Tortuga Festival 2013: Eli Young Band Dive Into Ocean Preservation

The Eli Young Band will hit the beach this Saturday (April 13) with tourmate Kenny Chesney and a diverse lineup of artists for Rock the Ocean's inaugural Tortuga Music Festival in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Rock the Ocean is teaming with the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation for the huge, two-day event to promote education and public awareness about the state of the world's oceans and the issues impacting them. For the guys in the Eli Young Band, being part of the event and helping preserve the oceans for future generations is pretty much a no-brainer, now that two of its members are parents themselves.

"All four of us love the water and the beach," Mike Eli tells The Boot, "and for all of us the Guy Harvey foundation and what they're doing for conserving ocean life is really important. We all enjoy spending time around the ocean, and it would be a huge disaster if we didn't conserve what we have."

"There needs to be that level of awareness about it too," adds EYB's Jon Jones, whose son Hudson was born on New Year's Eve. "If you look at the surface of the ocean it looks the same as it always has, but if you go a little further down things are drastically changing. And the band, we're starting to have kids and thinking about the next generation and what we're leaving behind."

"We definitely want our children to be able to enjoy the ocean like we have, and their children's children. As you get older and start having kids, you want to do more to help foundations like these so you can conserve it for your grandchildren," says Mike, whose baby daughter Kline was born last July.

The EYB will be part of a diverse, star-studded lineup of acts during the two-day eco-bash, which also includes Eric Church, the Avett Brothers, G. Love & Special Sauce, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Jake Owen, Kip Moore, and Grace Potter, among others.

As for their regular tour schedule, the guys are excited to be part of Kenny's massive No Shoes Nation tour. "Chesney is an artist who knows who he is, knows the finish line he's going towards and knows what kind of music he wants to make," says Mike. "We have a huge amount of respect for him as an artist. We've been fortunate to have a lot of great opportunities in our career but this is the biggest country tour there is right now, and Kenny believed in us enough to hire us for this tour, so we're very excited to get to be out there with him."