By Geoffrey Rowlands
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With their acknowledged musical influences including Echo & The Bunnymen and The Smiths, it would seem a pretty safe bet to assume American family quartet Echosmith chose their name as a combined tribute to the two bands. But anyone believing this would be mistaken.
“We understand how people might get that idea about our name,” remarked 17-year-old lead singer Sydney Sierota. “We actually took our name from how a blacksmith shapes metals. He works nondescript pieces of metal into practical and often beautiful objects. We hope we can take notes and words and shape them into beautiful songs.”
“The Smiths had already been used,” added 21-year-old lead guitarist Jamie Sierota. “The Blacksmiths was wrong, Tunesmiths or Wordsmiths didn’t sound right. But music echoes in so many different ways, not least of which is in a much-loved song which is always there in your mind many years after you first heard it. So, Echosmith just seemed like the right name.”
Sydney, Jamie and their brothers, bassist Noah, 18, and drummer Graham, 15, grew up in a musical household. Their parents actively encouraged the children to play multiple instruments and make their own music together as well as listening to favourite artists such as Coldplay, U2, Joy Division and Fleetwood Mac.
“We’ve been playing together as a band for seven years,” Noah revealed. “It’s fantastic now to perform on prestigious TV shows and do concert tours. It’s such a contrast to the early years when we played small venues around Los Angeles and nobody came to see us.”
“We used to beg friends to come to our shows,” Graham added. “Remembering those times makes us so much more appreciative of all the attention we’re getting now.”
Warner Brothers Records discovered Echosmith nearly three years ago. They gave the young but maturing band time to find their right sound.
“They were so passionate about us,” Sydney remarked. “They were also so patient. We were never put under any pressure. We’ve changed over the years from pop and electronic to rock and I guess our sound now is a mix of alternative and pop.
“We wrote about 70 songs for our debut album, ‘Talking Dreams,’ and gradually narrowed them down to the final 12. It’s so important to have the right songs on your first album because people will form their opinion of you from what they hear. It would be very difficult to change that opinion if the first impression is bad.”
Echosmith’s debut single, Cool Kids, entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 87 in June, 2013. But it was absent from the next chart listings.
“This was really disappointing,” Noah admitted. “We thought it would be onwards and upwards but that didn’t happen. We realised we had a lot more work to do to get ourselves known on a nationwide level.”
A solid touring schedule paved the way for a re-release of Cool Kids and the enormous chart success Echosmith are currently enjoying.
“I think so many people around our ages associate themselves with the song,” Graham suggested. “It’s about a boy or girl wanting to fit in with the kids who are considered to be cool. But it’s also about accepting yourself for who you are and realising even the cool kids don’t necessarily know where their lives are going.”
The song took around six months to perfect.
“We write some of our songs inside an hour,” Jamie revealed. “But others take days, weeks or even months. ‘Cool Kids’ was one of these. We continually kept returning to it changing things in the lyrics or music. The song is so close to us and we knew it was really special so we wanted it to be just right.”
FAME: Sydney Sierota, the lead singer, on how the band chose its name: “We actually took our name from how a blacksmith shapes metals. He works nondescript pieces of metal into practical and often beautiful objects. We hope we can take notes and words and shape them into beautiful songs.”
Jack Bruce / Alvin Stardust
The recent deaths of Jack Bruce and Alvin Stardust will sadden many music fans.
Although regarded as one of the all-time great bass players, 71-year-old Jack was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and vocalist. Although he performed in a number of influential bands, he was best known for his work with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker in the blues-rock trio Cream.
Despite being active for little more than two years, they created four critically acclaimed and hugely successful studio albums. All of these, plus numerous subsequent compilation albums, can be heard in full on YouTube.
Alvin, born Bernard Jewry, first found fame in the early 1960s as lead singer for Shane Fenton and The Fentones. After the group broke up, he spent some years working in music management before re-emerging in 1973 as glam rock star Alvin Stardust. He recorded seven UK top ten hits including a chart-topper with Jealous Mind.
Ironically, his death, at 72, from metastatic prostate cancer came just days before the release of “Alvin,” his first album in 30 years. He described it as the best thing he had ever made.
Like Jack, many of Alvin’s recorded and live performances are archived on YouTube.
Beady Eye
More sad news comes in the disbandment of British rock quartet Beady Eye.
Effectively Oasis minus Noel Gallagher, the band recorded a pair of UK top-five albums, 2011’s “Different Gear, Still Speeding,” and 2013’s “BE.” But only one single, “The Roller,” made Britain’s top 40.
Problems were evident as long ago as last February when the band parted ways with manager Scott Rodger and cancelled an appearance at the Coachella Music Festival. Their demise was announced in a simple message on Liam Gallagher’s Twitter page. No reason was given.
Animosity between Liam and Noel caused the break-up of Oasis in 2009. But with the brothers now apparently getting along reasonably well again, speculation is rife that Oasis may be reborn.
Unfortunately, Noel has been quick to pour cold water on the idea. His own band, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, issue their new single, In The Heat of the Moment, on November 17. Their second album, Chasing Yesterday, is scheduled for release in March.
Pet Shop Boys/Greatest Covers Poll
The Pet Shop Boys’ rendering of Elvis Presley’s Always on my Mind has been voted the “Greatest Cover Version” in a poll of BBC DJs and radio listeners.
Their version was initially performed on a 1987 UK television special commemorating the tenth anniversary of Presley’s death. It proved so popular that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe recorded the song for release as a single. It spent four weeks at number one in Britain, topped the charts in numerous other countries and reached number four on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Johnny Cash’s cover of the Nine Inch Nails song, Hurt, took second spot in the BBC poll while The Stranglers’ version of Dionne Warwick’s Walk On By came third.
Both were surprisingly high while seemingly obvious candidates such as the Jimi Hendrix cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower and Whitney Houston’s version of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You were left trailing in their wake. Despite topping charts world-wide, the latter was placed tenth.
Some hugely successful songs were not even nominated for the poll. These include Kim Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes, originally co-written and recorded by Jackie DeShannon, Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World, written and recorded by John Fogerty, and Rod Stewart’s Sailing, written by Gavein Sutherland and recorded by The Sutherland Brothers Band.
The full top 50 can be seen, and each song added to your free personal playlist, at www.bbc.co.uk/music/playlists/zzzzcm
