Nothing gets people moving like a deadline.
Andy Hull was barely past high school when he got handed a very important one. His father gave him an ultimatum - he had one year to pursue his music career. That’s it. If he didn’t succeed after that - essentially his freshman year of college - he’d be forced to move on and embrace a life of normalcy.
Typically, this type of ultimatum is followed by a crash and burn story. One that ends with the kid’s dreams being hopelessly dashed by the weight of the world and a true understanding of what actually goes into a bank account. Well, needless to say, Andy Hull’s wasn’t your typical story.
He’d been writing songs since the age of 15 and had officially formed Manchester Orchestra at the not-so-world-weary age of 16. And about a year later, during that year-long trial run, Hull managed to more than prove himself by beating that deadline. It was that very fall he and Manchester Orchestra made their first appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. And though the band’s lineup has shuffled a few times since its original format, and their sound shifts on seemingly every release, they’ve still managed to put out five solid records. The most well-known of which being their sophomore release Mean Everything to Nothing. It’s a riptide of an album that just seems to get better and better – dragging you down deeper and deeper with each song. It shows why Hull made the choice he did just a few years earlier. If you’ve got at least one album like that hidden somewhere inside you waiting to be unleashed, then why not let it loose?
Manchester Orchestra hits the Yeatman’s Cove Stage Sunday, June 7th at 4:30!
