHill Studios engineer Steve Christensen's house in the Heights. "We love New York, but not the winter weather."

With family in Houston, Austin, and the Dallas area, Masterson notes that the couple "can stay down here for almost nothing, so we do."

This year they decided to record an album at George Reiff's home studio in Austin. Christensen is mixing the album now, and Masterson expects it to be mastered by April 1.

While Masterson and Whitmore have both released solo albums, this will the be the first album as The Mastersons.

"We've been on the road so much the past few years it took some time to jell as one act," says Masterson. "We've been writing songs as they came, and we finally started to sound like a band instead of a song swap. So we thought we were ready to do an album together."

By May, the couple will be in rehearsals with fellow New Yorker/transplanted Texan Steve Earle for his upcoming tour in support of his new album on New West Records, and Masterson couldn't be happier with the tour arrangements.