A Quick Chat With Evergreener

Evergreener, Melbourne’s emerging alt-rock/ punk outfit have exploded out into the alternative scene this year and they’ve now dropped their debut EP ‘After Thoughts’. An EP that defines their sound, ‘After Thoughts’ is cathartic journey, surging with fierce punk anthems and post-hardcore breakdowns. We caught up with the band to talk about the EP, their influences, their creative process and more.

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Congrats on the debut EP release! Can you tell us what this EP is about and what you want people to take away from it? 

Thank you so much, we’re so happy to finally share it with everyone! ‘After Thoughts’ is more of a culmination of our songs wanting to be released. In a way it symbolises the wait in which we had to endure due to reasons such as band issues and covid, but also the intensity and impact of the songs as they will leave you wanting to come back for more. We definitely want people to understand that we’re here and not going anywhere anytime soon.  

Who are some of the band’s influences and why? 

We can safely say that bands like Title Fight, Turnstile, Superheaven, Basement, Teenage Wrist are big influences on our music. Their music has had a big impact on myself (Matt) throughout my life and we just feel their music relates to the music were making really well. 

What's the band's creative process for you, from writing through to recording? 

Well typically either Matt or Corey will have an idea/riff for a song and will bring it to the practice room and we’ll just get jamming on it, throwing ideas for other sections and other riffs that might work, working in drum parts that fit and enhance the song and build the song from the group up. Then Either Matt or Corey will write lyrics and we’ll work them into the song over a few practices until the song is sounding solid. Then regarding recording, we’ll allocate time for each instrument to ensure we have the best sound possible and then record and capture the best take we can, typically staring on drums, to bass, to guitars and then vocals and any other miscellaneous sounds we want to include. 

What do you think makes a great song? 

Personally, I (Matt) believe what makes a good song is something memorable, like a guitar part (Walk by Pantera), hook (I Was Made for Loving You by Kiss), bass line (Bullet in The Head by Rage Against the Machine), drum section (Painkiller by Judas Priest) or vocal performance (Don’t Stop Believing by Journey) that an audience can internally harbour and remember by humming or singing it to themselves. Whether a song needs all the above in one song is debateable due to a potential cacophony of a song if all are used. But so long as a song incorporates at least one thing which is memorable, that would make it a great song to me. 

If Evergreener could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why? 

I think we can all agree that Turnstile would be an insane collaboration. We love their music and are so happy to see their success and think that their hardcore punk sound would mesh well with our punk/grunge sound.

When not working on music, what other creative outlet/s do you each have? 

Well Corey and Matt are really into film photography (as seen in the music videos for Evergreener which are shot by them) and Dale, Matt and Corey are into Editing. With all of our promo shots, videos, reels and stories, majority of them are created by us as a way of sticking to our DIY roots of taking the photos, shooting the videos, editing them all and releasing them on our own terms. 

Who are some local bands we should check out? 

We definitely vibe with Loose End, Bad JuJu, Vermont, Ultravlt, All Regards

Winter or summer and why? 

I think we can all agree summer is great but sleeping in winter is *chef’s kiss*

Do you have anything planned for 2023?

We’re going to have a big 2023 that’s for sure! Keep your eyes peeled for plenty of shows and new music to come! (as well as all of our antics on our social media @Evergreener_au)

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