Artist Bio: nelo

In today's pop culture world, in which music “idols” are auditioned, judged, anointed and frequently forgotten within the span of a few months while even “underground” acts can stir up buzz overnight on the blogosphere, the notion of a band building an audience by actually working its tail off seems positively antiquated. So go ahead and call Austin’s nelo (rhymes with “hello”) just a little bit old-fashioned. Long before nelo and producer Freddy Fletcher put the finishing touches on the band’s self-titled debut album, (released by Houston-based Justice Records & Pedernales Records) songwriter/acoustic guitarist Matt Ragland and the rest of his crew were already seasoned road veterans accustomed to playing to packed crowds across Texas and throughout the South.

In fact, it’s a good thing the album was released nationally in April ‘08 because all those loyal, but hungry, nelo fans were collectively burning up the band’s MySpace page with hundreds of thousands of song streams. Eventually, those fans drove nelo to hit as high as the #21 spot, on both the Billboard Magazine “New Artist Album” and Heatseekers charts. Tunes as indelibly catchy as “Jumping Bean” demand to be heard and enjoyed more frequently than even the most hard-gigging of bands can accommodate — and computer speakers just don’t do justice to tunes this organically structured.

Ragland can sympathize with his fans. For him, the release of their debut album, nelo, is a dream nearly 10 years in the making; going all the way back to when he first picked up an acoustic guitar in high school. He was soon writing songs and jamming with school friends and fellow Dallas natives Stephen Goodson (electric guitar) and Chris Hill (drums). A couple of years later, while in college, Ragland was refining his songwriting and performing around Austin with singer Reid Umstattd while Goodson and Hill were perfecting their own chops studying jazz at the University of North Texas in Denton. By 2002, they all reconvened — along with another UNT alum, multi-instrumentalist Mike St. Clair (bass, trombone, trumpet), — and nelo was born.

Well, unofficially, at least. According to Ragland, nelo didn’t officially take off until August of ’05 — the month he and the rest of the band left Texas for Athens, Ga. “That was really the defining moment,” he says, “when I called everyone and said, ‘OK, I’m ready to really do this. If you want to do it, too, come and join me.’ I wanted there to be that unifying moment where we all packed our bags and moved somewhere with one goal in mind. It was time to get serious.”

Ragland knew his songs were going to require a degree of musicianship beyond both his own self-taught chops and your everyday garage band. Luckily, Goodson, Long and Hill all came with similarly demanding influences, ranging from John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Steve Jordan to Bill Frisell, Jimmy Page and Duane Allman. St. Clair, the last of the instrumentalists to join the fold, came with a Master’s degree in jazz studies and formidable real world experience: prior to joining nelo, he toured with the Glen Miller Orchestra and played trombone in Dallas’ acclaimed The Polyphonic Spree.

Even before St. Clair joined the band, Ragland had a feeling he had the makings of the perfect ensemble. All he lacked was a proper singer. Enter Umstattd — the proverbial “X” factor. “Reid and I had been going to Camp Longhorn in Texas together for many, many years — from third grade all the way up to college,” he says. When somebody pulled out a guitar and started to strum the opening chords to Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles” Umstattd started to sing along and Ragland was blown away; "I remember whirling around to see whose voice it was that I was hearing. He was just lightly singing... There was some kind of organic connection between Reid's voice and what I wanted to do. I wanted to write songs, and I needed the right voice to sing them. The connection was immediate. Without having written many songs yet, I knew he was the missing piece of the puzzle."

Fast forward a few years, and nelo was well on its way toward firmly establishing itself on the Athens music scene. But a homemade demo was stirring up quite a buzz back home in Texas, too — so much so that nelo was soon playing to packed crowds in both states. Among those drawn to the buzz, was producer, studio owner and Willie Nelson-nephew Freddy Fletcher, who quickly made a deal that led Ragland and Co. straight into an Austin studio to work on their debut. Just listen to songs like “Jumping Bean,” “On Top of Love” and “You Don’t Know,” and it’s easy to understand how Fletcher and so many nelo fans before him became instant converts. Instrumentally, nelo lays down an eclectic, sinuous groove that belies the players’ jazzy roots, but Ragland’s meticulously crafted songs and innate pop instincts are too sharp to ever be mistaken for mere jam band meandering. It’s the melodies that make you want to return to these songs again and again; especially as delivered by a singer as naturally gifted and soulful as Umstattd.

But what’s most remarkable of all when it comes to this band is the fact that, for all the years that these guys have played together, for all the thousands of fans they’ve already won through literally hundreds of shows and word-of-mouth-fueled grassroots enthusiasm, nelo’s journey has only just begun. The band completed their successful 2008 tour in November, after rocking the cities of Richmond, Austin, Dallas, and Atlanta, among others.

Starting in March ‘09, nelo will be releasing a new single each month through July. The first single, “Love Solution” from their newest EP, Two Years Ago E.P., will be available exclusively via iTunes, finishing up with the summer release of the full EP itself. Songs such as “Story of our Lives” and “Breakthrough” are expected to hit the mark with fans and critics alike. Ragland still marvels, "There is no greater satisfaction for me and the band than to record and play live. I've written so many songs in the last few years. We've got a lot of music to get out there. The new E.P. is only the beginning. I feel like the band gets closer as a family, and tighter as musicians, with every brief tour that we go on. Our fans keep us going, and the thought of recording our new songs keeps us excited."

CONTACTS:

National Media:
Melissa Dragich-Cordero, MAD Ink, PR, 310.547.1212; melissadragich@aol.com
Kelly MacGaunn, MAD Ink, PR 818.506.7105 kelleemack@sbcglobal.net

Booking/Management: Lisa Fletcher, Sideshow Entertainment LLC, 512.447.2337 or 512.970.0350; lisafletcher77@aol.com