![]() “It helps when you like your bandmates,” Ramsey concurs laughing. They survived because behind it all the five guys are super-tight friends. But I think that it’s just all about the belief in yourself and the band as a unit. “Everybody gets that at some point in their musical career though,” Tursi chimes in, “whether it’s your mom telling you you’re great or whatever. “It’s been a lot of years of meeting people that say, ‘Why aren’t you guys bigger? Why aren’t you guys huge?’ and not having a good answer,” Sprung admits. The fact that they were longtime friends - Ramsey and Sellers grew up together in Virginia Sellers met Rosen and Sprung in college Rosen and Ramsey linked up in Nashville - though helped alleviate the struggle. Still, frustration, as is the case for even the most talented of musical acts, set in at times over the band’s multi-year journey to success. Because then we could go out on the road and play for crowds that didn’t know us and say, ‘Here’s a song we wrote.’ They’d go ‘Oh, these guys wrote this song.’ It makes people pay attention.” “It helped snowball the process and get us a lot of attention as a band. “Having success as songwriters has definitely helped the band,” Rosen says. Members spending years polishing their songwriting skills on the Nashville circuit. ![]() If Old Dominion’s songs seem tailor made for the radio it’s due in large part to its band The one thing that makes that song special to us is that’s the first song that all five of us have written together.” And then I think Matt and Trevor worked on it in the van another day.”Īdds Ramsey: “It was like two in the morning and we were headed to Myrtle Beach to do a show and we were sitting in the back of the van just working on it. “The groove was the fist thing that happened,” Tursi recalls. “Break Up With Him” evolved from a loose pre-show jam session into the earworm of a single it is today. “It’s an energetic song and we’re an energetic band.”) and the slow strutting “Nowhere Fast” (“That one was a bear to wrestle into what it is now,” the singer offers). “We just try to find a groove or a hook or something that catches our ear, follow that rabbit trail and try to chase down a good song,” says Rosen, and the proof lies in the foot-stomping whiplash of their new single “Break Up With Him,” the hard-charging rock riot “Shut Me Up” (“We wanted to really put across what our live show was like,” Ramsey says. The five resulting tracks speak as much to their pristine decision-making skills as their musical chops. So when piecing together their EP, which addresses road-tripping reflection, long-night love affairs and boozy bad decisions at every turn, it wasn’t so much a matter of writing catchy songs but instead choosing from their well of stellar material. “I think we’re all lucky enough to really love what we do and in that respect we were gonna just keep doing it no matter what.”Ī band stocked with time-tested song craftsmen, Old Dominion, which includes lead singer Matthew Ramsey, multi-instrumentalist Trevor Rosen, bassist Geoff Sprung, drummer Whit Sellers, and lead guitarist Brad Tursi, write nearly every day. “It’s kind of the classic, seven-year overnight success story,” lead guitarist Brad Tursi says with a laugh, reflecting on the longtime friends and collaborators slow-burning rise to recognition. Blending old- fashioned country charm, lyrical wit and rock n’ roll grit into radio-friendly hook-heavy pop nuggets - traits best exemplified on their gut-punch of a new self-titled EP - Old Dominion have emerged as one of the hottest breaking bands in country music. Playing for an unconditioned crowd is looking to be a thing of the past. “It’s a breath of fresh air to play for a crowd of people that knows your music.” “To hear that and to feel that interaction it takes it to a completely different level,” Ramsey explains. But hearing their own music getting so much love? Well, that was something different entirely. Sure, this might have regularly happened in the past when the red-hot band comprised of seasoned Nashville songwriters and pro-musicians performed songs they’d written for other high-profile artists, including The Band Perry, Keith Urban and Luke Bryan. ![]() “It was a whole different feeling!” says the country rock outfit’s frontman and lead singer Matthew Ramsey, excitedly relaying how audience members at the five-piece band’s gigs are now belting their lyrics back at him. Recently, when Old Dominion stepped onstage at its live shows, something unusual happened.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |