Eli Young Band celebrates “Love
Ain’t” at No. 1 party
4th
Number One for multi-platinum band
By Preshias Harris for Country Music News International Magazine & Radio Show
It was celebration time on Monday, July
15, for the Eli Young Band and three of America’s hottest
songwriters. They were joined by record label executives, music
publishers and other music industry bigwigs at the Sutler in
Nashville. The reason? A Number One party for Eli Young Band’s
fourth career chart-topper, “Love Ain’t.”
The guys in the Eli Young Band are some
of Nashville’s most respected musicians with a career together
stretching back more than twenty years. “Love Ain’t” is their
first No. 1 song in six years.
“How do you keep your band cool for
twenty years?” asked Big Machine Label Group’s Scott Borchetta.
Answering his own question, Botchetta added, “Well, you never veer
from your artistic vision or the integrity of every note that you
play.”
“Love Ain’t” was written by three
songwriting superstars: Shane McAnally, Ashley Gorley and Ross
Copperman. It was the 42nd No. 1 for Gorley and the 19th
No. 1 for Copperman, a two-time BMI Country Songwriter of the Year.
With numerous No. 1 credits, McAnally is also one of the on-screen
talent producers for the NBC-TV reality series ‘Songland.’
During the media session before the
presentations, I asked Ashley if, when he was writing the song with
Shane and Ross, he could ‘hear’ a band singing it as opposed to
solo male artist.
“A lot of times now, if you’re like
me, you’re working directly with an artist or it’s a camp or a
certain circle that you work your way into, or an artist calls on you
to go out on the road and write with them or something like that,”
said Ashley. “So the days are few and far between as far as trying
to find the best song in the room that day, having no idea who it
would sound good for, so it was kind of a refreshing, cool thing when
Shane, Ross and I did this. All we knew was that we really loved the
song, but we didn’t know who it should be for right away when we
left. We weren’t like, ‘oh, this person would be exactly right’
or anything like that.
“It took some different people, Ryan
Beuschel [V.P. A&R] at Warner Chappell pitched it, a lot of
people pitched it around. Allison Jones [V.P. A&R] at Big Machine
and Valory in particular are great at finding ‘homes’ for songs.
We knew we loved the song but we were like, ‘Here, we don’t
know.’ Everybody kinda connected the dots. Mike’s voice is very
specific, very recognizable, so we were like, ‘That would be
awesome if they would cut it.’ Once it all clicked together and
they [the Eli Young Band] wanted to hold it and everything, then it
all started lining up and making sense.
Not long after that, Mike Eli and
Ashley Gorley happened to be on the same plane and began to talk.
Ashley said to Mike, “Dude, I heard you guys might like one of my
songs.” Mike confirmed that they were planning to cut “Love
Ain’t.” At that point, for Ashley it became a reality. “Once we
knew they were going with it, we got really excited about it,” he
said.
The track was produced by one of
Nashville’s top hitmakers, Dann Huff. Eli Young Band’s new
single, “Break It In,” also produced by Dan Huff, dropped in
June. “Break It In” was written by Benjy Davis, Brandon Day,
Daniel Ross and Michael Whitworth.
The celebration was co-hosted by ASCAP,
BMI and GMR, the performing rights organizations representing the
three songwriters.
Music and tour info at Eli Young Band’s
website https://eliyoungband.com/#!/and on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/eliyoungband/
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