Q&A: Eleven Hundred Springs Balancing Tradition and Innovation

On Sunday, April 13th I was lucky enough to see one of my favorite bands, Eleven Hundred Springs, play at Safari Sam’s in Hollywod, Calfornia. Eleven Hundred Springs has a brand new album, Country Jam, being released on May 6th, and they were kind enough to take a little time out of their busy schedule to give the readers of The 9513 a little insight into the new album, their views on balancing tradition with innovation, and new ways that they plan to connect with their fans.

Ben: When you guys were going into the studio did you have any specific goals or want to do anything different?

Matt Hillyer (lead singer/songwriter/guitar player): I’d say that we just wanted to keep it simple and make a good country record, that’s about it. Play in tune, play in time, and put the best songs that we have forward. I think that that’s probably the most that most people can hope for going into the studio. We’re not trying to re-invent the wheel, we’re just trying to make good music, know what I mean?

Ben: Can fans expect anything different musically from the release?

MH: It’s a little more rockabilly, there are some more rockabilly influences in there, and it’s more traditional I’d say. There are a couple of good shuffles, there’s a nice Jackie Brenston cover, “Rocket 88,” there’s some good old George Jones and a whole lot of Eleven Hundred Springs.

Ben: With the song “Long-Haired, Tattooed, Hippie Freaks” you guys establish a new paradigm for the traditional country music fan, how do you think you’ve done at bringing traditional country music to a new generation of fans?

MH: You know what, I’ll say this much, there’s a lot of lip service that’s given by a lot of people to keeping the Willie and Waylon era thing alive, and if you were to ask my opinion I don’t think that a lot of people back it up very much. I don’t know if we’re actually setting out to carry any kind of torch, but just do what speaks to us and play the kind of music that makes sense to us. And that doesn’t just cover that era of country music, a lot of stuff like Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell, that old stuff, really speaks to us too. We just try to cover a large span of the influences that we have, whether it’s Doug Sahm or Hank Williams or whatever, and hope that it comes out the way that we sound.

Steve Berg (Bass Player): I’d add this to whatever Matt’s saying, a lot of time on interviews and what not you get to talk about your influences and all that, and not to be misunderstood, we’re talking about these influences, but you know we’re not the house band all night that just does covers and stuff like that. We’re stressing, and trying to explain, what all these influences are, but as far as the kids being into the sound that we’ve got, our original sound that we do on our records and all of our original material, it seems like especially in the last year, the kids have really come around. The kids who maybe a year or two ago were listening to more the rock and stuff that wasn’t exactly us, ya’know especially with the internet and the MySpace and all that, we’re getting the 18-25 crowd, Ya know, wanting to be our friends and all that, and when you look at their other friends it’s bands that we like or bands that were our influences back in the day. So it’s refreshing to see the kids getting it and liking what we do and liking some of the same stuff that we like. It puts us in a good spot and it makes us feel good about playing this music

MH: Yeah, and it’s cool a lot of the younger folks that he’s talking about are responding to something that’s been around for so long and something that we’ve sort of grew up listening to and cultivating and trying to learn how to do it right and all that stuff, but for a lot of those folks its something new, ya know

SB: yeah we invented this! (laugh)

MH: (smiles) no, no, but we do it our own way, we’re definitely not trying to run any kind novelty act or anything like that, we don’t set out just to do things just old school

SB: Yeah it’s no retro show, but if you know what’s up you can’t deny, you see the influence pretty clearly. It is what it is

Ben: The center of the country music industry is in Nashville. What is your guys’ current relationship with Nashville, do you have any ties to the city, and do you foresee that relationship changing in any way?

SB: Man, we do business with all kinds of folks, I like doing business with people out here in California, the fans out in California really get it, but as far as doing business, we do business with folks in LA, New York, we’re currently doing some business with people in Tennessee. Ya know, business is business, but I like taking the music to the folks who like it and that’s all over the world. Especially this last trip out here in California, the kids, the people, adults alike, they really love the tunes, so let’s do the business on the computer and wherever the people on the other end are, if their in Tennessee or whatever, it don’t matter.

Ben: Is there anything else that you want the readers of The 9513 to know that’s new or on the horizon for Eleven Hundred Springs?

SB: Man, just that release date, May 6th.

Casey Mack (Manager/Road Manager): The big thing is something with our new website. Stuff that really I’ve noticed is Matt’s songwriting chops, and especially in Texas it’s all about the song, so we’re going to have all of Matt’s lyrics on the website in an online songbook for people to look at and read. It’s going to be so good for people to get into and read his poetry because, man, it’s beautiful.

MH: I’d say, more of onward and upwards, we’re going to continue to play shows, we’re going to continue to make club dates and continue to record music.

SB: You know what else, we’re going to also back it up, ya know everybody looks at YouTube and everything and we got some film people we’re working with and probably in the next month we’d like to have more online content and video so people can see as well as listen to it, so I’m looking forward to seeing that.

MH: Steve and I are also in talks with some people to do an internet radio show with the two of us, so that should be up and rocking when we get back to Dallas.

SB: Yeah, very soon, they’re setting the Dallas studios up and we’ll be able to go live with our internet radio show and we’ll be playing stuff that we’d like to hear and playing it for folks and maybe they’d like to hear it too.

CM: Ya know, with our tour schedule we’ve really been trying to figure out what runs work for us and with this California run we’ve had tremendous success and we’re going to be coming out here every ninety days and just doing it right and hard touring and spreading the music here and trying to get people interested in us, and in Texas music and showing them what it’s all about.

Ben: Cool deal guys, thank you so much!.

So there you have it folks. I’m happy to report that the guys put on an incredible show at Safari Sam’s and I’d wholeheartedly recommend checking out a live performance of theirs if you get the chance. Remember, their new album Country Jam is in stores on May 6th, and if their previous work and their live show is any indication, it’s going to be a great album.