Check out the brand new February Bridal issue of Her Nashville, featuring the gorgeous Hannah Blaylock of Edens Edge. Props to Bombs Over Betty Photo for some really great shots! Adorable stuff right here!
Our favorite’s, Edens Edge are movin’ on up! This time, with a little help from CMT! We got chance to see the super stars themselves Monday night, when we sat in on the live taping. Well, more like stood-in, and rocked out. They still take our breath away!
Be on the look out for some new stuff from these guys!!
If you like their new stuff you may want to… click here.
Edens Edge gets edgy in their newest edition of ThEE Road Life – St. Louis when they debut a brand new song “Skinny Dippin!” How cute! We LOVE these guys. So glad to hear some new EE material!
We’re curious to see how Whitney Duncan feels about this one.
Tuesday night we were fortunate enough to be invited to hang out backstage at the Grande Ole Opry with one of our favorite acts on the planet, rising country superstars, Edens Edge. We talked family, music, and the transition from life in small town Arkansas to Music City USA. This past year Hannah, Dean and Cherrill have been hard at work doing what they do best, including long hours in the studio recording their debut album, touring the countryside with Brad Paisley, and gearing up for Reba McEntire‘s upcoming “All The Woman I Am ” tour, among other things. They’re tearin’ their way up the charts with their top 30 debut single “Amen” and shaking things up in the country music world with their fresh new Country/Bluegrass sound. No worries though, among it all, EE has managed to remain just as down to earth as they are down home, check out what they had to say.
Twin Love: So, basically tell us how you got started:
Cherrill: The Story? I think we each sort of have a story of our own. I started in a family Bluegrass band as a kid, my sister and I both got intstruments around four and five years old. I grew up doin’ that and met these guys when I got to college in Russellville. We all lived in 1 hour triangles of eachother and we all congregated in the town of Russelville. It’s where they both went to high school, that’s where Dean lived and Hannah drove an hour to high school.
Hannah: It’s kind of confusing.
Cherrill: That’s what happens when you live in the boonies; you drive forever to go do anything
Hannah: They had a choir at the school and my dad worked there so they let me go to the school. I drove with my dad everyday so it was like 2 hours in the car. Anddd it was on a teacher’s schedule so I had to get there at 7:30 and leave after 4:00. But we finally got a second house after my brother ended up going to college in that town, and everybody ended up kind of being in that town, so we bought a second little tiny house in town. Towards the end of my high school I got to kind of be there, but for the rest of it, from third grade, I drove.
Twin Love: How did you get in to the whole music thing?
Hannah: My whole family plays music too, my brother’s a singer, he sings Indie Rock in his band, Deas Veil, and that’s just kind of what we all love doin’ together and how we all connected. My mom didn’t really like us to watch too much TV and we didnt really love it anyways, so what we would do when we couldn’t play outside was we would play music together and so we always did that. Then we met this guy named Steve Smith around 9th or 10th grade and I started singing his songs and we had a band and we made a little record. We kind of played around town, just for fun; it was my parents, me and Steve for several years, and then Steve knew Dean because his family had kids about the same age as Dean and his brothers, so they all kind of grew up together in Russelville playing soccer together. Steve was his mentor in church and taught him his first chords on the guitar, and he had know Dean thorughout his childhood soo he eventually asked Dean to come join the band and he started learning to play dobro so he started playing dobro. About a month later, we heard about this girl in college that played every bluegrass instrument known to man and we asked her to come on.
Cherrill: I was friends with Steve’s son in college, and I would kind of play music with him for a while.
Hannah: So it was like, small town story. It was very organic and we were like, hey! come play!
Twin Love: So how did you kind of drop the family thing?
Dean: Hannah, her mom and dad, and Steve Smith had been playing together for a couple of years and I was in college when I started to hear about this group, cause Steve was the guy that taught me to play guitar when I was 13 and we went to church together. His son was a good friend of mine and we played sports together, and his son was who met Cherrill, so it was just like all close knit like that, so when i finished college I was living in Little Rock an hour down the road, and Steve asked me to come jam with them one night. I went out there, and I started playing the dobro, my dad had just built one for me, he builds guitars for fun, so I was like, ‘well I’ll bring this and try it out, they were playing kind of folky bluegrass stuff. So we started playing together.
Cherrill came in a couple months later and then we played in Arkansas for a few years, and then the three of us met a lady named Ky Fleming through the Nashville Songwriter’s Association and thats how we made our way up to Nashville. Steve, the guy who wrote all the songs we sang in Arkansas would submit the songs in to this yearly NSAI song competition and we had a song in the finals one year where Ky heard us, and so she asked the band to ome out to Nashville, and we met with her and talked the three of us. Over the course of a couple months we talked about moving down to Nashville, and then we moved here in 2007.
Twin Love: So is that how you got in touch with Borchetta and Big Machine?
Cherrill: Yeah, Ky was getting inducted in to the Hall of Fame in’ 09 so she asked us to play a medley of her hits. Scott was there because Taylor was getting an award and Alison from A & R was there and they heard us that night and wanted to meet us the next day.
Twin Love: Did you guys know he was at the time?
Hannah: Oh yeah, we totally did, and it was one of those things where it’s really unique. We met with him and started talking to some of the people, we were like, this place feels like family. The way they described the record label and their morals and how they felt about each other and their relationship with the artists, and between everybody that works there, it’s really kind of a family. And that’s kind of how we run our business too. Everybody that we hire, everybody that’s on the road with us; it’s very much like that. That’s the kind of how the music business is, it’s family oriented business in that way, because you’re doing art together and that’s emotional and it has a lot of your spirit and your soul in it.
Twin Love: It’s really cool that you see guys it that way, because so many artists see the music business as a bad thing. It can be, of course, but I guess it really depends on your experience:
Dean: It really is, we’ve had such a fortunate experience in that Scott Borchetta, from the first time he heard us he loved what he heard and wants us to be who we are. He’s not the guy trying to take you into the studio making you something you’re not. You know, we’re not trying to be Britney Spears, we play the music we love and Scott loves it.
Hannah: Britney spears? We love her!
Dean: We should cover her some time.
Twin Love: So tell us about your new album:
Hannah: We have a 5 song EP out right now, but our album is scheduled to come out next year. Actually, this week has been a big week, all about focusing on songs and coming up with a lists and narrowing down, and trying to figure out what is that next session. I think we just wanted to give the album the time that it needs to be the best it can be. And we have plenty of songs. All three of us write and sometimes it’ll be two of us together, sometimes it’ll be all three of us writing with different people in one day, and that comes out to be a LOT of songs. So I feel like either way, if we recorded it tomorrow, or six months from now, it’s gonna be a great album and we’re really excited about it!
Twin Love: We’ are SO excited about the album!
Hannah: Thank You
Twin Love: So, real quick, we’re going to play a game: We’re gonna say a word and you’re gonna tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.
-Twin Love: Lindsay Lohan
Hannah: Red head
Dean: Theft
–Twin Love: Country music
Hannah: Classic
Dean: Waylon Jennings
Cherrill: The Opry
-Twin Love: Amen
Hannah: Single
Dean: Hallelujah
Cherrill: Church
-Twin Love: Lost and Found
All: Old School
-Twin Love: Nashville
Dean: Twang
Cherrill: Home
-Twin Love: Best blog ever
All: Twin Love!
-Twin Love: Taylor Swift
Hannah: Revolutionary
Dean: Songwriter
Cherrill: Blonde
Twin Love: Awesome, so lastly, real quick, tell us how you would define Edens Edge.
Hannah: We all kind of grew up with three different influences, with the string running through us being Country Music. Dean grew up listening to rock, he’s always kind of listened to Country music throughout his child hood and so have I , but my parents really loved Folk Americana music kind of like that singer songwriter, James Taylor type of stuff. And Cherrill obviously gew up in a family Bluegrass band, so Bluegrass all the way, but her family listened to like The Judds and George Strait, so we all love Country music and bring all that other stuff together and kind of mesh it together, but if you were to define your sound, it’s so hard because it is art. If were to try and put it in description on it though, it would be Country music with roots because the acoustic instruments and the harmonies are in the forefront of all of it and for us, space is just as important as a musical note. The music that we dream of making is like, in 10 years you put it in and you love it just as much as you did when you first started.
We heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that it is one of our favorite Nashvillian’s very special day! Major shout outs to the gorgeous and gifted Hannah Blaylock. We love love love you, girl! Have a great one!!
Ashton and the Annies
Hannah of Eden‘s and Jerrod.
Eden’s Edge and Brad Paisley getting their Whiskey Lullaby On.
Soo sorry for the lack of posts! We’re having some major drama with Twin Love, mostly graphic design and/or hosting related. We really want to make this thing look better, and we don’t want a ton of traffic in the middle of our blog break down. Buttt, as always, we’ve been running around and we thought it was high time we shared some stuff. Site will be all fixed in a day or two, no judgement right now, please!
-On the 4th, we skipped the pandemonium downtown to check out some good ol’ mountain music. We drove way out past Franklin to track down up-and-coming bluegrass prodigy, the lovely, the talented, Sierra Hull. So worth it! This girl is stunning! At 20, Sierra is a dead ringer for Alison Krauss; so skilled and so so adorable She’s exactly what bluegrass needs right now. Her voice combined with her mando/guitar ability is completely fresh and stand out. Especially for her age and especially for right now. We love love love it and have the highest of hopes! Much more on Sierra and her band Highway 11 HERE!
-Also keeping us busy for the past couple of days, one of our best friends from home, Steph Bristow has been hanging with us here in Nash. She timed the visit perfectly with her boyfriend and his touring band’s Nashville showcase… 
Which meant a couple nights of crazy nights of pop/punk. No complaints there.
It also made our apartment the official crash spot for 12 different guys in 3 different bands.
And in return we got an acoustic performance from a not so acoustic band…
These guys are dedicated, talented, and extremely grateful musicians. Make sure to show them some love: Of Fortune and Fame, Leylines, Sidelined.
ETC:
Alsooo, We have had THE best luck with running into people this week:
-Sunday we got caught in traffic with Blake Shelton. We flashed him his greatest hits CD and he proceeded to roll down his window and tell us that he loved us!! It pays to be ghetto and still own CD’s!
-Two hours later we ran into one of our very favorite people, Miss Hannah Blaylock of Eden’s Edge! Such a sweetheart!! She was with accompanied by her awesome artist/songwriting extraordinaire of a friend, Laura Veltz, of whom has co-written 2 of EE’s songs (Slow Motion and Think About Us.)
-The next day we spotted us some Faith Hill getting her produce on at Whole Foods. She was in stealth mode and completely free of makeup, butttt just as gorgeous in person, we promise.
-Anddd today, Jamie had a Susie Brown of The JaneDear Girls run in right outside our place of work, Abercrombie and Fitch Green Hills. She’s still freaking out about it.
Oh, yea. We had to show some love for the new inductees! Congrats, guys!
P.S. Happy birthday America. Thanks for being the best country ever!!!
If you’re an Eden’s Edge fan, show some love for their kin. Lead singer, Hannah Blaylock, has a brother, and he has a band, and they’re realllly good. Christian rock is where it’s at. Check out Wes Blaylock in Deas Vail, they justtt filmed a new video for their current single (we believe) “Summer Forgets Me.” Talent runs in the family, are we right or are we right? 🙂
Check out Lucy Hale (aka Aria from Pretty Little Liars)’s latest Tweet.
That’s rightttt, she loves Eden’s Edge! So cute! We knew that girl had good taste!
Fun Fact: Lucy’s a singer too, you may remember her from the short lived, American Juniors back in tha day. Can you say collaboration!?
We can’t say enough good things about these guys. Once we start we can’t stop. Ugh so good! So anywayy.. they’re our favorites and they’re releasing their debut EP on monday. Who’s excitedd?! Sorry EE, we won’t be buying it until CMAfest because we like having hard copies buttt we totally encourage everyone to head out and pick it up. Last year we were fortunate enough to get a copy of their acoustic one which was absolutely breath taking. It was literally the soundtrack to our summer and we can successfully say that it turned at least 2 non country fans into hardcore country fans. We won’t name names Adam Sandore and Jen Morris. So yea, pick the EP on up and while you’re at it check them out at CMAfest, they will be playing the Frito Lay stage on the first day and we will be there. probably with signs. ;P
Preview and/or purchase the EP HERE.
Dean also posted a blog about their touring adventures of which you can read HERE.
This is the acoustic version of one of our favorites from the acoustic record. Co written by our favorite, Ashley Monroe.
Twin Love 