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After a long hiatus, Elephant Boy is back. They'll play with Blues Traveler this Friday. |
BY JONAS BEALS
New York has The Ramones, Los Angeles has Guns N' Roses, Minneapolis has Prince and Fredericksburg has Elephant Boy.
Or Fredericksburg had Elephant Boy. The band tasted fame with a major record deal in 2000; but the label folded, and Elephant Boy was left in the lurch. No plane crashes, no rehab stints, no breakdowns, no wife stealing. The rock band with a habit of mashing genres put its hometown on the map in the '90s, but faded into silence in 2002.
"It was sort of undecided," guitarist Brian Coltrane said of the breakup. "Geoff [Leach, lead singer] had a baby. We had cliche problems with our record label. It was just kind of deflating."
It was also a letdown for local fans who had grown accustomed to hearing top-drawer party music on a regular basis. For a generation of downtown bar-hoppers, Elephant Boy was the soundtrack of choice.
Seven years later, Elephant Boy lives on in legend--a code word traded between local musicians who remember when the Irish Brigade's walls would sweat with the dancing funk of a capacity crowd.
It could happen again. Elephant Boy is back.
MAKING A SCENE
Tomorrow night, Elephant Boy will open for Blues Traveler at Celebrate Virginia Live. It is sure to be another highlight in a career that has spanned two decades.
High School friends Coltrane and bassist Karl Steinbach formed the band in 1989. The group spent a few years writing songs and practicing before they started hitting the local club and college circuit. In 1993, 19-year-old singer Geoff Leach replaced Dave Fera, who left to form his own band.
"I saw an ad for a singer in the City Paper," Leach said. "It said: 'Band in Fredericksburg has gigs, studio, big-ass truck and a 154-quart cooler.'"
It was the cooler that caught his eye.
Steinbach and Coltrane spent the next few months educating Leach by immersing him in Elephant Boy lyrics and influences like Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan.
"He was such a punk when he joined the band," Coltrane said of Leach, "but he had pipes out the wazoo."
The charismatic Leach has his own opinion, conjuring up visions of David Lee Roth.
"I'm a sleazy game show host who can hold a tune," he said.
Elephant Boy hit its peak in the late '90s, playing nearly 200 shows a year from New England to New Orleans. The band had a tour bus, a Jägermeister sponsorship and a growing fan base.
They played storied venues like the Flood Zone in Richmond, the 9:30 Club in Washington and Irving Plaza in New York City.
Regionally, they ran alongside fellow college-rockers Everything, Jimmie's Chicken Shack and Fighting Gravity. Nationally, they shared stages with acts like the Spin Doctors, Fuel and Run-D.M.C.
Even at the height of popularity, when the band spent a month living and recording an album in New York for WEA/Mystic Records, Elephant Boy kept its heart in Fredericksburg.
"We tried hard to make this town proud of who we were," Leach said. "We couldn't have had a better support system.
"I think we did a lot to bring Fredericksburg around musically."
COMEBACK KIDS
Listening to their records, it's easy to peg Elephant Boy's sound to the mid-'90s, when groups like Sublime, 311 and Rage Against The Machine built pop hits from elements of ska, punk, hip-hop and funk.
Despite the success at the time, the age of Elephant Boy's songs was a concern before they started practicing a couple of months ago.
"Is it dated?" Steinbach asked himself. "Will it sound dated? It didn't. It still feels very good."
"This opportunity came along a little quicker than we anticipated," Coltrane added. "But things came back to us pretty easily."
When the band was touring, Elephant Boy wasn't trying to be the next big thing. They were a natural product of their time and place, influenced by countless popular styles and spiked with the right amount of go-go swing to keep a party rolling.
In some respects, they were rock 'n' roll innovators, adding a live DJ to the mix before it was popularized by acts like Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit.
Unfortunately, the band's last studio album was shelved before anyone got a chance to hear it.
Steinbach has since recovered the tapes and hopes to finish the album.
"The band is as good right now as we were when we made that record," he said.
Tomorrow's concert will be a near-complete reunion for the band. Steinbach, Leach and Coltrane will be joined by JoJo Bayliss on turntables and Mark Self on drums. Self replaces Kyle Palmatory, who lives in Morgantown and couldn't make the commitment for logistical reasons.
"One thing I can say, truly, about this band," Leach said, "is that we've been really good friends. We never burned any bridges."
Elephant Boy is a little older, a lot wiser, and just as eager to "eat another band's lunch," as they used to say before a show.
The players have families, full-time jobs and new priorities, but their confident rock swagger is intact. After all those years, their timing might be perfect.
"I feel good and I'm having fun," Coltrane said. "I don't know if I could have come back to it sooner than this."
Tomorrow, they will play for their friends, neighbors and fans. They will play for their children.
They will play, most of all, for fun.
"We'll do our job," Leach said, smiling.
Jonas Beals: 540/368-5036
Email: jbeals@freelancestar.com
