Interview: Edens Edge is suddenly breaking through on the country scene, opening for Reba McEntire Friday in Tulsa
A version of this story appears in Wednesday’s Life section of The Oklahoman.
Edens Edge suddenly breaking through
After developing their sound in relative secrecy, the Arkansas trio is experiencing great success, including an opening slot of Oklahoma-born and bred superstar Reba McEntire’s fall tour, playing Friday at Tulsa’s BOK Center.
Like the sudden glimpse of an idyllic Ozark Mountain valley that inspired their band name, Edens Edge has seemingly come out of nowhere and stunned country music fans with the pretty harmony of their music.
Just two years ago, the country trio of Hannah Blaylock (lead vocals), Cherrill Green (harmony vocals, mandolin, banjo and guitar) and Dean Berner (harmony vocals, guitar and dobro) went from relatively unknown to signed on white-hot Big Machine Records literally overnight.
After spending the summer playing on Brad Paisley’s massive “H20 II: Wetter & Wilder World tour, Edens Edge is opening for Oklahoma-born and bred superstar Reba McEntire on her “All the Women I Am Tour,” pulling Friday night into Tulsa’s BOK Center.
“Reba has been so inspirational to us. You know, we’re from little bitty towns in Arkansas, and she’s come from a little farm town in Oklahoma as well and just exploded into this amazing, legendary artist,” Green said during a phone interview prior to the tour’s Oct. 6 kickoff. “We all grew up listening to her. I know I was most excited to tell my mom I was going on tour with Reba.” ‘cause I know every time the radio came on it was Reba when I was a kid. So it’s a lot of fun. We’re excited to learn from her. She’s one of those artists that’s never been scared to just reinvent herself and just stay up with (the) times. She’s amazing, she’s a lot of fun, she’s been an interesting artist to see develop over the years.”
Since they all hail from Arkansas, the members of Edens Edge expect to have many fans and friends in Friday’s crowd.
“It’s kind of funny … we never knew each other as kids. We grew up about an hour triangle from each other there in Arkansas, one small town being the same as the next, just different people. So we kind of all had the same childhood, so we definitely kind of share that with each other,” Blaylock said in the interview, which featured all three members of the band. “We all kind of grew up with the same vein and love for country music and country radio, yet being influenced by other things as well.”
Berner, 30, spent his youth listening to country stars like Crystal Gayle and Johnny Cash along with rockers like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Green, 28, grew up playing in her family’s bluegrass band. and admiring McEntire, The Judds and especially Alison Krauss. As a teen, Blaylock, 25, started singing in a band with her parents, who raised her on a steady diet of 1970s folk-Americana, from the likes of Patty Griffin, Nanci Griffith and James Taylor, and family friend Steve Smith, a financial planner with a penchant for songwriting.
Smith happened to know Berner, too; in fact, he taught the young musician his first guitar chords. The part-time songwriter invited Berner to practice with him and the Blaylock family, and Berner in turn recruited Green for the group.
“The first time I met Dean, we were sitting around a campfire,” Green said, picking up the story. “We had been playing music and just kind of pulled off to ourselves and just started playing Alison Krauss and Beatles songs and singing together. A couple of months after that was when we actually found ourselves in the band with Hannah and her parents and … Steve. We were sitting around a kitchen table working up songs for a little local show of some sort, and I remember Hannah opened her voice and I fell right in with her. And it felt like family.”
Even after the band became a trio, Smith continued to help shape their future. He not only inspired the group’s name, he also helped them get their big break.
“We were together in Arkansas and we had been playing together for a few months and we needed a new band name,” Berner said. “We were driving to a show through the Ozark Mountains and Steve … was driving, and as we drove through the Ozarks, he looked into this valley and said, ‘Hey guys, look out there. It looks like we’re on the edge of Eden. And we all just looked at each other, and we felt in that moment that that was the perfect (band) name.”
In 2006, Smith entered a recording of the trio performing one of his songs into a songwriter’s contest, and it caught the attention of judge and fellow Arkansan Kye Fleming, known for penning Barbara Mandrell’s “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,” Ronnie Milsap’s “Smoky Mountain Rain” and other classic hits. Fleming offered to help Edens Edge develop their distinctive sound. but she advocated an unusual method.
“She didn’t want us to play out in Nashville in the bars. You know, most people when you move here, they want you to get into every writers’ round, every show, anything possible you can give in; well, she had the opposite opinion,” Blaylock said.
“She said, ‘I want you to write with my close friends, write with each other and start developing with each other. And don’t show anybody your stuff until it’s really, really good.’ And so we didn’t really play in town much; we’d have to go home and play. Or we’d get the itch to play so bad but couldn’t leave and go home ‘cause we had jobs and stuff, so we’d invite close friends over and play in our living room ‘cause we all lived in a house together.”
When Fleming was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in fall 2009, she asked the trio to perform a five-song medley of her hits. The crowd at the event included Toby Keith, Taylor Swift and Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta, who met with the group the next morning and offered them a record deal.
“At that point we had been playing some shows at fairs and festivals and stuff, but really in Nashville no one knew who we were except for a very few number of people. So for us to get a chance to perform onstage alongside Ronnie Milsap and several other amazing singers that night, it was a really huge thrill and a huge opportunity,” Berner said.
“And ever since that time, it’s like our world turned on to fast forward.”
In March, they made their Grand Ole Opry debut, and they have played several more times at the venerable Nashville institution. The trio released in May a five-song EP featuring their spirited debut single, “Amen,” which also spawned their first music video. After McEntire’s fall trek ends later this month, they will join Lady Antebellum’s tour. And they are writing and working on their first full-length album, tentatively scheduled for early 2012 release.
“The transition has been pretty quick as far as the last year, but really we’ve been together now seven, seven and a half years. So we’ve really had a lot of time to develop who we are as people and who we are as a band and the kind of music that we love to play together. So we’re just really excited that we have these opportunities, and we’re very, very thankful,” Berner said.
In concert
Reba McEntire
With: The Band Perry, Steel Magnolia and Edens Edge.
When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 Friday.
Where: BOK Center, 200 S Denver, Tulsa.
Information: (866) 726-5287 or www.bokcenter.com.
-BAM
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment