![]() Along the way, the band added percussionist Daniel de los Reyes and bassist Matt Mangano to the lineup. 1 singles and branching out musically from their country foundation to touch on a variety of other musical styles, including hard rock, pop balladry and even EDM and hip-hop. The Zac Brown Band has released five more studio albums since then, while notching 10 more No. ![]() With guitarist/keyboardist Clay Cook joining the group in 2009, the Zac Brown Band got to work on their next album, 2010’s “You Get What You Give.” Released in 2010, it went triple platinum and confirmed that the initial success was no fluke. Just like that, the Zac Brown Band had arrived on the national stage. Three more singles – “Toes,” “Highway 20 Ride” and “Free” all followed “Chicken Fried” to No. “Chicken Fried,” a song that was included on the Zac Brown Band’s 2005 independent debut album “Home Grown,” was re-recorded and released as the first single off of the 2008 Atlantic-distributed album “The Foundation.” Within a month, “Chicken Fried” had topped the country singles chart. The Zac Brown Band’s breakthrough came in 2008 after the band had signed to Live Nation Records, followed by a distribution deal with major label Atlantic Records. Like most bands of that era, the members of the Zac Brown Band cut their teeth on a bar scene that, in the case of the Atlanta area, was generating several bands and solo artists that would go on to have successful worldwide careers, including Blackberry Smoke, Oliver Wood (of the Wood Brothers) and Durrette. Bassist/multi-instrumentalist John Driskell Hopkins – a longtime friend of Brown’s – joined in 2005, followed by Bowles, and then drummer Chris Fryar to form the core of the early lineup. De Martini became the first recruit for the Zac Brown Band. Both Bowles and De Martini said Brown’s talent was obvious when they first encountered him.ĭe Martini connected with Brown in 2004 through Wyatt Durrette, a friend and regular songwriting partner of Brown’s. The band came together one musician at a time around singer/guitarist Brown, who by the early 2000s was already starting to attract an audience in the Atlanta area. The Zac Brown Band, of course, is one of music’s more unusual success stories in that the group started out as an independent act, controlling virtually all aspects of their career and has stayed that way ever since – only aligning with various major labels to distribute their albums and promote their music. “I think that’s what lends itself to the old-style sound is we were back together again, and we had such a break and maybe we had taken (things) for granted and we were just happy to be together again.” It felt so good to be a band again,” De Martini said. When the band members arrived to record the album, they had been apart for more than a year. “We were trying to sound like the Zac Brown Band, and it really worked.”įiddle player Jimmy De Martini, who joined Bowles for the video interview, feels the isolation of the pandemic also played a part in the musical direction of “The Comeback” and the return to the sound that first brought the group success. “It was kind of like the original recipe, great songs that Zac had his heart into and the band helping support that with musicianship and stuff like that,” Bowles said. He credited Ben Simonetti, who co-wrote many of the songs and co-produced the album with Brown, with helping guide the band through the making of “The Comeback” and achieve Brown’s vision for the album. ![]() The approach to the show makes sense considering “The Comeback,” with its songs that lean decidedly country, is being considered a return to the group’s original musical roots – an assessment Bowles didn’t dispute. So hearing it kind of spoken out and played out the way it unfolds on stage is really cool for our audience and ourselves.” We’re a bunch of Southern boys who had a big dream and it came true, man. ![]() Every night, the stories change just a little bit, and it’s always just really cool to hear Zac talk about how this whole thing came together because it is such a wild ride. I mean, I don’t come on until a couple of songs in. “Zac is doing more story telling and more kind of just filling the crowd in on how we all came together. We start out with this bar vibe and Zac (on stage), and it kind of unfolds the way our career did,” guitarist/keyboardist Coy Bowles said in an early June Zoom interview. “This is probably the most intimate tour that we’ve ever done in the sense that we start out kind of how we started out as a band. The Zac Brown Band’s summer tour is not only an opportunity to showcase their new album, “The Comeback,” but they’re using the show to take fans on a trip through the band’s stunning rise from Atlanta area clubs to superstardom. The Zac Brown Band is playing July 30 at Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |