MID SUMMER CLASSIC
Eli Young Band will headline FanFest concert
TROY, N.Y. » Eli Young Band is headed to Troy this week to play a free outdoor concert during AllStar Fanfest, ahead of the 2017 New York-Penn League All-Star Game, which the city will host Tuesday night.
The festival, featuring the national award-winning country act, will take place Monday beginning at 5:30 p.m. with local band Skeeter Creek opening, in Riverfront Park on the Hudson River in downtown Troy. The concert is free and open to the public.
With a new album, Fingerprints, released this summer, Eli Young Band is ready to help the Collar City gear up for the big game. In advance of the show, drummer Chris Thompson talked about the band’s new music, the journey to fame and plans for the future.
Q: So you guys are playing All-Star Fanfest the night before a big baseball game here in Troy. Are you guys baseball fans?
A: Yeah, we’ve done some stuff with the Texas teams, but we’re musicians first and sports fans second. You gotta stick with what you know.
Q: This band has been together for a while. You formed in college, right? Were you all studying music there?
A: Yeah, 17years ago we started at the University of North Texas, right outside of Dallas, Tx. Some of us were, but none of us got degrees in music, we got degrees in other things. UNT is a big music school and that was kind of the draw, but the program is pretty rigorous and if you’re trying to start a band and do college and have a social life and all that it just didn’t really work out.
Q: What were those early days like, did you get your start doing campus gigs?
A: Yeah, that’s exactly what it was like. Mike, our singer, and James, our guitar player, were playing acoustic shows at this little bar that was right behind where we lived, and they wanted to put
together a record. So we were all friends, Jon and I played bass and drums, so we got in the studio and did like four or five songs. Then Mike and James were getting shows at the place to play acoustic and Jon and I would jump up for like four or five songs, and then go drink beer and watch them play. And the next thing you know we were getting hired by the university to play freshman orientations and all that kind of stuff, and it just slowly grew for a number of years.
Q: Tell us about your new record. What inspired it? What was it like making it? A: The album is called Fingerprints. I think we released it just like a month ago, maybe. I don’t know, time’s been flying. And it’s our first full-length record in over three years. We put out a record called 10,000 Towns three or four years ago, and then between that record and this record we put out an EP, but we haven’t put out a full-length release in quite a while. We usually take a lot of time to make records, for better or worse. But with this record, we spent about a year and a half writing and recording it. So it’s a real snapshot of one time in our lives and in our careers. Usually when we write records, we’ll pull songs from five years ago or two years ago, or write a song the day we’re recording it or that kind of stuff. So the content can be all over the place, but with this record, it’s a really cohesive record content-wise and sound-wise.
And we really have been listening to what our fans have
been telling us after we put out 10,000Towns and that EP it seemed like everybody wanted us to return to our roots Eli Young Band sound. And I think we felt like this was our record to do that on. Being a band, we experimented a lot on different records, just because we don’t want to do the same thing twice. You get bored. So this one is really trying to keep it simple. When things felt good, we left them, let them be, and I think the result is a really honest record, and a record that’s really true to the sound that the four of us make together. Lyrically, too, it’s probably one of the more personal records we put out. I know Mike, our singer, wrote the majority of the songs on the record and a lot of them are about things that have been going on in his life in that time. So it’s a very honest record in that way too.
Q: As the drummer, what’s your favorite song off of the new album to play live?
A: Probably either “Fingerprints,” which is the title track, but it’s more of a rock song, really. The energy is up there, it’s really fun. Or ”Neverland,” which is the new single out on Sirius XM. People are hearing it on the radio and singing along. New stuff’s always fun.
Q: What has the fan feedback been like so far regarding this new album?
A: It’s really been one of the best-received records that we’ve put out. I hate to put the cart before the horse or anything, but it feels like our fans are happy with the direction we’re going, just from what we’re seeing on social media and online. It feels like we did the right thing for our fans. And we love the record. It’s a record we’re very proud of, so all of
that just makes it feel like a great situation.
Q: And that direction was back to what you guys started as originally?
A: Yeah, obviously we didn’t want to go back and make the same record that we made when we were in our early 20s. And we learned how to be better musicians in the studio, too. But yeah it was just more like instead of thinking for three hours about this one guitar lick, or the way a snare drums sounded or something, let’s just make it feel good. There’s no reason to overanalyze.
Q: And was that going back to more of a country vibe or a rock vibe?
A: We sort of sit right in the middle. When we started the band people said it was too rock for country, and then a number of years ago people said we were too country for rock. We just are what we are.
Q: What’s next for you guys? Are you going to be out touring on this album for a while?
A: Yeah, we’re always on tour. We’re pretty much somewhere in the United States every weekend playing. That’s what we’ve done for the majority of our careers. So we have that going on and a new single out. We’re in that promotion season where we’re on the road, talking about the record.
Q: Any other plans or goals for the future you want to share?
A: Just to continue putting singles out from the new record and hopefully have our fans enjoy it. More information about Eli Young Band is available at www.eliyoungband.com.