He is a singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California, who although singing with his family as a child, didn’t have any aspirations to become a singer until he was 18 years old.
After he had been heard by a couple of girls that told an A&R executive from Virgin about him and following that he went into a studio with some musicians he was friendly with to record his first album. He met up with Al Anderson during this time as he had been looking for a guitarist for the recording. Al decided to perform with him and after the album was cut he played the music to Aston “Family Man” Barrett of The Wailers Band .
He was invited to become the lead singer for The Wailers in 1997 and very soon he was singing lead vocals at concerts and festivals that also had major reggae artists such as Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs and Toots & The Maytals appearing. He stayed with them for around three and a half years until he decided to pursue his solo career once again and signed with the London/Sire label, recording an unreleased album.
He also sang lead on the song “Dreams Come True” which he performed with Sly & Robbie for the soundtrack of Sex & The City. Following on from that he and Gwen Stefani covered “Slave to Love” which had been a hit for Roxy Music and this was featured on the soundtrack for the movie 50 First Dates. This, in turn, led to him becoming acquainted with Tony Kanal from the band No Doubt and after the two of them going into collaboration he released the single “Girl” and his debut album Together as One in 2006.
Also in 2006 he and the company Interscope were involved in a charge of copyright infringement by the Latin singer Elan Sara DeFan regarding the name “Elan”. He has also been known to go by the names Mr. Atias or Young Lion.
He re-united with The Wailers Band and also begun collaboration with Aston “Family Man” Barrett on the production of further albums. In 2007 he performed on the album Order of Distinction by Ernest Ranglin and during 2008 he was touring with The Wailers through America, Canada and Europe. In 2010 he was the lead vocalist for the reggae band Zadik.
Here he is singing “Together As One”….
Sources:
- http://www.elanmusic.com/
- http://www.myspace.com/elansmusic
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_Atias
- http://www.spock.com/Elan-Atias
- http://www.wailers.com/band
- http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/8/prweb427171.htm
- http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm1477790/
- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:kjfoxqwsldte
- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wbfqxq9kldfe~T4