ELLSBETH
Shannon Quamme – Vocals/Writer
Sean Lacefield – Guitar/Writer
Scott Ramsay – Guitar
Jim Dineen – Bass
Jay Liermann – Drums
“We don’t care if we’re famous or not. We want to share our music with the world and be the best musicians we can be and if fame is a byproduct of that, fine. But we don’t care about being on everyone’s television or on their posters. What I do care about is giving people a piece of who I am, and saying, ‘You’re not alone.’ I am willing to give you a piece of my soul, even if I don’t know you,” says Ellsbeth vocalist Shannon Quamme, laying her cards face up on the table for all to see. Ellsbeth, the Los Angeles-based band is happy to fight, scratch and claw their way up the steep music industry ladder, but they are doing in on their own terms. “We love what we do yet all that we’ve dealt with and how we’ve tried to climb is very human, yet it’s what we all do. We all face challenges and try to accomplish our goals.”
It’s this very “of the people” attitude that connects Ellsbeth with the fans that love (and will grow to love) their music, a brilliantly balanced blend of aggressive Rock, Metal, Gothic and Industrial. The band’s debut studio effort, Well Dressed Killing Machine, was released via iTunes on April 1 and was produced by Chris Spilfogel (Dreamgirls, Hairspray) and Ellsbeth’s guitarist, Sean Lacefield, who worked on music for the video game Dead Rising for Xbox 360, and for Repo! The Genetic Opera.
Quamme actually deems Ellsbeth’s music “Neogothrockpopsoulmetal,” a hybrid term she coined with Spilfogel, who had worked with pop stars but was itching to work with a harder edged band and chose Ellsbeth. Ellsbeth’s eclectic style of music is due in part to the fact that all the members hail from disparate backgrounds, bringing unique elements to the overall sound. Quamme, who originally hails from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, attended the Musician’s Institute on a scholarship. Sean found her on Craigslist believe it or not, after he came out of another project that “ended badly.” But Lacefield was undeterred. He says, “My former manager and I set out to form another band and after many horrifying auditions, Craigslist was for once, useful and I stumbled upon Shannon. We met at Starbucks and immediately started writing.”
Lacefield and Quamme had amassed a ton of material and entered the studio. “We didn’t compromise with any aspect, from members to songs to the engineer to the studio, ” Lacefield said. The duo entered Westlake studios with the Grammy-nominated Spilfogel at the helm. After recording, their music took off on MySpace, where they were voted the #1 Goth band for six weeks and accumulated over 10 million plays over the course which is no small feat in the social networking sphere, where bands trying to get noticed are innumerable and infinite.
Quamme has an interesting view of how Ellsbeth are surviving and thriving as an independent band in the oversaturated music industry and that’s the band’s ability to lay everything on the line, to walk to the musical/emotional tightrope, sans a net. “It’s like McDonald’s cheeseburgers,” she says. “There is all this effort that goes into processing of the meat, the cheese, the bun and the wrappers. It’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. Then you eat it and are like ‘Eh!’ That’s not us. We want to give people something to hear and be brutally honest, tearing our chests open. If it affects you, then we’ve done our job. That’s why Sean and I adore haters almost as much as our fans, because if we make you react, good or bad we’ve achieved our goal.”
After Lacefield and Quamme had laid the foundation for the band, they set about finding members to complete the band and the vision. Drummer Jay Liermann, originally from Biloxi, MS, joined with guitarist Scott Ramsay. Liermann views Ellsbeth as “seasoned, but new at the same time, with heavy and full riffs. There’s a little bit of heavy, a little bit of melodic. But it’s never too insanely heavy for average person to listen to.”
Ramsay, who was born in Scotland but was transported to LA at the age of three, spent much of his formative years playing in rock bands and in the house band at Lakers games, where he played the “DE-FENSE” chant! He says the gig “was something anyone and their mother could do.” While it was a fun gig, Ramsay was hungry to play something heavy and Ellsbeth more than fit the bill. “My heart is in metal and melodic music. When I heard the music, I lost my mind, since it was what I wanted to do: heavy, aggressive and with incredible vocals.” Ramsay also contributes the only solo on the album, since the music was already written when he joined.
Bassist Jim Dineen, who originally hails from Connecticut, met Lacefield and Quamme while they were tracking Well Dressed Killing Machine. Dineen was an assistant in the studio and immediately hit it off with his future band mates. He actually bought a bass at the band’s suggestion and used it to audition in a “2-for-1 special!” Dineen claims he was “digging the music and I was a fan before I was a member. I have a music degree and I have that academic approach, but with Ellsbeth, it was effortless and interesting melodies with what’s rhythmically complicated. For me, it’s a ton of fun to play. It’s powerful stuff. We were not buddies beforehand who said, ‘Let’s make a band!’ The music is so deliberate, yet natural.” Indeed, the hodgepodge of members is what makes Ellsbeth’s music such a journey during which the listen loses his or her self and gives themselves up to the darkly symphonic, pulsing, driving and ultimately moving music.
A song like “Defy” On Well Dressed Killing Machine, truly defines what Ellsbeth are about and that’s making a statement through music. Lyrically, “it’s about a soldier in Iraq who is deemed the prince of all princes,” Quamme said. “He’s a go-getter, who is going places in the military and he went off on his own and tried to accomplish something in the desert, but he got lost, tortured and killed. His cockiness got in the way.” Lacefield points to “Wide Awake” as another tried and true Ellsbeth song, saying, “it’s brutally powerful, with a great groove and it comes out and pummels you from the beginning to the end and has a great melody and kicks ass. It’s my ode to one of my guitar heroes, Dimebag Darrell, as it’s reminiscent of their groove with searing vocals.”
Ellsbeth will excite and stimulate the hard rock fan looking for melody, aggression and groove, all held together by bewitching vocals. The band isn’t like anything else out there today and that’s because it’s a commingling of talents that bring something special and unexpected to the table.
“If anything, it’s important for an artist of any kind that you bring a genuine belief in what you are doing to what you create,” Lacefield says. “I want to be proud of this music in 20 years, whether it’s successful or not. It has been a fucking struggle every day to get to this point, we’re like, and “Shit, Here we are.” You don’t go through it if you don’t love it.”
While it’s obvious that the members that comprise the Ellsbeth collective love what they’ve created, it’s about the beloved by music freaks and connoisseurs very soon. If you’re just discovering Ellsbeth, consider yourself one of the lucky ones who got to know them way back when, as they are about to impact like an atom bomb.
www.myspace.com/ellsbethmusic
Contact:
Brian Rocha
rocha@fresnomediausa.com
Ryan Feldman
ryan@fresnomediausa.com
