Delta Rae

TwitterYouTubeSeymour Stein's office sits way up in the highrises of the Rockefeller Plaza; a corner office, with a beautiful view out over New York City, its surfaces cluttered with all of the memorabilia, awards and accumulated paraphernalia of a lifetime spent in the music industry. It was into this office that the six members of Delta Rae shuffled one day in the summer of 2011. A rather convoluted connection had led them here to this meeting, their first with a major record label, and no one… Show more was quite sure how to proceed. "We were very nervous," recalls Ian Holljes, with perhaps some understatement."But we talked briefly, and thenSeymoursaid 'Well, why don't you sing something for me?'" The band duly launched into Hey Hey Hey, a joyous, rollicking tune that begins with an exquisite four-part harmony. Ten seconds in, Stein asked them to stop. The band balked. But Stein stood up, walked to the door and hollered for his colleagues to join them. "You gotta hear these people!" he cried into the hallway. "They sound so beautiful!" The story that led Delta Rae to Stein's office, a major label deal, and the release of their stunning debut album, had in fact begun many years before, in the Holljes household, where siblings Ian, Eric and Brittany, enjoyed a childhood that was close yet itinerant, carrying them from Durham, North Carolina, to the Bay area of San Francisco, via Nashville, Tennessee, and Marietta, Georgia. Throughout it all, they relished the continuity of great music - their parents' record collection, rich with James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon.Along the way, Ian and Eric forged what they describe as "a close musical bond" writing songs together from a young age. Their younger sister, meanwhile, was in possession of "this huge, brassy voice," Ian recalls. "When she was young, it was like a lion that you couldn't quite tame. But as she got older and we got to know her voice we saw the power in it." The brothers both headed back toDurhamfor college, and after graduation decided they should pursue music in earnest. They convinced their lion-voiced sister to join them, as well as an old friend, Elizabeth Hopkins, whose singing they had always loved - "it's got that raspiness," Eric says, "that old soul to it." The four set up home in an old house in the woods, and set about finding their collective voice, crafting their songs, and playing them live. "Very early on I felt we had found something special," says Ian, who with his brother writes the lyrics. "It was really the uniting of the four voices, a type of music that resonated with me. Just to be in the thick of it is amazing, because the four people in this band sing with such heart - you just lose yourself in it." By late 2010, the four had become six, with the addition of drummer Mike McKee and bassist Grant Emerson, and were honing their material on the road. A lot of the songs evolved through live performance: Mike, for instance, innovating the percussion with chains and trash can lids, while Grant picked up an upright bass to round out the band's sound. * Service and handling fees are added to the price of each ticket

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