Elliot Minor

Elliot Minor were a rock band from York, England.^[1] The group consists of Alex Davies (lead vocals/guitars), Ed Minton (vocals/guitars), Dan Hetherton (drums/backing vocals) and Ed Hetherton (bass).

History

Formation and early days: 2000–2006

Elliot Minor started 'The Academy' with Alex Davies, Ed Minton and another of their mates who met at school when they were thirteen.^[1] Davies bumped into childhood friend Dan Hetherton when they were both picking up younger brothers and invited him to a band practice. Dan Hetherton joined as the band's drummer, and later they recruited Dan's brother, Ed, to play bass. Davies kept in contact with another childhood friend, Ali Paul, who joined as their keyboardist.

Elliot Minor: 2006–2008

In 2006, Elliot Minor won a MySpace competition to support McFly for one show on their Greatest Hits tour with an audience of over 13,000 at Manchester. They signed to Repossession Records, an independent label run by their manager, Gary Ashley. Their first single, "Parallel Worlds", reached #31 on the UK Official Charts;^[2] subsequent singles, "Jessica", "The White One Is Evil", and "Still Figuring Out", all reached the top 30.^[2] "Parallel Worlds" was reissued,^[3] followed by "Time After Time". In 2007 they headlined a new music festival in the south called Butserfest.

Elliot Minor signed a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records and recorded their debut album in Santa Monica, California, with Jim Wirt, producer for Hoobastank, Jack's Mannequin, Something Corporate, Incubus and others, and it debuted on 14 April 2008. Many of the songs from the album were written during their school days. Upon release, the album managed to debut #6 on the UK Albums Chart,^[2] and at #30 on the Irish Albums Chart.^[4]

That same year, Elliot Minor played at several large music festivals, including T in the Park, Reading and Leeds, and Download Festival. They made an appearance on Jo Whiley's Radio 1's Live Lounge – Volume 3, recording a cover of Take That's "Rule the World". Their song "Running Away" was featured on the BBC's coverage of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

The band is featured in the book "The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles" for four of their releases.

Solaris and Solaris Acoustic: 2009–2010

Elliot Minor took a break from touring to write their second album, Solaris. In June 2009, the band announced that their distribution deal with Warner Bros. had come to an end, and that they had decided to part ways from the label and release Solaris on Repossession Records as an independent album.^[5]

Alex Davies drew from experiences and changes in his life over the years Elliot Minor had been formed until the present when writing the album. He says, "The majority of the songs are uplifting as I was being positive in a pretty tough year to work through and the others are more personal and intimate." They have described their first album as being a collection of singles, while their second is more of a proper album with a beginning, middle, and end. This album was also recorded with Jim Wirt.

"Solaris" was announced to be the first single from the band's second album; however, due to technical problems with the format of the single, it was not released on iTunes as planned on 10 August 2009. The band decided to go with "Electric High" as the first single instead. The tracks "Solaris" and "Discover (Why the Love Hurts)" were rerecorded before the album was released on 19 October 2009. The album, mixed by John Greatwood and Tom Lord-Alge, reached #9 in the UK Indie chart. The album was released in Japan, along with exclusive bonus tracks, on 21 April 2010.

An alternate version of "Solaris" was featured on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics BBC coverage. The band recorded a cover of Owl City's "Fireflies" for fun, posting it on their YouTube channel along with footage of their video blogs. The song was picked up by Kerrang! and gained popularity when the station aired an edited version of the video on Kerrang! TV. The song has also received radio airplay by Kerrang!.

On 28 August 2010, keyboardist Ali Paul announced that after completing tour commitments with Elliot Minor in September he would be leaving the band. Ali is now at The University of York reading Law. On 14 September 2011, Ali appeared on BBC One quiz show Pointless alongside his then girlfriend. The pair reached the final round, however failed to win any money and left with just their trophies.

An hour long live special featuring the band playing live at the Relentless Garage in London on their April 2010 tour was shown on Kerrang! TV on 16 August. At the start of 2010, it was announced that an acoustic version of the album Solaris was to be recorded and released later that year. Solaris Acoustic, was released on 15 November 2010, along with a DVD of the Kerrang! live special.

Hiatus

In November 2010, drummer Dan Hetherton started working on a project with James Matthews, former singer of Go:Audio. They formed the band The Dead Famous with close friends Luke Bayliss and Satoshi, playing bass and guitar respectively. Satoshi was replaced in early 2011 by another close friend, Fred. With no updates or announcement from any of the members of Elliot Minor, a hiatus was rumored. Much doubt surrounded this until December 2011 when Dan announced the reasons through his Facebook page. He stated that the other band members wanted to take a break, and this was decided in a meeting. He said he didn't want this, and formed The Dead Famous because he wanted to continue making music. Singer Alex is working on production and his new band called 'Spirits' which was announced on his Twitter page. Ed Hetherton is now at University College London studying geophysics and Ed Minton is at King's College London studying business management. Ali Paul is currently at the University of York studying Law as alluded to on his Twitter page.

Comeback

As of 30 November 2013 the band started to post on their Facebook page, merely posting "2014" for the first few days, but building up with hints. Originally taken by fans as a reunion, the band announced on 7 December that they would play a one-off show at Camden Underworld 28 March 2014. Tickets went on sale on 9 December. While not explicitly stated in any posts, the fact the show was referred to as a one-off show implies that the show will be the band's last.^[6]

The tickets sold out within 3 minutes which appeared to come as a great surprise to the band. Another night was added to try and meet demand but this sold out in the same manner.

In October 2014 the band revealed a brand new song called All my life on their Facebook page.

Musical background and style

The members of Elliot Minor are classically trained musicians and play a wide variety of instruments including violin, piano, clarinet, cello, double bass, saxophone, guitar and drums.

Their music is described as "pop/rock with a lot of classical harmonies", and is known for being rich in minor and dissonant chords.^[7] Many of their songs are characterised by their vocal harmonies. Their recorded songs are rich in complex string and choral arrangements, all written by Davies, which are difficult to replicate live without a full orchestra. However, the classical elements in their song "Jessica" have been replicated during performances on stage, with Davies using an electric violin.

Discography

Studio albums

LPs

Singles

Other releases

Band members

Current

• Alex Davies - lead and backing vocals, lead guitars, 12-string acoustic guitar, keyboards, violin (2000–present)
• Edward Minton - lead and backing vocals, lead and rhythm guitars, acoustic guitar (2000–present)
• Edward Hetherton - bass guitars, cello, backing vocals (2005–2011, 2014-present)
• Dan Hetherton - drums, percussion, bongos, tambourine, backing vocals (2005–2011, 2014-present)
• Ali Paul - keyboards, synthesizer, piano, backing vocals (2006–2010, 2014-present)

References

External links

• Official website