“But revisiting these songs has been fun and it shows how much farther we’ve gotten musically.”

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2008 was a pivotal year for Christofer Drew. Under the Never Shout Never moniker, the release of The Yippee EP and Me and My Uke was significant in the cause of his online success on Myspace and his first era as a musician. Now, nearly a decade later, the two EP’s still remain fan favourites and the songs included are staples in many nostalgic emo playlists on Spotify.

As a thank you to fans, Drew along with his band have travelled the US playing these well-loved songs on The Throwback Tour, and this November/December, the tour will hit Australian shores. I was fortunate enough to talk to the frontman about his love for Australia, what fans can expect on The Throwback Tour, and the primal end of the Never Shout Never alias.

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So, you guys haven’t been out to Australia since your last headline tour in 2015, how excited are you to come back out and see your Australian fans?

I’m really excited. I think we’re really gonna step it up with the shows from last tour. We all have such a great time in Australia; everybody’s so cool and you guys have good food and it’s a really chill time. And it’s also the opposite side of the world so I think we’re gonna get a little bit of sunshine since it’ll be winter over here, so that’ll be nice.

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So, you’ll be coming out as a part of your Throwback Tour, where you’ll be playing The Yippee EP and Me and My Uke in full. How did the idea for the tour come about?

Well, we got asked to do a show where we did a lot of the throwback songs, and it just kind of sparked from that. We had a fun time doing that and we know that a lot of people wanted to hear the songs we were doing a long time ago. And we’ve been pretty keen on always playing whatever it is we’re writing at the time. So, it’s just revisiting those and having a good time with them. We rewrote all of them, like we’re doing some in different styles, like we’re doing Reggae for one of the songs. So yeah, it just kind of happened naturally. We just played a show like that and we thought, “Hey, this is kinda cool!” so we just went for it.

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Next year, The Yippee EP will be turning ten years old. Thinking back to ten years ago, did you ever imagine The Yippee would become as popular as it did?

I honestly really didn’t think about it much at all. I don’t know, I don’t really try and think about that kind of stuff. I always just focused on this moment and always trying to create something new. I’ve seen artists through history; with time, they kind of evolved so I just try and stay in the moment. But revisiting these songs has been fun and it shows how much farther we’ve gotten musically.

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You’ve been performing under the Never Shout Never alias since you were 16 years old, has there ever been a time where you’ve wanted to leave the name behind and go under something else?

Definitely, and I think right now might be one of those times. I love playing in Never Shout Never but I got all sorts of projects going on and Never Shout Never is the one that most people pay attention to. But right now, I’ve finished a poetry book that I’m going to publish this coming month. And then I’ve got my hardcore/rock and roll band Eat Me Raw (formerly Eatmewhileimhot!) and that project will put out a new single this month too. So it’s just whatever I feel like doing. I have a few other projects and it’s just about rolling with it or going with the flow. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket.

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Throughout the years, you and your music have really matured. If you had the option to rerelease The Yippee EP or even Me and My Uke, would you do anything different in the recording process?

Honestly, I’d probably do it the exact same. I’d just sing it and play it and see how it sounded. Just because more and more as I go on, I realise it’s more about minimalism. You can add so much to music, you can keep adding more and more but the tracks that stand out to me are the ones that get the job done with the least amount of instruments. So that’s what I really enjoy about those EP’s and something I’m actually re-understanding and using in the stuff I’m writing right now.

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So, along with playing those two EP’s, you guys are also taking fan requests on this tour. How have the audiences reacted to this segment in your live show so far?

It’s been good, you know. Sometimes, we’ll get asked some songs that we haven’t played live for several years and I’ll just look at the guys because it’s just a three-piece right now. It’s me, Hayden Kaiser on drums, and Tof Hoglen on keyboard and also playing bass with his left hand. So I’ll just look at them and say, “Let’s just wing it and see what happens” and most of the time, it’s actually pretty fun and sound alright. And the people we call on are usually pretty excited.

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What has been your most memorable or your favourite request to play so far?

I like it whenever people ask for more obscure songs that nobody else would really ask for, so we’ve gotten some of those requests off albums that didn’t get as much attention as others. Playing those more obscure songs are actually more fun because it’s different. And I also like the change in the crowd when they don’t know a song and seeing how that works and working with that. It’s pretty fun.

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What about The Yippee EP or Me and My Uke? What are your favourite songs to play off those EPs?

Well, we’ve been playing a new rendition of ‘Heregoesnothin’, which is the first song off The Yippee EP and we’ve totally just changed the song. It’s still the same lyrics and melody, just the music underneath is something that we jammed in soundcheck one day and thought was cool. And then, we’re also doing a Reggae version of the song ‘Trouble’, which is on Me and My Uke. That always goes over pretty good, especially if… I don’t know if in Australia, you guys like cannabis or smoking pot, but yeah, it’s good for that. Because we do get people like that out at our shows, and it’s pretty fun.

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So, all performing aside, are there any activities you guys plan to do while you’re in Australia?

We’re playing five shows in five days, if I’m not mistaken, and after that, I think we’re gonna try and stay two extra days and we’re going to try and do some fun stuff. I know we want to go see some animals and that typical thing. Then, we were talking about maybe going snorkelling or something.

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So what’s next for Never Shout Never after this tour? Any new music in the works?

I’ve been taking my time writing an album, it’s called Emerald Sun, and I’m just not rushing it. I’m just working on other stuff right now. I work on the songs from time to time and they keep getting better. I’ve been writing this album for almost two years and eventually, we’re gonna record it and put it out, I just don’t know when. I’ve got so many other things that are exciting to me right now that I want to work on. Honestly, another Never Shout Never album give us mental stress. We get pretty serious whenever we really put our minds into that band, and we just feel like we need some time to have some fun and then come back to it.

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