Eli Young Band riding hot streak back to Oklahoma City
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Eli Young Band is without a doubt a Texas music sensation, formed in Denton by four friends who still call the Lone Star State home.
But bassist Jon Jones expects Sunday’s show at the Zoo Amphitheatre to feel like a homecoming.
“Now that we’re traveling more, whenever we get back to really anywhere in Texas and Oklahoma, it feels like home. We have played Oklahoma City well over a dozen times. This will be our second time at the amphitheatre, and the crowds there really treat us like family,” Jones said in a phone interview last week while driving through Nebraska, where he grew up in Omaha and the band was preparing for a show in Lincoln.
Sunday’s show will bring together Eli Young Band and Zac Brown Band, two country groups whose careers have blazed white-hot in the last year. It will be the first time the bands have been on the same lineup.
“We’re looking forward to that. He’s had a huge year, a monster year with his band, maybe the biggest year of anybody in country music over the past year, especially for a new act. It’s gonna be fun to get to know those guys a little better. We’ve met at awards shows, but that’s really about it. I’ve heard they’re a lot fun to hang out with,” Jones said.
Of course, if any emerging country group has experienced as big a year as Zac Brown Band, it’s the Eli Young Band. After eight years of toiling as a regional band, the Texas quartet — singer/guitarist Mike Eli, guitarist James Young, drummer Chris Thompson and Jones — released in September 2008 “Jet Black & Jealous,” its major-label debut on Universal South, to rave reviews.
In February, the band was nominated for the Academy of Country Music’s top new vocal group or duo, eventually losing to the Zac Brown Band. In spring, Eli Young Band performed “When It Rains” on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and notched its first top 10 single on the Mediabase country chart with “Always the Love Songs.” And the band represented the Texas and red dirt music scene admirably with a performance on summer’s CMT Music Awards.
“It’s really kind of surreal. It’s been the biggest year we’ve had. It’s been a long time coming; it’s been a lot of back-work to get to where we’re at. And it’s weird to see the different ways it all pays off,” Jones said. “To be amongst all the big country music stars and your seats are right there and you’re up for the same awards as some of those people … it was always a goal, but it never seemed that attainable until we were there.”
For Eli, the lesson of this year has been “hard work tends to pay off — 10 years later.”
“You have to be patient, I think, and you have to be willing to sacrifice, sometimes everything. You know, we’ve sacrificed personal lives, money, everything to be able to do this,” Eli said in a phone interview this summer. “You’re playing music because you love to make music.”
Although the band specializes in the edgy Texas country sound, Jones said the Nashville scene has been accepting of their sonic differences. He noted that the Atlanta-based Zac Brown Band doesn’t make music that precisely fits the Nashville mold, either.
“Country music seems to be wide open right now,” Jones said. “The kind of music that we make is the only kind of music that the four of us when we come together know how to make. Not only do we not want to change it, I don’t know if we could change it too much if it that were our goal.”
While touring, the quartet is writing songs for the follow-up for “Jet Black & Jealous.” Through all the hard work, the bandmates have become even closer friends, although they are grateful that they no longer have to live in the same house.
“We’re a band, every decision we make, everything we do is the four of us,” Eli said. “Since there is no Eli Young, we all get to claim the name.”
Although the relentless touring takes them far from home — and they haven’t taken a weekend off in more than a year — the band still finds making music fun.
“I think we’re growing old but we’re not really growing up or getting more mature. Sometimes it feels that way, and sometimes it’s on purpose because we do play in a band. We tried to set it up so we never had to work a day in our lives. Sometimes it feels like work, but not very often,” Jones said.
In concert
The Breaking Southern Ground Tour
With: Zac Brown Band, Eli Young Band, Mama Sweet and Southern Ground artists Nic Cowan, Levi Lowrey and Sonia Leigh.
When: 4:15 p.m. Sunday. Gates open at 3 p.m.
Where: Zoo Amphitheatre, 2101 NE 50.
Information: 364-3700 or www.zooamp.com.
-BAM
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