Photos
James Young
Eli Young Band
“The PRS Starla has such a rocking and concise tone together at the same time. I can hear the dynamics of each string, something I haven’t found with other guitars. I get more compliments on this guitar than any other guitar I’ve ever owned. I play my Starla, every song, every show!!”
- James Young
The Eli Young Band’s music has all the hallmarks of youth: passion, energy, excitement.
The band’s story is the definition of commitment: eight-years—eight long years—spent honing its sound while building to the release of its first national album.
The blend of sonic exuberance and personal maturity is just one of the things that makes the Eli Young Band and their Universal Republic/Universal Records South debut, Jet Black & Jealous, such an intriguing musical property.
The band combined a range of elements—vocalist Mike Eli’s ingratiating resonance, guitarist James Young’s elastic bag of sounds, bass player Jon Jones’ inventive foundation and drummer Chris Thompson’s energetic propulsion—to create a 12-song CD that paints even the difficult turns in life with an underlying optimism.
“That’s been a theme through a lot of our music,” Jones observes. “It might be raining today, but it might be sunny tomorrow, so it’s worth sticking around for.”
Sticking around is a major tenet of the Eli Young Band. The eight years of lugging equipment to small Texas clubs, of losing day jobs because their music held priority, of saying goodbye to relationships torn by their weekend travels, only solidified their dedication.
The four weren’t sure initially what they had or where they were bound. But they knew they needed to keep pushing forward, that there was something special in their boundless mix of modern country and solid roots-rock inspirations.
Their persistence led to new career plateaus. The band was embraced early on by CMT (Country Music Television), GAC (Great American Country), Country Weekly, Guitar One and Billboard. After their video for single “When It Rains” was picked up on both country music channels, fans across the country poured into venues night after night and would sing the words back to the band.
The buzz around the band and their independent single caused a stir among concerts promoters and radio programmers who began to add their single to play lists from Denver to Kansas City and Chicago. The single was soon working its way up the Billboard Hot Country Singles Chart. While being worked independently to radio, the song spent more than 30 weeks on the chart, an amazing feat considering the band had not yet signed with a major label. Now, with the manpower of Universal Republic and Universal Records South behind the band, their single is well on its way to becoming the longest running single in chart history.
“We live in the American Idol age, the age of instant celebrity,” Young notes. “But we grew up listening to bands that did the same thing we eventually did. That was all we knew: Go out and start playing.”