Daniel Ellsworth to play Bishop

Four-piece indie-pop group Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes had the type of year every young band from Nashville, Tenn., works toward. The band’s new album, “Civilized Man,” garnered spots on a couple major year-end lists for its standout track “Shoe Fits.”

Additionally, frontman Ellsworth stole some bonus exposure by appearing on NBC’s a cappella competition show “The Sing-Off.”

Ellsworth and his band, which will perform at 9 p.m. today at The Bishop with local band Busman’s Holiday, spoke with Live Buzz earlier this week about their 2011 achievements and aims for 2012.

LIVE BUZZ Your band had a big year in 2011. You released “Civilized Man,” which landed you in Amazon’s Top 10 songs of the year and its Top 100 albums of the year. Do you consider 2011 your band’s breakout year and could you talk about those highlights?

ELLSWORTH 2011 was an interesting year because we had some good things happen as far as accomplishments, especially being a band that’s doing things completely independent. So it’s been cool to have the recognition of things like that.
It’s been an interesting year because the album came out in May 2011, but this is really the first that we’ve been able to do any major touring on it. Actually, in the better part of the end of 2011, I was in L.A. shooting a television show for NBC (“The Sing-Off”). So it was a good year, but I hope 2012 will be more of a breakout year for us in terms of being out there and playing.

LIVE BUZZ What other current artists or albums have the Great Lakes been interested in lately?

JOEL WREN (DRUMS) I think we’ve all been a fan of the new Wilco album. Another record that came out this year that I personally am falling in love with was the St. Vincent record “Strange Mercy.” Great follow-up to the one before it, “Actor.”

TIMON LANCE (GUITARIST) Ryan Adams’ “Ashes & Fire” and Tom Waits’ “Bad as Me.”

LIVE BUZZ Do you guys prefer small, packed-in, bar-venue-type places like The Bishop, or are larger or outdoor stages more your thing?
ELLSWORTH Last night, we played in Nashville at a club called the Basement, and that’s a place that we like to play because it’s a small club and the place is just packed, you know?
At this point, for us, we like that because it just gives such a great energy to the room. We like playing anywhere, but I think that sort of intimate rock club where people are just kind of standing there is a lot of fun.

LIVE BUZZ My next question you alluded to earlier, but I wanted to ask you about “The Sing-Off.” You appeared on it with a group of Nashville independents called “The Collective.” Could you talk about that whole process, from getting on the show to singing competitively on prime-time television?

ELLSWORTH It was an interesting turn of events. A friend of ours was on season two of “The Sing-Off” in a group called “Street Corner Symphony,” and they were a group that placed second on the show.

They were coming around with the producers of season three, who wanted to put together a group of Nashville artists, people they thought would maybe make an interesting a cappella group. So nine of us got together. Some of us knew each other, but we all knew of each other. And we just sort of tried our hand.

Some people had sang a cappella stuff in the past, like in high school, like forever ago, but really, it was a brand-new thing for pretty much all of us.

But we got together and made a little audition not knowing what we were doing, and a few weeks later, we were on a plane with no idea what we were in for.

But it was a lot of fun. It was a totally unique experience for us musicians used to playing in rock bands or as solo artists to enter that world of a cappella. It was so out of the box. It was just a brand-new experience. And we ended up going a lot further than we ever thought we would.

LIVE BUZZ What do the Great Lakes’ future touring and recording plans look like as of now?

ELLSWORTH As of right now, 2012 for us just looks like a lot of touring and doing everything completely on our own — from booking to promoting to recording and stuff like that.

So it’s a slow process for us, but we’re hoping that we can take everything that happened to us last year and really use it to sort of fuel our touring this year and make it to the next level. We definitely want to get back into the studio a little bit here in 2012 but our main focus is definitely going to be playing.

Catch the show tonight
WHO Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes w/ Busman’s Holiday
WHEN  9 p.m. tonight
WHERE  The Bishop
MORE INFO Admission is $5 and is limited to guests 18 or over