For months a friend had been telling me that I need to go check out Jody and his band but for one reason or another I never made it to a show. I asked her what his music is like and after several ill attempts at trying to sum him up she couldn’t and told me to get my ass to show already. Yes ma’am!

Braving a harsh 10 degree night, I recently caught Jody and his band at Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower East Side. Despite the frigid weather, plenty had ventured out to see the band as it would be their last show for a few months, taking some time off to work on their forthcoming EP, “Rise.” Their performance on this night was nothing short of breathtaking and it was desperately needed after having suffered though the late-teen opening band who drudged through their songs about watching too much television…or something.

I could see why my friend was having a hard time articulating herself when trying to describe Jody's sound. From the few MP3’s on the bands website, I thought they would be more of a pop act but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Live, Shelton’s strong voice is more rock than pop and his band, playing a solid set, should be required listening for any young band playing out today.

“I’m lucky,” Shelton tells me over a few whiskeys, “the people I am working with all have their own individual voices. When Ricardo picks up his bass, he sounds like no one I have ever heard. Eric, our guitar player, is the same way. He’s actually my collaborator and we co-produce everything. We got our new drummer, Christopher, a few months ago and now all four pieces are there. We all work really well together.”

They are currently recording an EP entitled “Rise” which is a culmination of a years worth of work. “We’re at a place where we are talking to a few interested parties. The most interesting to us is Rick Rubin’s America Recordings.” The legendary Rick Rubin has worked with the likes of The Beastie Boys, Guns N’ Roses, and Johnny Cash. His company, American Records, is home to System Of A Down and Slayer. Not bad for a band that has been together for a little over a year.

Jody Shelton grew up on a farm in Tennessee. “My parents are extremely conservative. I wasn’t allowed to listen to Rock N’ Roll in my house and there were certain TV shows we couldn’t watch,” he tells me. “But they’re as encouraging as they can be.” As a child he was less than thrilled to find that piano lessons were in his near future. “We were all required to take two years of piano. Growing up it was my curse but by the time I was nine I was good so I couldn’t quit. It pigeon holed me immediately as a musician before I had a choice.”

By the time he turned 18 Shelton had ditched Tennessee and set his sites on Chicago where he studied classical voice and Jazz piano. He then went on to Columbia College for a year where he studied musical theatre and composition before getting picked up by Second City as a musical director. Then he studied at Berkeley, finishing his degree, before moving to New York.

Starting a band wasn’t his original game plan. “I was not going to do this anymore. I was going to be a ‘serious composer’ and go to school and be someone that sits in a room and writes for a living. I started film scoring and that whole thing,” Shelton says. “Then I moved to New York a year and a half ago. The fears of my youth had fallen away and there are things I had to do while I’m still young enough. New York does that to you, it gives you that motivation.”

On The Web | www.jodyshelton.com