Maddie & Tae Credit Their Faith With Carrie Underwood Tour Invitation

Maddie & Tae, the duo made up of Madison Marlow and Taylor Dye, will serve as direct support for Carrie Underwood‘s Cry Pretty Tour 360 next year. The young women, who are hard at work on their sophomore album, after their first label, Dot Records folded, know they aren’t the likely choice for a superstar like Underwood. Aside from their talent, both Marlow and Dye insist their faith, and their prayers, helped them land the most-coveted tour spot of 2019.

“This is seriously spiritual. Jesus took the wheel on this, if you want to say,” Marlow quipped to PopCulture.com at a recent media event. “We’ve been saying that this whole time. Basically, as we all know, the past couple of years have been tricky for us. We’ve just been really trying to get everything going, put out a new record, all that kind of stuff.

“So when we found out Carrie was looking for openers, this sounds so bad, but we’re just not the shiny penny – it’s just not our time yet,” she continued. “So we were like, ‘Man, that’s cool.’ But then we got wind that we were kind of in consideration. I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’”

Cindy Mabe, the president of Maddie & Tae‘s new label home, Universal Music Group, played Underwood a few of their songs, which Underwood liked enough to consider them as tour openers. Once they heard that, Marlow and Dye called everyone they knew to start praying.

“Get the prayer warriors on in,” Marlow said they decided. “So [Dye] called all of her family, I called my grandma, my parents, everyone, and we would pray before shows. Like, ‘God, if it’s not meant to be, it’s okay, but we just want to speak life into this tour, because this would be a game changer for us. It was just almost – we couldn’t even imagine if it did happen. But we were just like, ‘Let’s pray the impossible. Who knows?’”

Underwood’s Cry Pretty Tour 360 also includes the female trio, Runaway June, making the tour all-women, which Dye says is an important message for the country music industry, especially now when women struggle to have the same airplay as men.

“We can hold our own,” Dye said of the message of the female lineup. “Us women can hold our own on a stage. But the cool thing about it is Carrie actually said she didn’t pick us or Runaway June because we’re women. She picked us because she genuinely is a fan of our music and we deserve to be there, which I thought was such an honor.”

“It’s like, ‘Oh, wow. Thank you,” she remarked. “So I don’t think it was purposeful that she made that move. But I think it is really smart. I think that she has always been supportive of women. I think she’s actually taking a step towards that, and actually picking women to be on tour with her. So it’s a really big statement. I think when people come see the show, I think it’ll change some minds.”

Maddie & Tae have plenty of shows on the calendar before the beginning of the Cry Pretty Tour 360. Find dates at MaddieandTae.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Terry Wyatt