The members of Eleven Hundred Springs can’t find an easy way to describe their music, so they’ve taken to labeling themselves instead. But “long-haired, tattooed hippie freaks” doesn’t accurately convey the Dallas-based quintet’s appearance, much less its finely whittled sounds. Forced to try again, they resort to spouting this equation: Buck Owens x Doug Sahm x Rolling Stones x Willie Nelson.
Here’s what it really is: original Texas country music in the Americana vein played with respect for esteemed elders but without falling into a time warp. It really has nothing to do with sounding like any particular act or style. The bandmates just do what sounds good to them. And they’ve learned it sounds pretty darned good to others as well.
Eleven Hundred Springs, named after the slogan for Pearl Beer (“from the land of 1,100 springs”), was formed by lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Matt Hillyer and bassist Steven Berg in 1998. But they’ve been playing together since 1992, when they wound up in a rockabilly band called the Red Devils.
That turned into to the popular Lone Star Trio, which had a network of fans stretching from Dallas to Southern California and San Francisco. The name became Eleven Hundred Springs when they were offered a regular gig at Adair’s Saloon in Dallas.
“It became so much fun we decided to pursue it full-time,” is Hillyer’s assessment of the band’s career arc.
Rounding out EHS’ roster are pedal steel and keyboard player Aaron Wynne; fiddler Jordan Hendrix; and drummer/percussionist Mark Reznicek, an alum of the platinum-selling rock band the Toadies. Berg and Wynne also contribute backing vocals.
There’s another performer whose presence permeates Bandwagon even though he’s no longer around. That would be rockabilly legend Ronnie Dawson, whose voice can be heard on the Mickey Newberry-penned “Why You Been Gone So Long.” Hillyer and Berg once played with Dawson, who used the song for pre-show vocal warm-ups. In 1993, on a whim, Berg recorded Dawson singing it. The album includes a remastered version featuring the late Dawson as a tribute and as a way of giving listeners one more taste of “the Waxahachie Wildman.”
That song is one of only two only covers on the album; the other is the traditional folk tune, “The Rock Island Line.”
Although Hillyer wrote most of the other 12 cuts, all of the members contribute. Together, they’ve created a disc full of humor and wit (the song “Long Haired Tattooed Hippie Freaks” is a strong clue) as well as weightier matters involving life’s ups and downs.
Sometimes even those downs require lighter treatment, as in the case of “North Side Blues,” the product of an all-too-common experience for traveling bands. “Steve and I wrote it together after we had gotten a whole lot of our equipment stolen on the north side of San Antonio,” Hillyer explains. He says the tune is heavily influenced by the late Doug Sahm, a native and favorite son of that illustrious city. Theft is also the topic of “The Only Thing She Left Me was the Blues.”
Another cut, “A Straighter Line,” is about redemption, he says, and moving past bad times to the good ones. It’s also the title of an acoustic album the band released in 2001. (EHS’s earlier releases, Welcome To Eleven Hundred Spring, Live at Adair’s and No Stranger to the Blues, are out of print.)
With the release of Bandwagon, Eleven Hundred Springs is on to better times.
Here’s what it really is: original Texas country music in the Americana vein played with respect for esteemed elders but without falling into a time warp. It really has nothing to do with sounding like any particular act or style. The bandmates just do what sounds good to them. And they’ve learned it sounds pretty darned good to others as well.
Eleven Hundred Springs, named after the slogan for Pearl Beer (“from the land of 1,100 springs”), was formed by lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Matt Hillyer and bassist Steven Berg in 1998. But they’ve been playing together since 1992, when they wound up in a rockabilly band called the Red Devils.
That turned into to the popular Lone Star Trio, which had a network of fans stretching from Dallas to Southern California and San Francisco. The name became Eleven Hundred Springs when they were offered a regular gig at Adair’s Saloon in Dallas.
“It became so much fun we decided to pursue it full-time,” is Hillyer’s assessment of the band’s career arc.
Rounding out EHS’ roster are pedal steel and keyboard player Aaron Wynne; fiddler Jordan Hendrix; and drummer/percussionist Mark Reznicek, an alum of the platinum-selling rock band the Toadies. Berg and Wynne also contribute backing vocals.
There’s another performer whose presence permeates Bandwagon even though he’s no longer around. That would be rockabilly legend Ronnie Dawson, whose voice can be heard on the Mickey Newberry-penned “Why You Been Gone So Long.” Hillyer and Berg once played with Dawson, who used the song for pre-show vocal warm-ups. In 1993, on a whim, Berg recorded Dawson singing it. The album includes a remastered version featuring the late Dawson as a tribute and as a way of giving listeners one more taste of “the Waxahachie Wildman.”
That song is one of only two only covers on the album; the other is the traditional folk tune, “The Rock Island Line.”
Although Hillyer wrote most of the other 12 cuts, all of the members contribute. Together, they’ve created a disc full of humor and wit (the song “Long Haired Tattooed Hippie Freaks” is a strong clue) as well as weightier matters involving life’s ups and downs.
Sometimes even those downs require lighter treatment, as in the case of “North Side Blues,” the product of an all-too-common experience for traveling bands. “Steve and I wrote it together after we had gotten a whole lot of our equipment stolen on the north side of San Antonio,” Hillyer explains. He says the tune is heavily influenced by the late Doug Sahm, a native and favorite son of that illustrious city. Theft is also the topic of “The Only Thing She Left Me was the Blues.”
Another cut, “A Straighter Line,” is about redemption, he says, and moving past bad times to the good ones. It’s also the title of an acoustic album the band released in 2001. (EHS’s earlier releases, Welcome To Eleven Hundred Spring, Live at Adair’s and No Stranger to the Blues, are out of print.)
With the release of Bandwagon, Eleven Hundred Springs is on to better times.
