Country Music's High Valley Has New Music and a Brand-New Look: 'We Don't Overthink It Anymore'

It's a conversation High Valley's Brad Rempel knew was coming.

He had seen the signs that his brother Curtis might want to go in a different direction, a direction that would take him away from the highest selling Canadian band in country music history and would take him closer to family and friends in Canada. So, when the phone rang in early 2020 and Curtis was asking if he and his wife could come over and talk, Rempel was ready.

Or at least he thought he was.

"Our band started when Curtis was 6 years old," reflects Rempel, 37, in a revealing interview with PEOPLE. "For the first time ever, High Valley was not an active thing in his life during the pandemic shutdown, so he got to explore his own passions."

But that was not all.

"The huge game-changer was that his wife's family had announced that they were moving back to Canada," Rempel remembers. "They would have the chance to raise their kids with both grandparents living practically on the same street."

So, the decision was made, and discussions began as to when to share it with the rest of the world. However, the world at the time was in the middle of a pandemic, and all of High Valley's tour schedule had been canceled. Ultimately, the decision was made to wait a while before sharing the news.

But then, as the world continued to crawl out from under the limits caused by COVID-19, High Valley went and made the news public in June of 2021.

"My phone was exploding," explains Rempel. "If we have done our job right, our fans have learned through our live shows and from our social media and from our lyrics that faith and family is literally the two most important things to us. So, if my brother had faith that he needed to make a change, I'd have to be like the biggest hypocrite in the world to say, 'Hey, man, that applies to our fans and we preach that from onstage, but don't apply that to your own life.'"

And while fans began getting used to the new look of High Valley, Rempel already felt rather comfortable with his new surroundings.

"This isn't disrespectful to Curtis (Rempel) at all because he's amazing, but we've always been six guys on stage," says Rempel, who helped High Valley top the charts in the states with songs such as "Make You Mine," "She's With Me" and streaming sensation "Grew Up on That." "I know that early on, people knew me and my brother Bryan as High Valley. And then they knew me and my brother and Curtis as High Valley. But there have always been these other guys on stage with me who too make up High Valley."

It's this collection of talented musicians who now make up High Valley, bringing with them a sound that feels awfully recognizable, but yet different, in new music released Friday.

"We get to put out music, and there's not too many rules," says Rempel of the new High Valley music that includes songs such as "Whatever It Takes" and "Never Not." "We don't overthink it anymore. Granted, I think High Valley is at our best when that Celtic and Americana kind of thing just naturally happens. But if we want to put out a bluegrass version of a song or an EDM version of a song, we are going to do it. I love stretching in different directions, but anytime we can be right in that middle ground where all the worlds collide, that's kind of just my favorite place to live."

And as life continues to evolve both personally and professionally, Rempel knows one thing to be sure, and that's the fact that High Valley isn't going anywhere.

"I was 12 (years old) when High Valley started," he says quietly. "And I know that if you had asked 12-year-old Brad how serious he was about High Valley, I would have been just as dead serious about it as I am today."