Side project of Matt Berninger and Brent Knopf, EL VY have released another lyric video for the song “Need a Friend” and announce Fall 2015 tour dates.
Matt Berninger, front man for The National, and Brent Knopf, front man for Ramona Falls and Menomena, have come together to form the band EL VY. Their debut album, Return To The Moon, is set to release this weekend. The band has released a total of four lyric videos to accompany their anticipated release for the songs “Paul is Alive,” “I’m The Man to Be,” ”Return to The Moon (Political Song For DIDI Bloome to Sing With Crescendo)” and their newest release “Need a Friend.” The video for Need a Friend can be seen below.
All the videos were directed by Berninger’s brother, Tom Berninger. Tom is an award-winning director for his work on the film Mistaken for Strangers. While the song is a nostalgic glimpse into the adolescent life of Matt in Cincinnati, the video is a live performance of the band and a foreshadowing of what is to come out of their forthcoming North Americana and European tour. This tour will be in direct support of the Return to The Moon album and the first time EL VY will go on tour as a band. Tour dates and ticketing information can be found below.
According to Consequence of Sound, Matt Berninger had this to say about the album.
“This record is more autobiographical than anything else I’ve written,” Berninger said in a statement, “but the details aren’t true. It’s written in the voices of a few invented characters, composites of different people – myself, my wife, and other people I was thinking about.”
EL VY is pronounced as a two syllable take on Elvis that rhymes with “hell pie” and is not a project that Berninger and Knopf thought up overnight. The friendship of these two artists spans back to nearly a decade when the two met while playing small clubs on the west coast. Berninger was with his band The National at the time and Knopf was with his band Menomena. After they met the two continued to keep in touch and form a musical friendship that would eventually end up with the formation of EL VY.
EL VY 2015 Tour Dates:
Buy Tickets on Ticketmaster | Buy Tickets on Ticketfly
11/02 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
11/03 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
11/04 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
11/06 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
11/07 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
11/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
11/11 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
11/13 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
11/14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall fo Williamsburg
11/15 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
11/16 – Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmount
11/17 – Toronto, ON @ Opera House
11/19 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
11/20 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom
11/21 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
12/01 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuse
12/02 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust
12/03 – Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
12/04 – Cologne, DE @ Kantine
12/06 – Berlin, DE @ Astra
12/07 – Brussels, BE @ AB
12/08 – Paris, FR @ Trabendo
12/10 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
12/12 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
12/13 – Dublin, IE @ Whelans