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Interview with
BOB EVANS

(December 9th, 2020)

Interviewer – Dave Bruce

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Photo credit: Tajette O’Halloran

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Have you always wanted to be a musician? When did you start writing music?
I started writing songs when I was around 12 or 13.  I guess I wanted to be a musician from that point on, although I didn’t really know what that actually meant.  I would have your standard childish fantasies about performing on stage or on television but that was just idle dreaming.  The drive to start a band came later at around 17, after I’d started regularly going to all ages shows and seeing how it could be done.  That sort of gave me a real world experience of what being a “musician” might look like.  So I started a band and went hunting for gigs and it all went from there.

Which music did you grow up listening to? How has it influenced your current style?
I grew up listening to what was on the radio.  My parents enjoyed music but weren’t overly passionate about it and their record collection was pretty small.  So I was brought up on pretty mainstream music until I started highschool and discovered Triple J and then my musical tastes became a little more focused and I was pro actively looking for music rather than just absorbing whatever was being fed to me.  I do think that being such a radio kid did have an enduring influence on me though.  Radio songs were my reference point during the early years of figuring out how to write songs, long before I started a band.  I wanted the songs I wrote to sound like they could be played on the radio.  I have always written and I suppose been drawn to accessible melodies, dressed them up in different ways but at a core level, I like melodic music.

How would you describe your sound?
I wouldn’t.  The music does that better than I could.

Why do you think people resonate with your music?
It depends what era!  The music I made in the 90’s I have been told on many occasions was part of many peoples soundtrack to their teen years and twentysomething years.  So I suppose nowadays that music takes them back to that time of their life, which I totally get.  The music I’ve made more recently?  I like accessible music and I want my music to connect with people.  That’s probably half the reason.  I suppose we all resonate with music for similar reasons though, don’t we?  It’s a lyric we can relate to, or that we get some kind of profound meaning from, or it’s a melody that just sticks in our heads and won’t leave.

Your new single “Born Yesterday” has just been released! Describe its origin and evolution.
I wrote the basic melody and structure pretty fast, like in a morning. I think the line “Born Yesterday” came pretty soon after that, so I knew what the song was trying to be.  Then it was just a case of catching a spark for the rest of the lyrics.  The melody and the title were clearly pointing the way, I knew it was a song about reflecting back.  One day I was sitting backstage before a Jebediah concert reconnecting on my phone with my old house mates from Perth over the fact that our old share house was for sale, so there were pictures of it online that we could see.  It looked exactly the same as I remembered it.  From that experience I kind of had a picture in my head and a feeling that I could use to finish the song.  I wanted it to still be completely universal though.  So in a sense, the song is more about capturing a feeling than it is telling a story.

Do you have any more new music in the works?
A whole album in the can ready to drop in 2021.  We actually finished recording it in March and then COVID happened and everything was put on hold for a few months.  Then over the last few months we have finished it up.

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Do you have any shows/tours coming up? What are you looking forward to, and what can the fans expect?
My first shows back since February are this Saturday in Queenscliff, Victoria, which is 10 minutes from where I live.  The venue is purpose built for COVID regulations, so it’s a marquee outdoors, fully seated dinner and show.  I am doing 3 separate shows to three separate audiences, starting at 3pm and finishing up around 10pm.  So it’s all very different and quite strange compared to what I am used to pre COVID times but this is the world we live in at the moment and so I am looking forward to getting back on stage and reconnecting with that part of my life again.  I’ll have lots of new songs to add to the set, which is always exciting and helps freshen things up a bit.

If you could perform with any music artist, Alive or Dead, who would you choose? And why?
Maybe John Lennon, during his solo years.  I could play 3rd wheel to John and Yoko.  That wouldn’t be weird at all.  Why?  I don’t know.  I guess John Lennon and also Kurt Cobain, are kind of mythical creatures to me.  They both exist in my childhood fantasy land, rather than this real one the rest of us are in, obviously because they are both no longer with us.  They kind of live on in a suspended animation, they never grow old.  It’s weird.

What’s next for you in the near future?
Shows.  Xmas.  2021.  New album.

What are your longer-term aspirations?
I’m 43 years old.  I’m just happy to make it to the end of each year.

What is the best thing about performing to a live audience?
Well, it’s a fun thing to do for a living.  Despite all the challenges of it, the gigs that don’t pay, the anxiety and nerves, the travelling and bad diet etc etc.  It’s a very fun thing to do, if performing is something you enjoy.  It’s obviously not for everyone.  For those of us who love it though and live for it, we have all experienced that drug like high at some point in our early years and have continued to chase it ever since.  There is a europhia that can sometimes be achieved when performing live, an almost transcendent like state, of being totally free and totally in command at the same time.  It only happens from time to time but it’s enough to sustain the hunger.  I think when it is just you and an audience there is this unspoken contract going on and also the collective enthusiasm to experience some kind of moment that has never happened before and will never happen again.

Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album – Carole King – Tapestry
Artist – Kurt Cobain
Movie – Life Is Beautiful
Place to visit – Somewhere new.
Venue to play – Grace Emily, Adelaide
Food –  blood orange
Drink – Shiraz, G & T.
Person in History –  Liam Duggan
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get?) – I hate my tattoos now, just can’t be bothered getting them removed.

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Born Yesterday is out now via Dew Process.

Bob Evans is Kevin Mitchell.

Smartlink: BORN YESTERDAY

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BOB EVANS
Shows

SAT 12 DEC
THE PELICAN BAR, QUEENSCLIFF, VIC
18+ | 3:00-5:00pm
Tickets

SAT 12 DEC
THE PELICAN BAR, QUEENSCLIFF, VIC
18+ | 5:30-7:30pm – SOLD OUT
Tickets

SAT 12 DEC
THE PELICAN BAR, QUEENSCLIFF, VIC
18+ | 8:00-10:00pm – SOLD OUT
Tickets

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Artwork credit: Carl Breitkreuz

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Follow BOB EVANS
Facebook – Instagram

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Press Release November 19 HERE

BOB EVANS
announces new single + video
‘BORN YESTERDAY’

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AMNPLIFY – DB