We are what we were. It is what it is and we go from there.

All booking inquiries should be sent to Sara Roth: booking@thehereafterishere.com

A person said:

“If you have never heard a John Elliott song before, I’m sorry you’ve been deprived for this long.”

THE BAND:

JOHN ELLIOTT

John has been writing songs since junior high, making albums since Bill Clinton's blow job incident and touring since 2006. He is based in Los Angeles, CA and has played virtually every venue in town, including a residency and regular shows at Hotel Cafe. His songs have been prominently heard on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “One Tree Hill.” Also, a song he wrote with Gregory Alan Isakov & J Wagner (If I Go, I'm Goin') appeared on “Californication” and on Gregory's album "This Empty Northern Hemisphere." If you are in the right place at the right time, you can hear John's music on the radio, TV, and internet; in cars and around campfires. Also iPods. 

MIKE SCHADEL 

Mike Schadel got his first keyboard in the 2nd grade. He started writing songs shortly there after. When he was 10 he started taking drum lessons. He put together a band when he was 12. That's the last thing he remembers. It's all been like one big long month to him. His music is happy. He is happy. He lives in the valley. 

COLIN WARLING

Colin Warling is a multi-instrumentalist and a Los Angeles native. He began gigging regularly at age 13 with a 60's cover band mainly as a bassist. Warling's passion for music has spilled over into his professional life as a Luthier. He currently plays his self-made bass with the Hereafter, and helps repair gear when needed.

MIKE WENDLAND

Mike Wendland has been a rocker since he was a wee lad. He plays guitar. He teaches guitar lessons. He also runs an awesome recording studio. He’s currently trying to spruce up his banjo skills. He hopes to play the trombone someday. He loves kids that aren’t his own, and since he doesn’t have any, that’s ok. He’s a dead eye at the billiards table, and he writes a lean, mean biography. 

www.mikewendlandguitar.com        www.beercitystudios.com

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE HEREAFTER

Names are strange. Naming something is hard. You name it in a time and place. If it sticks around, it’s going to change because all things do. Some people take different names, change their names, or have several names. I know at least one person (a fellow Minnesotan) who changed his name to a symbol for awhile.

The name The Hereafter was given to the band I was playing my songs with in the spring of 2005. We rehearsed in a huge old warehouse in downtown Los Angeles with a hundred other bands. We could hear speed metal through the walls while we played. I was tutoring the SAT for money, lived in Venice three blocks from the beach and George W. Bush was just getting started on his second term.

All things change.

It’s the summer of 2011 as I write this. No one who was in The Hereafter when it was named is still in The Hereafter except for me. So is it still The Hereafter? Yes, because that’s its name. It’s a good name. Andy Featherston (artist, percussionist, ceramic-maker and one of my best childhood friends) decided to go through the dictionary when we were looking for a name and he stopped at “hereafter.” I loved it. It means something to me. It’s also the name of a crazy play I saw in Chicago when I was in high school that changed my life. Phone book pages snowed from the sky midway through and covered the stage three feet deep. I’ll never forget that image.

So that was the name: The Hereafter. The guitarist (Evan Endicott) quit five months after it was named. He was in the band for less than a year. That fall, a demo of a new song ("Back Where I Was") appeared on an episode of "Grey's Anatomy." Suddenly I was getting e-mails from people in Norway and elsewhere. The recording was just me singing and playing a keyboard. I called it The Hereafter, but was it? Names.

I finished the album “The Hereafter” pretty much by myself. In late June 2006, I took off on a solo summer tour of the west coast. The second show was at a coffee shop in Sacramento and I made over $200 (more than an afternoon and evening of tutoring). That blew my mind. Five years in Los Angeles had taught me that musicians are not paid to perform. Musicians beg venues for the opportunity to play a 45 minute set and beg their friends to drive there, pay for parking and pay a cover (most or all of which goes to the venue) to hear poorly mixed sound and buy overpriced drinks. Ah, Los Angeles. I love you. You’re so silly and so beautiful. Can’t beat the climate.

So there I was: on my first tour, driving all over the great American west in Glen (Honda Civic), mostly camping, lugging a keyboard and guitar into a various random hodgepodge of venues from Los Angeles to Spokane. I was immediately confronted with the name issue. The album was released by “The Hereafter.” Who is that? What is that? 

When I got back that fall, I had a recovering confidence and a bunch of new songs. I started recording an album. The excellent and energetic Bryan Dobbs joined on bass and Andy hung in (but was in art school and on his way out). We had two great shows together that fall. I left for a reprise solo tour of the west feeling like I finally had a band that worked. Andy called while I was driving back and said we had to talk. I knew. He quit because he had to and I understood.

So I had these songs and half-finished recordings. Enter Mike Schadel, a force of nature and a ferocious drummer. I met Mike when I moved to LA in 2001 (pre-9/11) and he had been in a billion bands, including his own project, The Haskells (formerly Tinker City). A week after Andy left, I was in the studio with Mike & Bryan, finishing the recordings that would become the next album, “Before We Fall.”

And so it went. Five months later I moved into my car and drove all over the country, touring non-stop for two years. I got back to LA periodically and would plays shows with The Hereafter (at that point a trio with Bryan and Mike). Those two years are a story for another time. They happened. For a month in there, I lived in a moldy back house in Leander, Texas (outside Austin) and made most of "It Doesn't Matter Why It Is, It Doesn't Matter If It's Wrong." I named that The Hereafter too, but I played most of the instruments on it and spent a sleepless month creating it completely alone. At that point, the name thing really started to bother me. I was sticking with it, mainly because of the television exposure (another song appeared on "Grey's Anatomy" in 2007 under The Hereafter name), but 97% of the shows were me alone. 

I moved back to Los Angeles in April 2009 and immediately left on a west coast tour with Bryan and Mike. I was not well. By the time we got to Bellingham, I slept in the trunk of our rented SUV for five hours before the show. I could barely get out of there to play. Bryan quit when we got back and I understood.

So now it was Mike and me. We played with a couple different guys and found Colin Warling (bass) and Mike Wendland (guitarist). I had known them both for years, but not very well. The first time we all played together it was right. I knew it was. We all felt it. I came home and thought: “That’s it. That’s the band.”

That was the summer of 2009 and so it has been since then. We did a residency at Hotel Cafe that August (five shows, two hour sets), sorted it out, and learned to play together. We passed the road test on a weeklong trip to the Pacific Northwest in September 2010 by proving that we can travel together and play great shows for people who rock (Seattle, WA) and people who don't (Cottage Grove, OR). I hope these guys stick around. We’re good together.

John Elliott - July 2011