Lacy vs. Citta

This week I debated Daily Worker columnist Kyle Citta. Here's the video.

Q&A with the Eli Young Band

Note: I meant to post this interview much earlier this week, but because of some technical issues (read: "I hate Avid") it got delayed until today. Better late than never.

Last week the Eli Young Band did a free show here at UNL along with Aaron Watson as part of the University's celebration of homecoming and the 300th consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium. I had the opportunity to visit with the band on their bus for about 15 minutes.

For those who don't know, the members of the band are (from left to right in the above photo):
Chris Thompson (drums)
Jon Jones (bass, backing vocals)
Mike Eli (lead vocals, guitar)
James Young (lead guitar, backing vocals)

ANDREW LACY: First of all, walk me through a little bit of what a typical day is like when you're on the road.

JON JONES: It's so different. It seems like it changes day to day. It's weird because the focus for the day is always the show, which is anywhere between 25 minutes if we're the first out of a lot of bands or if we're headlining an hour and a half to two hours. So everything is kind of built around that. But every day we wake up in a different city, which is always the most disorienting thing. You fall asleep in one city then wake up someplace completely new and spend the first hour trying to get your new surroundings.

AL: How is playing a college setting like this different from some of the bars and bigger arenas that you play?

MIKE ELI: There's no distraction - I mean, there's a different sort of distraction. Here there's not the liquor and the smoke and the beer that can sometimes be a distraction, but, you know, it's just a different atmosphere.

JJ: And it's good for us because it's all ages, you know. A lot of the bars we play are 21 and up so you miss out on a lot of people that want to come see you, so this is great because everybody can get in.

AL: This is homecoming weekend and Jon, I understand you're from Omaha-

JJ: I am.

AL: so it's kind of appropriate for you to come back isn't it?

JJ: This is great. This is about the best weekend you could be here. I've spent a couple days in Omaha and actually just drove in, so this has been a different kind of a day for me meeting the bus and not waking up here. Totally disorienting. But I was really excited when I saw this on our schedule that we could be part of this.

AL: How did you guys come together as a group?

JJ: Well, we met in college, which is why it's always kind of fun to play at colleges. Down in Texas at the University of North Texas we were all students there.

JAMES YOUNG: And when we started, we really--you know, we'd play the bars and the local scene, but we also did a bunch of stuff for the university playing shows outside just like this at North Texas where we all met. It's a great way to impact people who might not come to see you play at a bar or whatever--

JJ: And we also get the randomly walking by crowd, which you don't get at too many other places.

AL: So what was it like those first few years when you were starting out and nobody really knew who you were?

JJ: It was a lot of fun. Our goal - I think for all four of us - was to make music part of our lives for the rest of our lives and make the band happen. But those first few years it was all about having fun and trying to make a few fans. We weren't taking anything seriously back then, so it made it really easy.

ME: I mean it's still fun now. It's not like it's--

JJ: Yeah, but now we have a couple hours of being serious a day now, whereas back then--

ME: Right. There's a whole lot more of the business that comes into the picture. Back then it was--you know, we had big dreams. We were hoping to one day make it to this point and those were hard times, don't get us wrong, but--

JJ: But if they were gonna pay us in beer, [gives thumbs up] yeah. We were on board.

ME: But now if they tried to pay us in beer, we'd probably give them the middle finger.

CHRIS TOMPSON: Unless it's Bud Light.

JY: We'll still take your beer.

AL: What's been the biggest change since you moved to a major label and began doing some of the larger shows?

JJ: It's just non-stop now. It feels like from the time we signed 'til now--the bus hasn't had any time for maintenance because there hasn't been time to stop--we're just trying to do everything at once. We're trying to conquer the whole nation, whereas before we were a regional band just trying to break out layer by layer, slowly by slowly, and now we're just trying to do everything at once. It's time consuming, but it allows us to--

JY: We went from doing Good Day Dallas to being on Jay Leno. I mean, we did like every morning show in Texas all across the state. It's really cool being able to impact radio and make new fans and we'll go someplace we've never played before and they know the songs and they know that back catalog and everything, so that's really cool.

AL: When "When It Rains" started getting played on radio, you weren't really doing anything to promote it, so what was it like to see your song showing up on the charts?

ME: That song was a publicity stunt. [Everyone laughs] That was a cool thing, because the way we found out our song was on Billboard was that a friend called and said, "I don't know if you know this, but 'When It Rains' is on the Billboard charts.' That was one of those things that will always be a part of our story. "When It Rains" gave us the opportunity to break out nationally because a few disc jockeys and program directors decided it was a great song and they wanted to play it. That song kind of changed our lives.

AL: I know when I first heard that song it jumped out at me because it sounded really different from anything else on country radio at that time. How would you describe your group's sound?

JJ: Really, when we started the band we didn't say we were going to be a country band or a rock band. The four of us just wanted to play music together. And so the first couple years was spent not only having a lot of fun but figuring out what kind of music we wanted to make and what we found out was that the four of us can only really make one kind of music. We're happy that it fits into the country genre, but it's just our kind of music.

JY: A lot of it was songwriting as well. We write songs from our personal experiences and life experiences and with us it's all about the song then we just go from there. I guess it hit a chord with some people and here we are now.

AL: With eight of the twelve songs on Jet Black & Jealous, at least one of you had a hand in writing. How important has it been to have that kind of artistic input on your first album for a major label?

ME: We wouldn't have done it any other way. We had full artistic input on the entire record. We made the record on our own without the label before we signed, so with the writing even the songs we didn't write were songs that sounded like us and writers we write with. I think that will always be a huge part of us. We have a lot to say and the songs are gonna come pouring out of us. I think that will always be a huge part of the Eli Young Band.

AL: The current single is "Radio Waves." Tell me a little bit about that song.

ME: It's got the word "radio" in it. The way that song started out, I wrote it with a good friend of mine, Blu Sanders--a good friend of ours, Blu Sanders--

JJ: He's my friend too, buddy.

ME: [Laughs] We were talking about radio and talking about how when you were younger you were making the mix tapes and all this for girlfriends in junior high and all that kind of thing and talking about how as artists we communicate through music so much and that song just follows that idea of how most of us--not even artists, but a lot of times we all communicate through music and through lyrics. That's were that song kind of came from and it ended up working out pretty good for us.

AL: Another song on that album I really like because it's unique is "Guinevere". Could you tell me a little about how that song came about?

ME: Well, I figured I'd just stake my claim in the whole King Arthur-Guinevere story, since everybody else has. James and I wrote that with a friend of ours, Scooter Carusoe, and we kind of thought at first that it was gonna be kind of a goofy idea. But it's about a girl that is having trouble and trying to figure out where her place is. We felt like the idea of Guinevere and her story kind of helped give some imagery to that story.

JY: We've written a bunch of songs and some songs don't make it on the record, but we fell in love with it once we were in the studio recording it. You just never know which songs are gonna hit and which songs are--'cause they're all our babies you know, and--

ME: I loved it from the beginning.

JY: [Laughs] But all the songs on the record are our babies and then you bring them out to the fans and this one kinda touched home with a lot of people.

AL: The way the music industry is right now, it's kind of hard to measure success in terms of album sales as much as in the past and things like that, so do you measure success for the group?

ME: By how many beers we can down in one night. [Everyone laughs]

JJ: We've always wanted to make records to go play live. Our audience, our fanbase, is growing at a great pace. A great way for us to measure it is how many fans and how many people were impacted. And you can go look at how many people are illegally downloading our songs - and there's a bunch of them [gives thumbs up] - and that number's growing too, so that means we're making more fans. You're right, it's not just about how many records you sell anymore; it's a little bit of everything.

JY: The traditional model's kind of out of whack, but what we really look for is people in the seats and fans that come out and fans that hear one song they think it's cool so they go buy our record. It's changing times in the music industry.

AL: Last year you got the ACM nomination for Best New Vocal Group. What does a recognition like that mean to you?

JY: We didn't pay off the right people, I don't think. [Everyone laughs] It's amazing to be recognized by your peers and to even be in that category. There's been so many wow moments in the past couple of years--

ME: And that's your P.C. answer.

JY: But mostly we didn't pay off the right people.

AL: You said earlier that you don't necessarily play what you might call country music, you just happen to fit in the genre. What is country music to you guys?

ME: Well, I know I grew up on country music and so for me as a vocalist and a songwriter the band kind of had no choice, I guess. With me being the lead singer it was going to kind of put us in that genre. But country music has always been about real life stories and the lyric is always the most important thing. It's what's driving the whole genre, I think. People are listening for that story and listening for that moment of wow and that last line that knocks it out of the park. Country music, I think, is always going to be a big part of who we are.

JJ: We really like that it's driven by the melody and it seems like a very honest type of music. That's what we really like about it. The song is the most important thing about the music, if that makes sense, whereas in a lot of other types of music there's so many other hype things that country music can be a little more pure.

JY: I was reading a quote the other day, and it was Eric Church talking in Rolling Stone and he said, "Country music is the new American music." I really agree with that. Just like the Chuck Berrys and the Elvis Presleys back in the day when all that first started rock and roll. It was R&B and it was soul and all of that. That's what I think country kind of is now. It's the voice of American music.

AL: Thank you guys for taking the time to talk with me.

Listen to EYB on Youtube:
"When it Rains"
"Radio Waves"
"Guinevere"

Kanye doesn't care about white people

Last night Kanye West accomplished a rare feat: he got me to write something defending Taylor Swift. Last night, Swift won Video of the Year for "You Belong With Me" at MTV's Video Music Awards. The win was a bit of a surprise, especially to Taylor, because it's not often a country singer beats out Beyonce at an award show.

During Taylor's speech, Kanye grabbed the mike out of her hand and declared Beyonce had "one of the best videos of all-time," clearly suggesting Taylor shouldn't have won. To Beyonce's credit, she was not pleased with Kanye's shenanigans and invited Taylor back on stage later finish her thank yous.

I wouldn't call myself a Taylor Swift fan, but I also don't necessarily dislike her music. I do like her as a person based on the way I've seen her conduct herself both on stage and in the media. She doesn't get into trouble and seems to be genuinely appreciative of how much she's achieved at such a young age. For a jackass like Kanye to once again try to make everything about him and ruin the night for this girl is inexcusable.

Now with another response from the world of country music, here's Vince Gill:

[This space left intentionally blank]

I know what you're thinking: "Geez Lacy, when are you going to quit being a bum and actually write some new content instead of just linking videos? You used to consistently post around 15 times a month; now it takes an act of Congress to get one a week."

You're right, I have been lazy about this. To be frank, I burned out on politics over the summer and wanted to take some time away from it. Now I'm back in my regular routine of school/extra curriculars/Noah Ballard obsessing over me, which means I might actually start writing again. In fact, I've already got a couple book reviews in the pipeline to post...well, whenever the hell I get around to finish them.

In the meantime, go read my pet project.

Dragnet politics

The most insightful political commentary you'll see all week comes courtesy of Joe Friday. [Hat tip: IMAO]