Ellery Stimulus

This is a fabulous question. Lots of people call it indie-pop. Or pop/folk. Or emo/acoustic. Singer/songwriter. We don’t know.
But we know it’s pop-ish. It’s emotional. It’s melodic and singalongable. People like to harmonize with it when it’s playing in their cars. People cry at our shows sometimes. Our songs seem to elicit personal stories from strangers after shows… and then we’re not strangers anymore. (We like this.)

Basically, we like singable music that makes us feel deeply, so that’s the kind of music that comes out of us when we write.

We’ve never had a “favorite artist” that we could point to as an over-arching musical influence. (That would make questions like this so much easier!)
But, we do listen to all kinds of music, the influence of which may or may not show up in our songs. Some of that music includes (in no particular order):

Ben Folds, Wilco, Patty Griffin, Andrew Bird, David Gray, Alanis Morrissette, Dolly Parton, Beck, Cake, Coldplay, James Taylor, Rufus Wainwright , Jump, Johann Johannsson, Over the Rhine, Radiohead, Josh Ritter, Willy Nelson, U2, Nickel Creek, Johnny Cash, Monk, Jim Croce, Fountains of Wayne, Teddy Thompson, Emmylou Harris, Snow Patrol, Daniel Lanois, Fiona Apple, David Bowie, Aberfeldy, Gillian Welch, Duran Duran, Feist, Chris Isaak, The Flaming Lips, Indigo Girls, Jason Harwell, Keane, Merle Haggard, The National, Death Cab for Cutie, REM, Teitur, Sixpence, The Postal Service, Rogue Wave, and many more…

We’d love to hear your opinion. Give us a listen and let us know what style you think it is.

Not intrusive at all. We know that our career is a weird one.
To oversimplify, we write songs, rehearse and continually tweak them, and we travel all over playing them at a crazy variety of venues, to a beautiful variety of audiences.

When we’re not doing that, our lives look a bit more normal. Our workdays at home (and on tour) consist of workaholic hours spent updating websites, making booking calls, and typing emails to Everyone-in-the-World: Venues, papers, radio, TV, bloggers, fans, friends, family, and fellow artists. We’ve been very DIY for as long as we’ve been at this, which has been a gift and a curse but mostly a gift.

Like anything, the artist/touring life has its pros and cons. But the unimaginably powerful pro is the sense of connection it creates. The point of anything we do with Ellery is to create personal songs and then share them. Because then, in that sharing, we can sense that vague feeling of being less alone, more human, a part of something. It keeps us going.

The goal of this record is to make something high-quality that ultimately moves our listeners; an album that makes that artist/listener connection more and more accessible more and more often.

So glad you asked.
Basically, our goal is to make the best record we possibly can.
We’ve been perching atop these songs for a long while, looking for someone whose unique set of skills matches the kind of music we make as well as our particular vision for these tunes and their stories. We’ve wanted to work with a producer who, as Justin has often said, “can make us better than we are.” Not a producer who could make us sound better than we truly sound, but one who could help us become better artists than we’ve ever been.

Now that we’ve found that person (Mr. Burn), the realities of record-making have set in.

We need money to pay the producer and outside musicians, as well as the mastering engineer and the kind folks who are letting us stay at their Kingston home for a song (pardon the pun) during our recording time this summer.
But that’s just the recording/studio process…

Beyond that, there’s the getting-the-music-to-you -- which matters so deeply to us. As much as we adore iTunes, physical CDs remain important to us because we love the way their design and packaging help to tell an album’s story. The feedback we hear from our fans is that they love it too.
So the money we raise will help pay for the duplication process, for the graphic design and CD packaging, and for a new and improved website.

It will also help to fund the record’s promotion and publicity, which helps spread the word and makes touring possible. Touring can be costly, but through great promotion (especially with radio, press, and blogs), each trip we take can be maximized to reach the most fans and new listeners possible.
We SO want to make our way to your city for a live show (new records in-hand of course!), so getting the word out is essential!

Omg. Yes yes yes. More than you know.

We’ll take good care of you. Once you’ve made a donation, you’ll be hearing from us with our thanks and with more news. Most of the bonuses will come post-release, but for others we’ll make specific arrangements.

How kind of you to ask. We certainly do. Please email us HERE and we’ll connect you with the mailing details.