Ahead of the release of their new album – Love Talking – this Friday, we interview Eli Young Band about the journey to the record’s release.
Hi guys, congratulations it’s finally release week, this must have been years in the making so how are you all feeling about it?
Feeling really good. It’s been three years plus since ‘Greatest Hits’ which had a couple of new songs on it, but that was a new thing of putting out a compilation record. It feels really, really good to be putting a record out of new music that we’ve been able to put together.
Yeah, I can imagine. Obviously, it’s been like two decades since the band actually formed – do you feel a sense of pressure every time to evolve and experiment your music?
It was just releasing new music and finding that creative outlet when the world shut down. Mike was real creative in doing that and writing a bunch of songs. We were chomping at the bit to get back in the studio in Nashville and record some new music.
This project feels very intentionally upbeat post-pandemic, was that a very conscious choice? It felt like a nice relief after everything we’ve been through.
For sure. I think back to the last point, I think that the pressure for us of creating new music is to try to evolve, but also to evolve in a way that is very true to ourselves. I think in some past projects, we’ve really tried to stretch the boundaries in ways that some of the fans who’ve been with us for all this time, might miss some of the elements that have always just made us ‘Eli Young Band’. The big effort is to do something that is truly us, but also feels like it’s pushing forward a little bit.
Mike sent us over 100 songs over the period when we were really off and not touring very much. I know he made a concerted effort to try to keep things upbeat and pick songs that not only spoke to where we’re at right now in our lives and what’s going on, but something that can hold up 10 years from now. We’ve always been a band that’s really tried to be hopeful and look towards the future and keep optimistic. It would be very against the grain for us to do something that was very in the moment.
I mean, you have to evolve. At the end of the day, you have to take fans with you on the journey – your lives change and your sound evolves. How much do you still feel like you need to retain the core essence of Eli Young Band, and how do you figure that, particularly when you’re taking external cuts and things like that?
That’s something that we’ve always taken pretty seriously – especially when there’s four of us in the band voting on songs, there’s always one or two of us who are like, ‘Let’s hang on to some dignity, here’s some integrity’ when others might vote to try a song or whatever. The brand of the band – musically – is something we’ve always taken seriously and maintain. At least, if we put out a song or record that sounds a little different, our fans will still know what kinds of songs they’re getting, and what our niche is.
Obviously, there’s four of you, so how does that process happen? It’s very easy when Mike brings you a whole load of songs, and you can pick and choose and say, ‘right, these ones we like.’ In terms of external cuts, how does that process happen for you guys?
If one person is super passionate, again, we tend to listen to that person and they usually have a pretty good argument. There’s one outside song that made it onto this record – ‘Break Up in a Bar’ – and that was one that just felt like a song we should have written. It felt like a straight down the middle country tune, by the second verse, you understand what this is and you’ve already bought into it. That one was a no brainer for us. We’ve definitely passed on some songs in the past that felt like they were really big, massive songs, but just not for us. We’ve got to be honest with each other and also try to listen to where someone’s coming from, if they really feel strongly against a song.
I guess that comes with the fact that you all know each other so well, having done done this for so many years, and you inherently know what the band is – while a song might be a huge stadium ready song, it’s not necessarily an Eli Young Band song.
You know, we were pretty honest with each other when it comes to telling each other how we feel about songs – you know that might be a great song, but it may not be for us.
Obviously, the new single is ‘Love Talking,’ which I know Mike wrote with Jeffrey East and Eric Arjes, can you talk a bit about writing that song?
Actually, the three of us wrote quite a bit over 2020. I mean, both of them are so talented, in their own way, we kind of sat down that day, and it was kind of towards the end of that whole time period. We were actually in the middle of picking songs to go on the record and we had already talked to Eric Arjes and Jamie Robinson about producing and so when we were kind of sitting down to talk, and we were gonna write that day, somebody made a joke about letting the booze do the talking and sometimes you want to say ‘maybe I was a little too honest, but it was the truth either way. It was love talking not the booze.’ That just kind of started this whole thing from his side of the story – you never really hear her side of the story when it comes to the song, and I think that it was really that moment where he wanted to reiterate that the booze had nothing to do with it. We didn’t really want to say that – we just wanted to be like, ‘hey, you know, this is where it’s coming from’. I just thought it was a very simple way to turn around something that we’re all pretty familiar with and then there was something special, musically and groove wise, about where we were going with it. It was definitely one that I was really digging, it was Eli Young Band but it felt a little different, so I wasn’t sure how everyone was going to respond to it. Normally, when I send a song to the guys, I’ll either say whether I really love it or think it might be a good one for us or I’m not sure, that’s where the process starts. I see whether there’s any response and then I put it in my list of songs ranked on how they responded the first time. I have a place to start when we start picking songs and I tend to kind of spearhead that whole process in a way. I have a good idea at that point of what they want to start with because of that. ‘Love Talking’ was an easy win, it got a big response right away and it kind of moved into the top 10 pretty quickly. Then every time we played it for somebody with the label or management, everybody was digging it. It found its way to the top of the list pretty quick.
Obviously you guys revisited it at the end and you did the more acoustic version – why did you decide to do it that way?
There’s this thing that kind of happens with that song that takes on two different lives in a way, when you’ve got everybody on it with the groove and everything about it. Then when it’s acoustic, it just has this different love song, mid-tempo thing.
I think that when we first started talking about that being the first single, it felt like we should give those two versions of it life. When we went into the studio, we really started exploring where we were gonna take it, it kind of took on another life – so we wanted to showcase both.
The other song that’s got totally stuck in my head is ‘Lucky For Me.’ That song is so sweet, but you guys have managed to not be corny. How did you manage to rein it back? Talk me through writing that song with Jimmy Robins and Laura Veltz.
That song was pretty easy to write. What’s funny is the way it started – there’s this fast wording and all that kind of happened with it. It was a lot slower when we first started.
There was a point at the beginning of 2020, when everybody was kind of searching for that positivity. There was just so much negativity in the world, at that point. For me, we had an opportunity to be home so much at that point and we had never – after 20 years of being a band – been able to spend that much consecutively at home. All four of us were really enjoying it because there was no pressure of packing a suitcase and telling the kids that you’ll be home in six days or whatever it might be. That’s where I found my positive space. I was feeling pretty lucky that day, and, everybody was just in this really good mood.
It’s different the way that all of the lyrics fall with the music. It’s actually a somewhat difficult songto sing and play and you know, we’ve been playing it for a few months now and it’s still kind of hard to find that spacing because it’s so different than anything we’ve ever done.
Well it worked – thank you so much for your time today and congratulations on the album release and good luck!
