38 Years – Fair Weather Son

After the release and success of his previous single ‘Ride Along’, Fair Weather Son returns with his bombastic alt Country follow up ’38 Years’.

Influenced by his new found passion for the band Wilco, Fair Weather Son (Mark Ellis) feels like he may have finally found his musical happy place.

Take some alt country, sprinkle some of 70’s Paul McCartney’s fairy dust and you get a sound which is charming, warm and sincere. ’38 Years’ is a song about leaving his home town of Ely behind for a new adventure. Though some goodbye songs can be sad, 38 Years is most certainly a fond farewell to the city he grew up in. Accompanying the release of 38 Years is a music video shot in multiple locations throughout East Anglia, which both serves as a celebration of East Anglia and is also a nod to significant places where ‘Fair Weather Son’ spent his life growing up. With a camera shot for every second of the song there’s plenty to see! ’38 Years’ comes out January 19th on all platforms.

Fair Weather Son

‘Fair Weather Son’ (Mark Ellis) is a UK Singer Songwriter who has been writing and performing in bands for 20 years. Mark started out as drummer for Cambridge band Hamfatter, who had some small chart success in the UK and Austria along with an infamous appearance on UK Tv show Dragons Den in 2008!

In the years after ‘Hamfatter’, Mark began writing his own songs and after showing early promise, often spent time writing with his friend and also then neighbour Boo Hewerdine (The Bible, Eddi Reader). There were some solo releases along the way most notably a song ‘Carry You’, which was released as a charity single for Clic Sargent and lead to a special performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 2014.  Other notable performances during this time include supporting The Subways, Grant Nicholas (Feeder), Roddy Woomble (Idlewild), Eddi Reader and Boo Hewerdine.

In 2016 Mark began writing songs that felt a little different, a little less indie and a little more “old school” and he took the decision to form the duo ‘Elma’ with his friend Ellie. After two years of writing, gigging and building a loyal fan base Elma released their 60’s inspired debut album ‘Dreamland’ in 2018 to high acclaim! ‘Dreamland’ was one of Mark’s biggest successes as a writer it was well received across the media with Tom Robinson at BBC 6 describing their debut single September as “Beautiful”, BBC Scotland’s Roddy Hart described the album Dreamland as “finely crafted retro pop” and RnR Magazine said Elma was “A quality duo capable of truly great things”. Not long after the release of Dreamland Elma secured a support tour supporting the legendary Roy Wood (ELO, Wizzard) and also began conversations with BMG Music. Shortly after the Roy Wood tour ‘Elma’ sadly split but BMG were still keen to work with Mark recognising his talent as a songwriter and this led to Mark securing a publishing deal with BMG Music.

Fast forward to 2020 and we all know what happened there. Like many artists Mark turned to his music to find comfort and vent his frustrations during the Covid 19 Pandemic and this would lead his first solo release in years, the Fair Weather Son EP. Self produced for the first time in a garden shed in Tottenham to avoid his partners zoom calls the Fair Weather Son EP was the perfect tonic to get Mark through the darkest months of the pandemic. Lead single ‘This Thing Is Better’, later received radio play on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and Cambridge 105 and even inspired his friend and award winning director Jonnie Howard to animate a video which generated over 14,000 views on YouTube.

After the release of the Fair Weather Son EP and still unable to gig due to lockdown, Mark turned back to writing with other people and began work with Abigail DB. The pair wrote 9 songs together and Abigail DB’s first single ‘Put The Fire Out’ was named in BBC Introducing’s Best Of The Year 2022.

In 2023 returned to the Fair Weather Son project again. This was fuelled by a need for catharsis and was also inspired by hearing the likes of Richard Hawley and Wilco for the first time. The first release of the new Fair Weather Son era ‘Ride Along’ was well received and now the follow up ’38 Years’ signals the best is yet to come!

38 Years comes out on all platforms on January 19th. Pre-save here: https://ditto.fm/38-years

Press release from Fair Weather Son