Crazy Girl Will Lead: Eli Young's New Offering

posted in: Artist Features • Country • Features

The time has almost arrived for Eli Young fans. The song “Crazy Girl””yes, the fan favorite that for months has brought audiences to their feet”will be released in the new year.

“The reaction to that song has been incredible. This has been a real whirlwind for us,” said band co-founder and front man Mike Eli, noting the Country Throwdown Tour the band joined was a high point for them. “We were playing these huge amphitheaters¦and being around all the artists like Jamey Johnson and Eric Church and Jack Ingram and Heather Morgan on the Throwdown Tour, you can’t help but soak up their energy.”

The Eli Young Band has been on a career high since the 2008 release of its third studio album Jet Black & Jealous that spawned Billboard country hits including “Always the Love Songs.” Now the band is gearing up to go even higher with its next album. The reaction to “Crazy Girl” makes many think the album’s success is almost a given. Although Eli is a bit more cautious about placing his bets, he said this year’s tour schedule brought the band plenty of good vibes.”I don’t know how or why it happened, but I kind of imagine it was like church camp,” said Eli of the fellowship that developed among the bands and their crews. “We came away with music we wrote with other artists. It was a great experience.”

For now, though, Eli and his band mates are concentrating on the upcoming 2011 release. “We are really excited about this record. I know it sounds cliché, but we have made a few records and this is going to be my favorite,” he said. “We have come into our own and been able to take chances without sacrificing sound.”

Although the songs on the album are a combination of those written by band members and other songwriters, Eli said they’re all pure Eli Young.

Thank the band’s maturation, the circumstances of the recording or even just the jazzed feeling of coming off popular and critically acclaimed tours, but the stars aligned for band’s sound when they put the record together.

“We recorded in a cabin in Franklin (Tennessee), in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “It was one of those things, we were making this record and there wasn’t pressure on us to do things one way or another. Our producer said ‘Let’s make something that’s special to you. Let’s not worry about what will work commercially,’ although we feel the songs will be incredible on radio¦We just wanted to make a great record.”

In this case, that means plenty of steel guitar on the songs. So does that mean the music is purely country?

“Obviously our sound comes from many directions,” he said. “I grew up on country music and consider our music incredibly country. There are people out there that don’t consider us country. I don’t know if there is a right answer. ”

What Eli does know is that the band practiced and recorded the song in an old-school way, sitting in a circle on the floor of that log cabin and jamming.

“With this record, we wanted it to sound the way do always have live,” he said. “It’s old school but I happen to romanticize that.”

Eli Young Band Performing “Crazy Girl” at WGAR (Cleveland)

By Nancy Dunham

Nancy Dunham writes about music for Country Weekly, AOL Music’s site The Boot, The Washington Post, Relix and other publications.