drew davis band

Minnesota State Fair 9-3-06Drew Davis: lead vocals, guitar
Drake: guitar, fiddle, harmonica, vocals
Loren Ellis: guitar, banjo, mandolin, vocals
Roger Malinowski: keyboards, accordion, guitar, vocals
Mo Levone: bass, vocals
“I’ve just seen the best live act ever.”
This testimonial from Neal McCoy, phoned in to the 903 Music office in Nashville, pointed the Drew Davis Band down the straightaway toward country music stardom.
That’s a mouthful, coming from one of the greatest entertainers in America, just after he’d heard these five gifted young men sound-check as his opening act. And then McCoy added this, speaking this time as the head of 903:
“Find out everything you can about these guys!”
Shortly after that, the Drew Davis Band became the third act signed to McCoy’s label.
Drawn together by their love for country music, driven to write and perform at the highest level and then to push higher still, their friendship forged on stages from coast to coast and border to border, they were already on a rocket aimed at the stars.
It’s just that McCoy lit the fuse.
“They’ve got everything,” the multi-platinum superstar-turned-record-honcho enthuses. “They’ve got the sound and the look. They move great onstage. They’re great musicians and great guys. There are lots of good bands out there, but you almost never see anyone connect with audiences like these guys. They’ve got all it takes.”
Call it “road-tested country,” the product of talent, passion, grit, and experience. It animates every track of their debut album release, due out this summer, from the sexy saunter of “Dirty Blonde Bombshell” to the soaring romanticism of “I Go Back There All the Time,” the heartbreak of “How Do I” to the exuberant collision of rock & roll and down-home country on “Turn It Up.”
Their songs are strong enough to have won the members a deal with Windswept Publishing before they’d hooked up with 903. As players, they know how to hit a down-home groove with razor-sharp musical chops – small wonder, since the lineup includes a multiple Grammy nominee and a former university music professor.
(There’s a lawyer in the mix too – but don’t let that stop you from listening.)
As for putting on a show … Well, they’ve passed the Neal McCoy test. That’s all that needs to be said about that …
… except for this: It all becomes doubly amazing when you realize that the DDB has been together for only a little more than three years.
Flash back to 2003. Drew Davis is prowling restlessly around L.A. Fresh off the bus from Belton, Missouri, fifty miles south of Kansas City, he left a routine of opening shows for Roy Clark, and showed up in California with a soulful voice – half sandpaper, half songbird – and a dream. Looking to pay the rent, he joined a cover band, whose guitar player was …
Drake, a talented multi-instrumentalist who was getting ready to hang up his sundry axes and put his law degree to some use. After getting together with Davis, though, he changed plans and hung up the law license instead. With that, the two started pursuing their plan to build a band that would rock the world. In no time they found another partner in crime …
Roger Malinowski, whose keyboard wizardry had earned him a ticket to perform in Tokyo and assignments as vocal and music director, not to mention a bunch of session bookings and several Grammy nominations. Though versed in every style, he settled easily onto the country foundation that Drake and Drew were laying down. Not long after that, that foundation strengthened with the arrival of …
Loren Ellis, who unlike Davis, the Chicago-born Malinowski, and former West Indies resident Drake, came to L.A. all the way from … Malibu. Though raised around the Hollywood aristocracy, this music school grad and guitar whiz somehow developed a jones for country music. When his band opened at a club for Davis, they met, talked, hit it off, and just like that Loren was onboard. But Loren was working with another group too, a bluegrass outfit with a Billboard Top 10 album to its credit and a bass player named …
Mo Levone, a young music professor at USC who played pretty much any kind of music you’d want. In fact, when Loren took Drew to hear him, Mo was performing at a Thai restaurant. But he obviously had country in his soul.
From this point, with the DDB lineup confirmed, their story races forward along parallel lines. One traces their almost ridiculously quick ascendance that began when they auditioned for the Colgate Country Showdown. That was actually Mo’s first gig with the band, yet just three months later they were awarded the national first prize. And then they were off, on an adventure that included several national television appearances, sets at major country music festivals Country Thunder and Country Stampede, and opening slots for Brooks & Dunn, Dierks Bentley, Craig Morgan, Tanya Tucker, SHeDAISY, and other giants.
But an even more important story was underway, during the long hours on the bus as they rode from one concert to the next. “We started out so differently from each other,” Davis explains. “But by going across the country, staying at each other’s family’s houses, and writing and playing, we’ve come to know everything about each other. That’s what ‘road-tested country’ is all about: It means that when I’m singing ‘How Do I,’ I can look back to Roger and know that he knows where I’m at. We support each other so much onstage and in life that it’s almost like we can read each other’s mind. And when we walk off that stage, and the crowd is still screaming for us, it’s like nothing can stop us.”
Produced by Eric Silver (Michelle Wright, Neal McCoy), their album debut captures the Drew Davis Band at a golden moment, their performance stronger than ever but their possibilities even more unlimited. What you hear on this CD is “road-tested country,” played to perfection. But they’re still going down that road, aimed somewhere far past the horizon. The wind is at their backs. They’re jamming into high gear. It’s clear: The Drew Davis Band is on this ride for the long haul.
Media contact (903 Music):
Jim Havey, JIM HAVEY PUBLIC RELATIONS
615-251-8802 or [email protected]