Flathead graduate returns with Nashville band

A decade ago, Mike Ulvila was a wide-eyed kid with big dreams. Not long out of high school, the Flathead High graduate left Kalispell for Nashville, Tenn., hoping to become country music’s next superstar.

Today, he and bandmates Don Gatlin and Jay Darby haven’t quite achieved superstardom, but they’ve taken their first steps. Their group, Savannah Jack, has opened for legendary country performers, has a song on the radio and is selling its self-titled debut on iTunes.

They’re now touring the country to promote their first single, “I Know.”

The tour brings them to Whitefish tonight, where they will play at the Great Northern.

The show starts at 9:30 p.m.; the cover charge is $3. The band also will be featured on 106.3 FM The Bear around 9 a.m.

Their sound has been compared to Alabama, Exile, Restless Heart and the Eagles — the vocal groups that dominated the country charts for much of the ’70s and ’80s.

“We love all those vocal groups,” Ulvila said in a phone interview Thursday. “We try to take all those influences and not necessarily copy anyone. You can hear the influences, but I think we do have our own sound.”

Ulvila grew up listening to his dad’s classic rock ’n’ roll albums: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But around 1995, just when Ulvila was starting high school, he discovered country music.

“By then I was old enough to understand the lyrics a little more. That’s what country music is really all about, the story songs,” Ulvila said. “There are such powerful lyrics in some songs.”

He turned his love of country music into success when he won what is now the Colgate Country Showdown soon after graduating from high school. After winning at the local level, he moved to Nashville to make his dreams of becoming a country singer reality.

He flew back to Montana to sing at the state competition. Shortly after, he flew to Spokane to compete in the regional showdown.

He won two plane tickets and a stay in the Grand Ole Opry Hotel after he swept the regional competition. He gave those to his parents, since his apartment was close to the Opry, and had the thrill of performing on one of the biggest stages in the business.

But Ulvila was a long way from making it big.

“When I first moved to Nashville, like everybody else, I waited tables,” he said. “I did that for about six months or so.”

He was working at a restaurant when the man who had been Ulvila’s hero throughout high school walked in. Ulvila “was freaking out” when Garth Brooks sat down at one of his tables, but survived the encounter without spilling anything on the singer or otherwise embarrassing himself.

Ulvila worked and networked for years in Nashville. It made the big city seem much smaller to the small-town Montana kid, and eventually led him to his Savannah Jack bandmates.

Ulvila’s roommate, a college student who was interning at Toby Keith’s publishing company, introduced Ulvila to Gatlin, who also worked at the company. The two hit it off and started writing songs and playing gigs together.

Not long after that, Gatlin met Darby through a mutual friend. And when the three of them sang together for the first time, they knew they were on to something.

“We said, ‘We might have something special,’ the way our voices blended with the harmonies,” Ulvila said. “Then we brought in outside industry friends to get their opinion, and everybody that heard us said, ‘You guys have got to keep pursuing this.’”

That was almost seven years ago, Ulvila said, and Savannah Jack has been going strong ever since. The band has played honky tonks around Nashville, hit fairs and festivals around the region and performed in Las Vegas — “anything we can do to stay busy,” Ulvila said.

“We’re definitely a working band,” he added. “We love to play, love to get out there.”

They’ve also been lucky enough to tour with a country music legend. Three years ago, Savannah Jack was asked to open a show at Niagara Falls for Kenny Rogers.

“They hooked us up with that initial opening slot, and he loved us so much that he asked us to be his exclusive opening act last summer,” Ulvila said.

The tour took them to Ireland, Scotland and England, he said, and working with Rogers “was a great experience.” Rogers also recorded one of the band’s original songs, “Something’s Wrong in Vegas,” for his latest greatest hits album. The song also appears on Savannah Jack’s album.

“It’s truly amazing to hear a voice like that — when you’ve grown up hearing his songs, hearing his voice — to hear him singing your song,” Ulvila said.

It’s moments like that that make Ulvila realize what he’s achieved since he left for Nashville 10 years ago.

“When you’re in the moment ... sometimes it feels like, if I could only get to this point — it seems like there’s always the next step that you’re reaching for. You’re always just so close, but you can never quite get there,” he said. “But when you step back and look at it with everything you’ve done ... I’ve gotten to travel all over the world playing my own music. We have a song on the radio. We got another [song] cut by a legend, by Ronnie Milsap, who just recorded one of our songs another month ago.

“That’s when you say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe this is happening.’”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.