The Eli Young Band has come full circle—geographically and sonically—it just took two decades to make it happen. With their new album Strange Hours, the Texas trailblazers return not just to the bold creative independence that defined their early years, but to the room where it all started: Panhandle House Studio in Denton, Texas.
It was there, amid familiar walls and hometown ghosts, that the band rekindled the spark that ignited Level, their 2005 debut. The result is Strange Hours. Available August 1, the collection smacks of the band’s Texas roots, defiant spirit, and the fist-pumping, country-rock grit that has always defined them.
Eli Young Band isn’t chasing country radio trends or chart position with Strange Hours, they were in search of a new fire independent of Nashville to carry them forward for the next two decades. It’s the first album for the band since leaving their longtime record label Big Machine, and they felt like going home – in more ways than one.
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Eli Young Band Went Home
“We felt like going back to Denton just told the whole way we thought about making albums,” said the band’s singer, Mike Eli. “It was us four, our producers, and a couple of friends in the studio.”
When the band, which also consists of Jon Jones, Chris Thompson, and James Young, recorded in Nashville, it was a party and not a recording session. People regularly popped in and out of the studio, disrupting the recording process. If anyone from the record label showed up, everything stopped. Everyone had opinions on how the music should sound. Instead of the musicians determining their artistic expression, they had to consider the outside voices.
“Making all those records was a lot of fun,” Eli said. “But when you fly by the seat of your pants and follow your own gut, without relying on so many other folks to give their opinion, it’s a good time. We have the confidence and the skill set at this point to be able to pull it off.”
Eli Young Band collaborated with Big Machine Label Group for well over a decade with enviable success. In transparency, the band was doing better than fine without a label. Eli Young Band formed about 25 years ago and quickly became favorites on the Texas college-bar scene. They were packing arenas all over the state before they signed their first record deal, which was with Universal South in 2008.
“Even If It Breaks Your Heart”
From there, the band jumped labels a few times but kept the music coming. Their most substantial hits include the five-times platinum “Crazy Girl,” three-times platinum “Even If It Breaks Your Heart,” “Drunk Last Night,” and “Love Ain’t.” As streaming grew in popularity, the band grew with it. They have 3.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone and a rich touring schedule – part of the reason they don’t have to worry about radio adding their new music.
“We don’t need that,” Eli said of radio. “Sure, it would be great to have another song on the radio, and we think that these songs could be on the radio all day long. But whether or not we’re going to go out and spend a million dollars to get songs on country radio, music shouldn’t be that way.”
Jones quipped it was easier to spend $1 million running a song up the charts when it was someone else’s money.
With the departure from Big Machine, their touring schedule, and making their album in Texas, the men aren’t in Nashville as much as they once were. But on the night of the interview, everyone sat around in a circle in a backstage dressing room at the Grand Ole Opry House.
Backstage at the Opry House
Much like their hometown studio, the room has its own share of ghosts. Jones and Thompson sat on the same couch where Jimmy Dickens stood (yes, he stood on the couch), to have his picture made with Brad Paisley for People. It’s the room Chris Young used a couple of weeks ago when he honored Charlie Daniels, and it’s the space where bluegrass musicians often pour out of and into the hall while warming up to take the stage. The band feels the history and energy. Even though they aren’t signed to a Music City label and aren’t tied to country radio, it doesn’t mean they’re abandoning the relationships they formed here.
Nashvillians Jimmy Robbins and Eric Arjes produced Strange Hours – an album of melody-driven rollicking attitude, steamy romance, vulnerable heartbreak, and odes to alcohol. Eli said the heartbreak songs aren’t really about love – they’re about the music business. They’re also backwards. He’s happily married, and the lyrics are him praying he never has to be that man again.
“If you really listen to ‘What Do Lonely People Do,’ it was one of those ideas that it really wasn’t a song about me having to be that guy at the bar,” he said. “It was really me saying, ‘I don’t want to be that guy.’ What if it all fell apart? I would never ever, ever do that again.”
Lyrics include: I wasn’t planning on ever having to be alone again/Thought I had moved on from moving on/But what do I know? Here I am/Where are the shoulders I can cry on, mine’s gone
EYB Unfiltered
Strange Hours is Eli Young Band’s first album on which the members co-wrote every song. The band’s Corey Kent collaboration, “Whiskey Told Ya,” “What Do Lonely People Do,” “Always Almost There,” and “Nothing on the Wild” are among the band’s favorite tracks – and for different reasons. Sometimes it’s because of the emotion they convey, and other times it’s due to the audience’s over-the-top reaction. Members say they all love “Nothing on the Wild,” but none of them anticipated its popularity with their fans.
But more than anything, the Eli Young Band just wants listeners to know that 25 years into their career – Strange Hours is them unfiltered. It’s their songwriting, the sound they crafted and the words – for better or worse – they wanted to say.
“We made this record with the fans in mind who’ve been with us from the beginning,” Jones said. “We definitely went into it with having those tones and song choices in mind and didn’t want to lose sight of our bread and butter. What makes us us is still what made us.”
(Photo by Corey Ray)
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