When First Time Flyers first spoke to CountryMusic.co.uk in 2023, the idea was relatively simple. Four established singers and songwriters had come together to make music, be creative and, above all, have some fun.
A little over three years later, quite a lot has happened.
There has been a debut album, Bound To Break, which reached No.1 on the Official Country Artists Albums Chart, sold-out shows and a BCMA Band of the Year win. At The Long Road this summer, Vicki Manser, Poppy Fardell, Jake Morrell and Tim Prottey-Jones also reached the Rhinestone Stage, a milestone they had been quietly chasing across four consecutive appearances at the festival.
Now they are doing it all over again.
When we caught up with First Time Flyers at The Long Road, they were beginning to reveal their next chapter: a second album called Coming Home. Since then, the picture has become clearer. The album arrives on 2 April 2027, followed days later by their biggest headline tour yet, taking them around the UK and Ireland before continuing into Germany and the Netherlands.
The scale is changing. What is striking, though, is how determined they are that the reasons for doing it should not.
Coming Home
“We wrote it and we love it a lot,” Poppy says when we ask why people should be excited about album number two.
“It’s called Coming Home. It’s going to be out in 2027 and it’s kind of, so far, our favourite project that we’ve ever got to work on as a band. And it’s going to be followed by the biggest and best tour we’ve ever been on.”
At the time, the band had an unusual problem: too many songs.
Some were being tested live for the first time during The Long Road weekend, helping the four decide what should make the final record. But they already knew what they wanted Coming Home to feel like.
“We all talk about how much we fell in love with country music and stories and kind of singing around the kitchen table,” Tim explains.
“We want all of the songs that end up finalised on this album to be the kind of songs that you might sing around the kitchen table, or stories that you share around the kitchen table.”
With four prolific songwriters involved, there was even talk of a deluxe edition.
“There might have to be,” someone jokes. “There’s four of us. It’s a lot of stories to tell.”
From the World Cup to Coming Home
The title track had a rather less profound beginning.
Vicki traces the idea back to the run-up to the World Cup, when she suggested it would have been good to release a song called Coming Home.
There was just one problem.
“Everyone was like, ‘Vic, we’ve missed the boat on the World Cup, love. It’s literally next week.’”
They wrote it anyway, in around half an hour.
What began as a playful idea soon became something more personal. Conversations turned to roots, the places that made them and the feeling of returning after time away.
“Being on tour feels really exciting, but being home is a different kind of warm excitement,” Poppy says.
A No.1 phone call in the van
The previous album provides one of the clearest measures of how far First Time Flyers have travelled.
They were touring Bound To Break when their manager received a phone call in the van.
“You sort of have a vague eye on it, just to go, ‘Oh, what if? Wouldn’t it be nice if?’ But you never think it’s going to happen,” Tim remembers.
Then their manager announced he was putting the call on speaker. “What’s this? He never does this,” someone remembers thinking. “You’re all fired!” came another suggestion.
Instead, they discovered Bound To Break was No.1.
“To receive that news when we were all together and literally touring that album anyway, it just made it even more special.”
First Time Flyers: at a glance
Who: Vicki Manser, Poppy Fardell, Jake Morrell and Tim Prottey-Jones.
Debut album:Bound To Break, released in September 2025 and a No.1 on the Official Country Artists Albums Chart.
Award: BCMA Band of the Year 2026.
New album:Coming Home, released 2 April 2027.
Still on the bucket list: Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry, all the C2C festivals in one year and The Graham Norton Show.
Primadonna, from Bound to Break
Four voices, one decision
One of First Time Flyers’ defining qualities is that there isn’t a conventional lead singer. All four can front a song.
After several years together, deciding who sings what has become increasingly instinctive.
“I think we know each other’s voices so well when we write a song that before we even sing it, we already know in our heads who’s going to sing what,” Vicki says.
More revealing is what happens when a decision needs to be made.
“It’s not really about individuals. It’s like, what does the band need? What does the album need?”
That feels significant for four musicians who arrived with individual careers. First Time Flyers increasingly sounds less like four solo artists working together and more like a band making decisions for the collective.
Although their method for reaching those decisions is unusual.
The four-moose rule
When First Time Flyers need to make a unanimous decision, each member sends a moose in the group chat.
“If there aren’t four mooses, it doesn’t happen.”
Four members. Four votes. Four mooses.
Four years to the Rhinestone Stage
At The Long Road, another ambition was about to be ticked off.
After playing the festival four years running, First Time Flyers had reached the Rhinestone Stage.
The Rhinestone Stage welcomes The First Time Flyers (Photo @whatupitsjumo)
What did that mean?
“Everything.”
“It’s something that we’ve all just been sort of gunning for for a while,” Jake says. “It’s maybe a bucket-list thing for us.”
They planned to go out and have as much fun as possible, with one request to the British weather: “Please, no thunderstorms.”
That word, fun, comes up repeatedly.
When we first interviewed First Time Flyers, they told us that having fun and being creative together was central to the band. So, with albums, awards and tours now surrounding it, we ask whether that still holds true.
“Absolutely. I think if it wasn’t about that, we wouldn’t be here at the end of the day.”
“It has to have that for us. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s music, right? It’s supposed to be fun.”
Bigger ambitions
Fun doesn’t mean a lack of ambition.
Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry are on the band’s wish list. So is playing all the C2C festivals in one year. Someone wants an appearance on The Graham Norton Show.
“Just keep putting records out that people like, I think, is the actual aim,” Poppt says.
“We want this to be bigger and better every year. We’re always striving for more and more.”
One of those ambitions is already taking shape. During our interview, First Time Flyers revealed that their planned European dates were being moved into 2027 to follow a new UK tour.
That tour is now confirmed. Following the release of Coming Home on 2 April, the band begin in Belfast on 7 April, travel across the UK and Ireland and finish that leg at London’s Dingwalls on 1 May. Germany and the Netherlands follow in May.
The Coming Home Tour 2027
It is a considerably bigger operation than the one we encountered when we first spoke to four artists who simply wanted to make music together.
The ambition has grown, the stages have grown and another album is almost ready to leave the kitchen table and head out into the world.
