Interview: Evarose
It’s finally time for the headline tour of their debut record and Evarose is overwrought with anticipation. Having recently released Invisible Monsters, the Oxfordshire rock-pop outfit sits backstage before their show and vibrantly discusses record creation, the ins and outs of band life, and what it takes to make it in the industry today.
To fund Invisible Monsters Evarose turned to PledgeMusic, a campaigning website that allows bands to connect with their fans directly by selling merchandise and exclusives. They were shocked by the results and how much support they received, not knowing what to expect when starting out the process. One of the unique items that they offered in their ‘shop’ was a song cover – basically allowing the fan to choose a song, of any artist or genre, that band would create their own rendition of for the buyer. The covers turned out to be the most popular fundraiser and the quickest items sold. Evarose’s favourite choice from a fan turned out to be Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Wish’, which they performed with kazoos to handle the brass section. “It was completely their choice [of cover], so we had no idea what we were going to get,” comments bassist Connie Raitt. “I’m just glad no one chose any like electro-funk-dance music that we’d have to try and make into an acoustic cover,” guitarist Imogen Leslie adds, laughing.
Now that the record has been funded and released, Evarose has been working on the creation of companion music videos to promote album singles. The latest video to come off of Invisible Monsters is ‘Telephonic’, an impassioned and emotive track that sees the band driving around in a car. The visuals work well with the melody, a chilled atmosphere that is amplified by the darkness, and rain thumping the windows of the vehicle at night. “We’ve done quite a lot of big videos where we’ve spent a lot of money, put in a lot of time and hired millions of things,” Raitt explains. “We just thought we’ve done that so many times and we were getting a bit bored of it. And we just wanted to do something kind of completely different, a bit unexpected.”
The video is a nice change of pace, yet still embodies the bold and commanding music that Evarose always conveys. As an all female band, they put forth a powerful image with a confident attitude that makes the listener attentive to what they have to say. Female musicians have been in the news a lot lately, speaking out over the latest festival criticism that not enough female musicians are being put in the line-ups, but Evarose has a more understanding outlook than most. Vocalist Dannika Webber comments, “You can’t put people on [the bill] just because they’re female. It depends on whether they fit or if they’re releasing things at the time that you want them to be releasing.” Leslie adds, “It’s really difficult because I do think that there should be variety, but if it were us, I wouldn’t want to be like, ‘well you need to put us on because you need more females.’ That shouldn’t be the reason that you get on the bill.”
On the other hand, Raitt comments, “I think it is important to have more females on stage so you can see them, like we did. It’s just nice to see, to know that you can do it too. You don’t want it to be a pity slot do you?” Leslie laughs, stating, “I’d take a pity slot from Reading and Leeds. But having said that, I think there are loads of great female musicians so if they’re not finding them, they should be looking for them.”
If that’s really the case, and looking for them is the only problem, than they have no need to look any farther than this band here. Evarose are clearly on the path to success, and having been there not so long ago, have a lot of advice to give to bands just starting out – above all drummer Robyn Griffith urging, “Dry shampoo!” Joking aside, Leslie comments, “I think that music being the main part of what you do is most important, because there’s so much stuff that can take away from that while being a band. Especially now with social media, you have to do a lot of stuff to promote yourself and get shows. But, the main thing is that you actually still enjoy playing what you’re playing. Also, remember that everyone messes up. I have to tell myself that quite frequently.”
Looking forward, Evarose is working on some new material that will hopefully lead to a second record. “I think we were hoping to get back in the studio in the next couple of months to record more demos when the tour’s over,” Raitt explains. “We’ll get some tracks down and hopefully start compiling an album, which would be nice.” For now, their debut is drawing the crowds and lending voice to formidable tracks. One can only hope for more of the same to come in the future.
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