‘Loving On Our Michigan Fans’: The Local Spins Q&A with The War & Treaty’s Tanya Trotter

Michael and Tanya Trotter of The War and Treaty got their start as a band in Albion, Mich., eventually becoming Nashville-based, award-winning, global touring stars of the Americana, soul and roots scene.

They recently returned to Michigan, purchasing property in Homer, Mich., just outside Albion and will host their first-ever HeartsTown Music Festival on Saturday (Aug. 22).

Local Spins publisher John Sinkevics recently interviewed Tanya Trotter about this sold-out, inaugural festival, the group’s love of Michigan and their plans for the rest of 2026.

Local Spins: I know you moved back to Michigan, found this place in Homer outside of Albion, but what inspired you two to start a music festival on the property?
Tanya: Well, we love Michigan. We love you, John. And we spend so much time on the road and we spend so much time, probably more time with fans than we do with our own families sometimes during the year. And I just thought it was a great opportunity now that we have this land to open it up, an area where our fans could feel like they’re coming to a family reunion because that’s kind of how it feels when they come to our festivals. And Michael had this vision maybe 12 years ago to start something called Hartstown. And it’s a huge vision. And I was like, well, we can’t put the things you want to put on it right now. However, what we can do is open it up as a festival for friends, what we call our fans and our supporters. And we wanted to feel like a big family reunion. I grew up going to my family reunion in Newburgh, North Carolina, where I had at least 500 people at my family reunion. It was massive. And we had a great time. We got to meet cousins we never met before. And I think it’s a great time for the fans to actually come together and meet each other so that when they see each other out on the road, they’re like, “Hey, you were at the family reunion. You coming next year?” That kind of thing. So that’s why we’re doing it. It’s going to be very small this year because we wanted to keep it that way. Some incredible volunteers out of Albion that we absolutely love that town, and it’s going to be a lot of fun, and I’m very excited about it.

Local Spins: Why the name Heartstown? Obviously it’s got a cool connotation.
Tanya: Again, it’s Michael’s brainchild. We actually have a song on our album called “Heartstown,” the one that we did with Rounder. And we lead with our hearts with everything that we do. We lead with love and we try to be the unifiers of this world, which seems like as the dark keeps rising, the unifiers help to keep standing up. So we try to lead with our hearts and we understand that everybody doesn’t want to be in Hartstown. It’s not a place for everybody, but it is a place for people that want to accept each other and love each other and love good music and want community. So it’s about loving.

Local Spins: I noticed that the festival lineup features a mix of Michigan acts. So what was your goal in curating the lineup for this festival?
Tanya: Well, I would say that, speaking personally for myself, that I fell back in love with music deeply in Albion, Michigan. At the Bone Theater, Michael was going there performing The Blues, and we met some incredible people like Cliff Harris and his band at the time. And I saw a lot of different, the love and the passion that a lot of the different Michigan musicians have. And I thought it was important to showcase the heart of what got us started, helping us fall in love with the blues and helping us fall in love with music and really helping the Warren Treaty launch into, or morph into this Nashville version of the Warren Treaty. We’re still the same, we’re still roots, but I thought it was important to bring both worlds together. And there’s so many incredible musicians in Michigan.

Local Spins: So you’ve had a hectic couple of years, that’s for sure. You’ve done a lot of touring, releasing new music, including the album, “The Story of Michael and Tanya.” So where did you record that album and what was the theme behind it?
Tanya: We kind of recorded it a little bit of everywhere, mostly in Nashville. Glass House Studios, which is Max’s studio who is from Michigan. But we recorded some vocals in our house. It was a labor of love with a lot of different producers. Michael is the lead producer on it. I’m executive producing, but we have Max producing and Valfred Mendoza and Zach Gardner, a lot of different kinds of people that we call our family.

Local Spins: What’s the next step for you guys this year? What else do you have on tap? I know there’s a little more touring going on.
Tanya: Yeah, we have a little bit more touring going on. We have October tour that ends, I believe the third week in November. So we’ll be going out with the Story Michael and Tonya tour, and we’re playing our first headline show at the Ryman. Oh, nice. That’s a great thing. So we’re pretty excited and pumped up about that. That’s happening on September 13th. But yeah, we just have a lot of touring, a lot of more people to meet, a lot of work to do, grassroots and just getting back out there and loving on our fans. (The War and Treaty will also perform with Jeff Daniels at his JDs Stage Bistro in Chelsea on Aug. 27.)

Local Spins: So what are you most looking forward to on Saturday at the festival?
Tanya: My sister Lavonda and Nancy Doyle, they are the festival organizers, so I’m looking to see what they’re going to do. They’ve organized it. I’ve kind of curated the lineup, but they’ve organized it and everybody’s worked so hard. So I’m really excited to just see it come to life and to see a vision take legs and grow. And then hopefully this will be something we can do every year. We want to do it annually, so I’m excited.

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