| Elliot Minor | |
|---|---|
| Origin | York, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Symphonic rock Pop rock Classical |
| Years active | 2000–2011 (On hiatus) |
| Labels | Repossession Records Dreamusic Incorporated(Japan) |
| Website | ElliotMinor.com |
| Members | |
| Alex Davies (vocals/guitars/keyboards) Ed Minton (vocals/guitars) Ed Hetherton (bass) Dan Hetherton (drums/backing vocals) |
|
| Past members | |
| Ali Paul (keyboards) | |
Elliot Minor are a classically influenced rock band from York, England. The group consists of Alex Davies (lead vocals/guitars), Ed Minton (vocals/guitars), Dan Hetherton (drums/backing vocals) and Ed Hetherton (bass).
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Elliot Minor started as a duo, Alex Davies and Ed Minton, who met at school when they were thirteen. 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.
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 Newcastle. 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; subsequent singles, "Jessica", "The White One Is Evil", and "Still Figuring Out", all reached the top 30. "Parallel Worlds" was reissued, 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 April 14, 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, and at #30 on the Irish Albums Chart.
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 "Solaris" was featured on the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics coverage.
The band are featured in the book "The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles" for four of their releases.
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.
Alex Davies drew from the 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 August 10, 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 October 19, 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 April 21, 2010.
An alternate version of "Solaris" was featured on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics 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, Paul appeared on BBC One quiz show Pointless.
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.
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 band members, 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 solo album. No updates to what Ed Minton and Ed Hetherton are doing have been made.
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.[1] 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.
| Date | Album | UK | UK Indie | IRL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 14, 2008 | Elliot Minor | 6 | N/A | 30 |
| October 19, 2009 | Solaris | 73 | 9 | N/A |
| Date | EP | UK | UK Indie |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 11, 2008 | iTunes Live: London Festival '08: Elliot Minor | N/A | N/A |
| Date | Single | UK | UK Indie |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 9, 2007 | "Parallel Worlds" | 31 | 1 |
| August 6, 2007 | "Jessica" | 19 | 1 |
| October 29, 2007 | "The White One Is Evil" | 22 | N/A |
| January 28, 2008 | "Still Figuring Out" | 17 | N/A |
| April 7, 2008 | "Parallel Worlds" (re-release) | 21 | N/A |
| June 23, 2008 | "Time After Time" | 47 | N/A |
| April 3, 2009 | "Discover (Why the Love Hurts)" | N/A | N/A |
| October 5, 2009 | "Electric High" | 120 | 13 |
| February 21, 2010 | "Solaris" (Winter Olympics version) | N/A | N/A |
| July 11, 2010 | "I Believe" (iTunes release) | N/A | N/A |
| Date | Other | UK | UK Indie |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 15, 2010 | Solaris Acoustic | N/A | N/A |
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