Stevie inspires new single: E.L.F - "Stevie Nicks Hearts"

[GoldDustOrphan]

Stevie continues to inspire....

The E.L.F. (aka Darren Cross) just released an EP titled "Stevie Nicks Hearts."

http://elfcontact.blogspot.com/2008/...earts-mp3.html

The following interview explains the title :

Describing his sound as ambient indie house, emo he most certainly is not. The ELF also isn’t very Stevie Nicks, which makes the title of his new EP, Stevie Nicks’ Heart, an interesting one.

“My next song, the lead song off the EP, is called Stevie Nicks’ Heart,” he explains, “and it’s an ambient indie singing thing. It sounds like a cross between Pavement and Underworld. She’s the best female singer ever. Well, in my little world, [and I had this] thing that every girl who’d I’d been romantically linked with since I was about fourteen has always loved Stevie Nicks so I kind of use that as a metaphor.”

[UndoingTheLaces]

What a beautiful song. You can buy it on iTunes, I just did. Awesome!

[michelej1]

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/s...003421,00.html

NEVER try to second-guess someone's music tastes, least not those of Darren Cross of Aussie indie dance darlings Gerling.

Cross has just released his debut EP, the imaginatively titled Stevie Nicks Hearts, under the brand-spanking handle of The E.L.F.

In doing so, the diminutive muso – best known for his work in Gerling blending infectious dance beats with hook-laden guitar lines and melodic vocals – has revealed himself as a diehard Fleetwood Mac fan.

Cross is such a fan he takes umbrage at the suggestion that he's a closet Stevie Nicks fan.

"I'm definitely not closet about it. I'm out there. I just love her," Cross says.

"Fleetwood Mac, they just nailed that whole soft rock thing and I thought it was a good name for a song and the EP."

Not only is Cross a fan of the Mac musical oeuvre but he is fascinated by the torrid band machinations between members Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and Lindsay Buckingham.

"I've watched the Rumours: Classic Albums (clips), and all the things they were singing about were true. They were happening around them and so it's really potent. And there is footage on YouTube and like Stevie Nicks is practically goading Lindsay on stage. Lindsay is getting all pompous and Stevie is laughing behind his back. Then Stevie will pour her heart out and Lindsay is just standing there looking disinterested. It's totally amazing."

The Gerling band relations aren't as strained as those in Fleetwood Mac but Cross says the three-piece are on an indefinite hiatus, a break which gave birth to The E.L.F.

"Once we decided that was going to happen with Gerling, I just went out and bought a laptop the next day and started writing music. The fruits of that development is this EP."

Cross has launched his own record label, Oaks Records, to release the EP, and says he enjoyed the freedom of working autonomously.

"It was refreshing," he says. "It was a bit strange not bouncing ideas off the other guys but I found I was getting a lot more done because I just wouldn't talk to anyone and would remain focused.

"I could also record at 1am or wake up at 6am and start work straight from my lounge room. It was a bit more immediate than going into a studio and bouncing ideas off everyone."

Although he was flying solo, Cross says his approach to recording used the same methodology as Gerling.

"I'd just go full bore into it. I see everything as a development.

"With no guitars it's made things a little different but I really wanted to get away from the Gerling sound. When you're in a group and you're developing sounds, you develop your own style within the group as well. There's a lot of the sounds and colours that I brought to Gerling songs in The E.L.F. - especially the more abstract thing. If you like the kind of whacked-out dance stuff that Gerling did you will probably like The E.L.F.

As his Fleetwood Mac revelation attests, Cross is a music obsessive, the kind of genre-hopping nut whose CD collections includes a smattering of everything.

Most surprisingly, it boasts the '80s LA poodle rock he loved as a child – Guns 'N Roses, Skid Row and Poison, a band he saw with his obliging dad as a youngster.

"I'm always tripping out about everything to do with music. I just love it. Like I'm very fascinated historically how things become successful and why they are successful. Like if I was studying a poodle metal band I'd probably just look at the whole package and their image, their music and who was into it and why."

The E.L.F. plays Ric's Bar tomorrow.

Stevie Nicks Hearts out on Oaks Records/MGM.