Evermore - Fortunate Sons

Australia’s new favourite sons, Evermore, have been touring their sophomore album, Real Life, fairly consistently since its release in 2006. They’re just about to start the Real Live regional tour but in the meantime they have been adjusting to taking out the trash and keeping normal hours. “For me anyway, you actually get a bit depressed [when touring ends] …everything’s a bit unreal on tour … every night’s a party and it’s all very stimulating to be on stage every night, so going back to being domestic takes a bit of getting used to.”

And no sooner have they gotten used to domestic bliss, they’re on the road again this time looking forward to the crowds at regional dates “I think that sometimes Sydney and Melbourne crowds can get a bit jaded… that’s why I like the regional shows because people actually come there to have a good time, which is why I’d go to a show and that’s what we try and get out of doing shows, to make it an enjoyable thing”.

There is one show that sticks in Peter’s memory from when they boys were younger “we went out and saw Neil Finn when I was a kid and that was really cool and Jon [Evermore’s singer/guitarist] came up and played a guitar solo with him, Neil Finn did this tour where he had local musicians come up playing with him on stage – a really cool idea”. I wonder if Neil noticed the talent that the rest of us have come to see in Evermore.

The Hume brothers always come across as the good boys of rock and roll, but that’s not entirely by choice, “if we didn’t have such hectic schedules we’d probably get up to more trouble but we tend to only up to trouble if we’ve got nights off”.

The last time that Peter behaved like a rockstar? “All I know is that we decided to do WWF style wrestling on my bed and body slamming from a table onto the bed and it was really fun but I’ve still got bruises all over a week later. You know it’s a good night when there’s bruises and a lot of broken glass”.

Recently Evermore were involved in a trip to Africa organised through The Oaktree Foundation, the people that bought us the Make Poverty History concert and road trips. Peter says that “we got really inspired by them because that was organised by a 19 year old and the whole organisation is run by under 25 year olds and they’ve got a really cool way of running things. We really dig them, so when they asked us to come to Africa with them we trusted them.”

The boys also “went over with MTV for a documentary about AIDs and violence and youth at risk in South Africa and it was full on, it was real intense”. The documentary also features Bliss n Eso and airs on MTV in October.
Africa was a great experience for Evermore, “the people are really cool, it makes you feel so uptight and square, because they’re all such great singers and such great dancers… they can just make a song about anything, it’s just like breathing to them”. But it wasn’t just about meeting amazing people and filming the documentary “there was a lot of heartbreaking things as well… I thought I was aware and knew what it was all about, but going over there takes it to another level – just the complexities and the craziness of a lot of it surprised me, like a 40% HIV rate is insane, how does a community survive with that but you know people still can live real amazing lives”.
And the trip bought lyrical inspiration to the boys too, “I think it really added a human element to it, I’ve already written a couple of songs [about the Africa trip] but who knows if they will make it onto the album”.

You read correct, they’ve already begun working on the follow up to Real Life “this is quite an intense album so far… we’ve been recording demos and writing songs and stuff, after the tour we’ll really get stuck into it”. The sound is “quite different, it’s got dance beats in there and stuff, electronica and it’s almost like Evermore you could dance to”.

Real Life was recorded at Longview Farm, the oldest studio in the middle of the Massachusetts winter, temperatures got as low as minus 25 degrees. So for this album the boys plan to record somewhere completely different “we’ve got this land in Vanuatu and we’re building a studio there, so we’ll do all our recording out of the Pacific Islands”. Essentially the next Evermore album will be made in paradise.

Evermore a testing a couple of the new songs on this tour “you’ll hear some of the tracks at the show, we’ve got one [new] song in the set list and we’ll probably add a few more as well”. Do you need any more reason to go and see the band?

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