The longtime favorite Dallas country band premieres "Let's Move Out to the Country," exclusively with C&I.
Eleven Hundred Springs fans are a particular brand of loyal to the beloved Texas country band out of Dallas. I saw this firsthand during my time at the Dallas Observer, where in the 2008 Dallas Observer Music Awards the band and its individual members swept every category for which it received a nomination. That somehow even included Best DJ, as bassist Steve Berg got the win for his DJ Burlap side project.
After more than 20 years of consistent greatness, the fan base is as dedicated as ever, for good reason. And if you haven’t been introduced yet, the band’s latest record, Here ’Tis, is out today from State Fair Records. It is as fine a place to start as any, a good-times blend of twangy electric guitar and swinging fiddle. And there’s something sure to perk the ears of longtime fans — a new lead voice on some tracks alongside those sung by longtime frontman Matt Hillyer. Guitarist Chad Rueffer, a 2017 addition to the band, took some of the songwriting load off Hillyer this time around.
The band shares a classic Hillyer track as an exclusive C&I premiere, “Let’s Move Out to the Country.” The song’s roots are a little meta, as Hillyer explains: "In a weird way, the song was born out of frustration from trying to write a song and not feeling like it was working. There’s a cell phone tower near my house, and they were making a lot of noise working on it. I said to myself, ‘I need to move out to the country.’ That sounded better to me. That’s where it came from.”
It sounds pretty good to me, too. The band’s album release show is Saturday, January 18, at the Granada Theater in their hometown. Visit their website for more show dates, and order the album from State Fair Records.
Photography: Courtesy Shane Kislack