Love and Happiness

Married duo the War and Treaty fought through years of trauma to become one of Nashville’s hottest acts

- JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

When Michael Trotter sat down on the stair-case inside his home in Albion, Michigan, one day in 2017, he was ready to end his life. Grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq, Trotter thought that maybe his life-insurance policy could solve his wife and young son’s financial woes if he died. “I felt like I was the weight holding them back,” Trotter says. “I had failed, I guess, one time too many.”

Distressed, Trotter’s wife and musical partner, Tanya Blount Trotter, called the police and tried to persuade her husband to hold on. “Michael, I know you have a plan to leave this world,” she told him, “but if you give me just five more minutes to love you, I promise I can make you staying in this world make sense.” Tears in his eyes, Trotter looked up at his wife and said, “OK.”

Trotter, who has since made progress in his therapy for PTSD, eventually turned his wife’s plea into the chorus of “Five More Minutes” — the hard-charging centerpiece of Hearts Town, the new album from the duo, who make music as the War and Treaty. Transforming trauma into catharsis has become the pair’s calling card as they’ve turned into one of Nashville’s most thrilling new acts. In the past two years, Trotter and Blount Trotter have collaborated with Emmylou Harris, toured with Al Green, shared stages with Brandi Carlile and Elvis Costello, and performed at the 2020 Grammys.

“Their music is a joyful force,” says the Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers, an early admirer. “We can talk about their voices, but it’s really their whole gestalt, their passion. They have a kinetic energy between them that resonates.”