It came as no surprise when Chris Kelly told his parents he wanted to attend Vanderbilt University.
Sure, Vandy’s a great school. But the subtext was clear: Kelly, the son of two accomplished local musicians and a serial band leader during his four years at Monticello High School, was a natural fit for the biggest university in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Music’s just always been there,” Kelly says. “There was never a thought, like, ‘maybe I’ll get into music.’ It was one of the constants in our lives.”
The move quickly paid off. Just three years after his matriculation to Music City, Kelly and his new band, Edgehill, signed with a national record label. Big Loud Rock, which also represents breakout Southern rockers Dexter and The Moonrocks and Richmond-based fan favorite Dogpark, released Edgehill’s debut LP, Ode to the Greyhouse, on February 13. Release parties in Nashville and New York followed.
Now the trio is on a national tour that will take Kelly and his bandmates from New York to California and back again as they open for the likes of Worry Club and Winyah. “Being with the label has been amazing,” says Kelly. “We’re excited to play in new cities so, in the fall, we can do a headline run having played there before.”
The young songwriter is primed for the opportunity. His mom, Angela Kelly, is a former professional flautist who now teaches music. His dad, John Kelly, is a singer-songwriter who’s been gigging around Charlottesville for more than 15 years.
For Chris Kelly, the combination meant an in-home music education that was one part classical and one part James Taylor. “I was always surrounded by music, and my sister was too,” Kelly says. “There’s pictures of my sister playing flute and saxophone at, like, 2 years old.”
The homespun foundation served Kelly well, but by the end of high school, his own music tastes had begun to shift. After forming a remarkably successful local band, 14 Stories, with his teenage friends, he drifted toward the alt-rock sounds of the ’90s. When he arrived at Vanderbilt, the shift was cemented.
Kelly met Jake Zimmermann three weeks after moving to Nashville. The two aspiring musicians attended an on-campus jam session and immediately found a groove. They noodled on a song idea Kelly brought to the session, tinkered with a chorus, and have been composing together since.
“It was surprisingly easy writing together,” Kelly says. “I was a freshman, and he was a senior. He had a house off campus, so I would just go to his house, and we would write and write and bang songs out.”
Zimmermann was reared on the 1990s rock that had begun to find its way into Kelly’s own musical milieu, and when the two songwriters founded Edgehill, the result was a band driven by the heavy distortion, catchy hooks, and anti-establishment zeitgeist that characterized the best grunge and alternative of the mid-’90s.
Edgehill did so well that Kelly decided to take a year off of school. The band’s drummer at the time couldn’t do the same, so the door opened for Aidan Cunningham—and the current Edgehill lineup was set.
Like many up-and-comers these days, Edgehill had some success on social media and streaming channels, but the band’s record label deal happened in a most traditional way. A manager the boys had been working with knew the folks who’d recently launched Big Loud Rock and invited the suits to a show. They liked what they heard, hung out with the band, and chatted about music. “We didn’t talk about numbers for a long time, which was really, really refreshing,” Kelly says.
Edgehill signed with the label in mid-2024, and Kelly’s gap year became a hiatus from university—a decision supported by his parents. “He was struggling with it,” John Kelly says. “We asked, ‘Can you see a scenario where you’re doing both?’ His answer was ‘no,’ and our answer was, ‘Go do it; this is an opportunity that’s just extraordinary.’”
Ode to the Greyhouse, recorded with producer Tone Def at Minnesota’s famed Pachyderm Studios outside Minneapolis, is highlighted by the chaotic but melodic single “Drone Song,” a Pixies-esque dreamer in “Doubletake,” and the anthemic “Love To Go,” the second song Chris Kelly and Zimmermann wrote together. “That melody actually came to Jake in a dream,” Kelly says.
Kelly’s dream now that college is on hold? The life of a professional musician: touring six to eight months of the year, writing and recording in between. The band already has new songs on the way. “Hopefully, we’ll just be growing and creatively trying to honor ourselves as much as possible,” Kelly says. “We’re trying to make stuff that’s fresh … in a raw way.”
It’s a dream that’s been a long time coming.
“When the kids were growing up, their mom was teaching flute,” John Kelly says. “I remember her having Chris in a Baby Bjorn on her chest while playing. Ten years later, he and his sister would sing the songs by memory. It had seeped into their bloodstream.”
