What’s next for Bob Evans?
1. Congratulations on the release of ‘Born Yesterday’, how are you feeling now that the single is out?
Thank you. I'm feeling mostly a sense of release actually, a little bit of relief as well as excitement. When you've been sitting on something creatively for a long time, it's a bit like holding your breath. The longer you do it, the harder it gets and the greater the intake of air is when you finally stop. I also feel really settled because I am so happy with the song, the way it sounds and the small team of people I work with to help me get all the bits and pieces together and come up with a finished product, have all done such a beautiful job.
2. You’re playing some local shows next month, three in the one day, you must be pumped?!
Well, I rarely feel "pumped" about playing shows to be honest. I enjoy doing them dearly but there is a fair bit of anxiety that goes on beforehand. These shows will be no different in that regard because I haven't performed in 8 months and I have never played 3 gigs back to back in the space of 6 hours or so. I'm so happy that the shows are happening and people have bought tickets and I get to go to work again but it's going to feel very strange as well. Hopefully these gigs are just the start of a busy 18 months of live shows, in whatever capacity that is.
3. What have you been doing during this mad year to keep yourself busy?
The year has gone surprisingly quickly actually. I spent nearly 20 weeks home-schooling my 2 young daughters, so that kept me busy enough. When all of this first went down I think I recognised within myself very quickly that I would need to be proactive in some areas in order to look after my mental health and not let it deteriorate. So I started doing some exercise and making sure I was getting out to the beach each day and keeping my body active. Even though I have gone through some periods of feeling very unmotivated and uninspired, they haven't lasted long. I resurrected my podcast, which wouldn't have happened if it weren't for COVID19. There were also a few things I needed to do throughout the year to finish the album off. I also did things like half finished renovations to my house, playing x-box for the first time in about 15 years and finally getting round to cleaning the gutters and pruning back the trees.
4. What have been your biggest challenges this year, personally and professionally?
It's been such an intense year, a real rollercoaster, that it's hard to know where to start! Personally, I suppose my biggest challenge was just keeping in tune with my feelings and making sure I knew when to intervene if I felt my mental health was deteriorating. I am very lucky though because I have a wife and 2 kids to keep life interesting. I felt terrible during the long lockdowns in Victoria for people who lived alone. Professionally speaking, it was just coming up with a plan of how to finish the record, how to survive financially and how to readjust my thinking about pretty much everything I understood in terms of how my job worked because everything changed overnight. Again, I'm lucky because I have people to help me with that as well, so I've come through it in pretty decent shape.
5. What’s the creative process like for you?
It's changed a lot over the years, as I've grown and as my personal circumstances have evolved. Although having said that, in many areas it hasn't changed at all! I still come up with a lot of my ideas when I'm having a shower in the morning, or driving my car, or doing something equally mundane. My imagination seems to step forward during these times and give me melodies and sometimes even words if I'm lucky. I demo songs at home extensively, sometimes over many months and rerecordings. I demo like I'm making the actual album, mostly because it's fun. If I don't have any ideas I read books or listen to music. I also have had to adapt to having children, which took a few years to be honest. When you have babies a pretty massive chunk of your life becomes history, because you have this new priority and responsibility to take care of. So I had to figure out how to adjust my working and creative habits that I had built up over my whole life to that point, to be a good dad and still creative and productive. Oh and I always write the music first and often really quickly and then spend months, or even years, writing the lyrics and putting all the finishing touches on. I've tried to be more disciplined with this over the years but alas, I am still a fast starter and a slow finisher.
6. If you could change something about the music industry what would change?
I think artists deserve a greater slice from streaming. Artists are the ones who create the work that enables the industry to exist in the first place, yet we are too often the last ones to the buffet and end up with the scraps of what is left over. My main concern about this is simply that as it gets harder and harder for artists to actually make any money, because that's the way it's trended since I've been around anyway, then we will lose a lot of them to other industries and the music that we will be left with will be more homogenised and more compromised by the mechanisms of profit.
7. What do you think life would be like for you if you didn’t have music/visual art as an outlet?
If I had never had it? Who knows? There are a million possible scenarios that I could imagine playing out. Perhaps I would have finished my university degree and become a journalist. Perhaps I would be dead. If it was suddenly taken away from me? Well, funnily enough we've all had a bit of a crash course in that this year because of the virus. Still, I didn't lose music, just the ability to work. I honestly don't know what life would be like if I didn't have music. It's not something that bears too much thinking about!
8. I recently spied a great iso filmed performance with yourself and Paul Dempsey, is there anyone else, local or international, you would like to collaborate with?
Oh look, to be honest it's not something I think about. I enjoy it when people ask me to be a part of something they are doing but I rarely instigate it myself. I do have a special guest on a song on my new album though which is a real highlight of the record.
9. What’s your advice to young people who want to make a career for themselves in the industry ?
There is so much about it that will be out of your control. You can attract sudden success for doing something that you barely put any effort into just as much as you can toil for years creating the best work of your life and be totally ignored. Of course those are the two extremes and everything else falls somewhere in between. Still, there is so much out of your control that can dictate your success, the quicker you accept that the quicker you can start concentrating on the things that are under your control. The most important thing you can control is your own behaviour and attitude. Don't be a dick. One of the most humbling things I've learned over the last 25 years is that when that first wave of success starts to end, people will remember the type of person you are and if you've carried on like a dickhead during the successful years, it's going to be real hard to find supporters in the industry when you need them. So my advice is to make a habit of treating everyone you come across in your work with respect, kindness and generosity. Of course, we are all human and none of us, especially me, is perfect. So we are all allowed to have an off day, be grumpy or stressed and not put proper effort into people. Just make sure those days are total outliers. It doesn't matter how great and talented you are, you still would be nothing if it weren't for the hundreds and hundreds of people working around you, helping to make it all happen.
10. What’s the most embarrassing thing that has happened on stage?
I was playing a festival in Sydney in around 2006. Earlier in the day, I had taken part in a sort of songwriting workshop with some other artists from the festival, talking to an audience about our craft, that sort of thing. Anyway, one of the artists in that group was Clare Bowditch, whose music I had recently become a fan of however this was the first time we had ever met each other. Later in the evening, during my set, I was chatting to the crowd between songs and mentioned that I had met Clare earlier in the day. I can't remember exactly what I said next but I think I indicated that she had left me quite flustered and with a bit of a crush. Suddenly, out from the crowd Clare herself appears, walking right up to the stage and waving, "hi!". She was in the audience! She heard what I said! My legs gave way and I fell to the ground with embarrassment, trying desperately to disappear. The funny thing is, it's these moments that end up being the memorable parts of shows. The audience lapped it up, laughing at the situation and enjoying my obvious discomfort.
11. What’s your favourite song to perform?
It changes. I guess "Don't You Think it's Time?" is probably my enduring favourite to actually perform to people cos it's the one they are most likely to know so it guarantees a good response.
12. Have you got any secret hobbies that we might be surprised by?
I'm afraid I don't. I have many interests but none that I would classify as a hobby as such. You see the problem is, I turned my greatest hobby into a career.
13. What’s coming up next for Bob Evans?
I have my first shows back from lockdown in December then a new album and lots of touring in 2021. I'm also doing a couple of Neil Young tribute shows next year. I'm putting out a new episode of my podcast, "Good Evans, it's a Bobcast!" out every fortnight again too.
