First record deal for Du Quoin's Eisenhauer Band
The homegrown Eisenhauer bluegrass and acoustic band from Du Quoin has signed its first record deal with a company called Jamshack Music, Inc. It will be called "Under he Influence."
"We are doing our album cover photo shoot this Sunday in Mississippi," says Rhonda Eisenhauer, Amelia's mother and a member of the band. The third member is Amelia's brother, Andy.
Production of the cover CD is already financed and the music is being mastered as this story is written. It will be released later this year.
The family largely calls Nashville, Tenn. home now, but will be back in Southern Illinois in the coming days.
You can spend an evening with The Eisenhauer Band in a up close and personal performance at The Gathering Place, 7:30 pm, May 16 in Sparta Ill. This special performance will be featuring new band member, bassist and executive producer Mr. Bryan Ward of Water Valley Mississippi.
Advance tickets (three days prior to show) are necessary for the dinner show (full-course catered meal of salad, entree, dessert, coffee and tea) which starts at 6:30 pm. The cost is $35. Tickets can be ordered online by going to thegatheringplaceoffbroadway.com or by calling 618-965-3726. Tickets for the show only are $25 but seating is limited. Please call 618-965-3726 to see if seating is still available
Rhonda comments on the past year: "You know, life has a funny way of doing things. When we moved to Nashville, we were working with another producer on a demo to shop around on music row with. A family band was just about the furthest thing from our minds. After we got to Nashville we became painfully aware that not only was Millie (Amelia) and this producer seeing eye to eye musically, Millie simply was not ready for music row. But, instead of coming back home, we decided to stay and just start learning the ropes a little at a time, playing the occasional open mics and stuff until we figured out which direction to go."
"We went out at a little place called Pucketts of Leipers Fork, and at the spur of the moment decided to write our name on the list. After we played, the owner followed me out the door as we were leaving and asked if he could book us! I was stunned...and a little terrified! We only had a handful of songs we could play really well together and I knew we needed at least two hours of material," Rhonda remembers.
"So, I politely explained the situation, and he was more than willing to wait until we were ready. We knew we had found a "home" place so to speak. We started attending the open mic every week and challenging ourselves to learn new songs every week. What we found was an audience of regulars that became like family to us, who were kind enough to tell us things that worked, and more importantly, what didn't," she said.
"We are set to headline a show there on August 2," she said.
"We had been going out to Pucketts for several months and occasionally kept running into a guy by the name of Jeremy Clement, from Batesville. Miss. One late fall afternoon, out at Pucketts, Jeremy and I finally had a sit-down talk about the kids, our music, and a producer in Oxford, Mississippi who he knew personally, could vouch for and thought he was right up our alley, she said.
"When we met Bryan Ward, we knew there was something different about him, the way he saw music and the way he wanted to record us. He heard the same music we heard, he didn't base his opinions on trying to market Millie as the 'next big thing' in the Nashville machine. He saw us as a unit, and he thought it was valuable," she said.
"A year, four videos and eight tracks later (we have many more recordings, but eight is what made it on to the album), we have become a family band, complete with adopted crazy "Uncle Bryan" as our bass player."
"We also made some other friends along the way like drummer Jeremy Clement, keyboardist and accordion player Mark Yakovone of Oxford, and Steve Thompson, also of Oxford, the CEO of Jamshack Records, an Indie label, whose company has ended up financing our current album Under The Influence, as well as our first original album due out in early 2015 called Fortune Cookie."
It's all good!