Genre:
Members: Owen Thomas (vocals, guitar), Christopher Thomas (drums), Thomas Daugherty (guitar), Nathan W. Bennett (bass)
For fans of: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Strokes, Oasis, Cheap Trick, PFR, Big Tent Revival
Label: Universal South

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"The town I live in just isn't "the scene". Nobody's wearing leather pants, and it's not the hipster part of America. It's the real-life, non-delusional part of the States." -Owen Thomas, The Elms

"No. But maybe times have changed," speculates Owen Thomas, lead singer of The Elms. He's been asked whether or not small town life is truly as grand as depicted in John Mellencamp's classic "Pink Houses" and "Small Town" music videos—The Elms also hail from Seymour, IN, the city that birthed world-renowned American troubadour Mellencamp. The clips in question show people happily hanging out on front porches in their comfortable rocking chairs, singing songs about their fair heartland.

"That doesn't happen these days in these towns," Thomas continues. "People don't have acoustic guitars perpetually strapped on and they don't have free-form porch sessions all the time. They don't belly laugh and eat farm-fresh produce all day and pass watermelon slices around, talking about how great it is to sweat life out in middle-America. And they sure as hell don't talk about how they would never choose a different life for themselves. They do sit out on their porches, though, mostly hoping something interesting will happen."

True midwestern reality, The Elms maintain, is stark and heavy. "I go to the local hangs and play cards," Thomas says, "with guys who are 50 or 60 years old. What I hear most people say is that given the chance, they would have gotten out of this town. And I'm not pointing these things out to say that this is a horrible, deadbeat, mundane, burnout little place. What I'm trying to say is that there are millions of American people who, by and large, are victims of circumstance. There's a guy driving a combine right now who's doing it because his dad said, 'Hey, you'll take over the family farm when I'm done.' It isn't because, in his heart, he didn't have something else that he wanted to do with his life. Many in America are doing what they do because somebody told them that following their heart was not practical."

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