eMusic

Start Your Trial

New Ruins

New Ruins

Rate it!

Avg: 4.5 (17 ratings)

Biography

Playing dark-hued pop music that strikes a balance between melody-driven pleasure and guitar-fueled malaise, New Ruins started as a two-man recording project featuring Elzie Sexton on vocals, guitars, and keyboards and J. Caleb Means on vocals and guitar. Sexton and Means both grew up in southern Illinois, and became friends in their early teens. Sexton and Means formed a punk rock band together when they were 14, and worked together in a variety of musical projects until they both left town to go to college. Means traveled north and attended film school, while Sexton enrolled in an art college down south; however, the two friends kept in touch, and in addition to getting together to make music during breaks from school, they began sending tapes of works in progress back and forth, collaborating through the mail. After graduating, Sexton and Means both ended up back in Illinois in the Champaign-Urbana area, where Means opened a small recording studio, Boombox Studios. When not busy with clients, Means would work on new music with Sexton, and in 2004 New Ruins were born. After a year in which the duo was strictly a studio project, New Ruins began playing occasional live gigs in the summer of 2005, and before long they added a rhythm section to fill out their sound -- bassist Paul Chastain and drummer Roy Ewing. In 2006, New Ruins began recording their first full album, The Sound They Make, which was released by Hidden Agenda Records in the spring of 2007.
— Mark Deming , All Music Guide

Related Artists Ancestors, Peers and Acolytes

Similar Artists:

Iron And Wine / Calexico, Mojave 3, Phonograph, Iron & Wine

Roots and Influences:

John Fahey, John Fahey, Peter Lang, Leo Kottke

Formal Connections:

Braid, Velvet Crush, The Velvet Crush

“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”


Rolling Stone
Start Your Trial

Recently Viewed

Back
Forward

© 1998-2009 eMusic.com Inc. eMusic and the eMusic logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks in the USA or other countries. All rights reserved.

All Music Guide © 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC

Facebook®, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia® are registered trademarks of their respective owners, Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Neither Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. nor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. are partners or sponsors of eMusic. eMusic uses the Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia API but is not endorsed or certified by Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. eMusic does not pre-screen, monitor, endorse nor assume any liability for websites, contents, products, services or claims made by Facebook, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia®.

Legal or copyright question regarding Facebook, YouTube, Flickr or Wikipedia content on eMusic? Please email us.