It’s been a while between drinks for the lads of Evermore, but October sees us embracing their new album, Follow The Sun. Written while on a backpackers dream, the brothers then self-recorded, produced, mixed and released the album from the comfort of home, their own studio, the Stables.
Recently, Jon Hume took some time out to tell the AU Review’s Claire Patmore about the album’s conception, and what is coming up for the young Australian (or is it New Zealand?) three-piece.
There’s been a bit of a wait for this album…
It’s kind of our first album in a few years, and it’s been probably the longest process we’ve had. It was a really unique process, because we ended up travelling to all these different locations to write songs and to get ideas together for the album, and then recorded it at our own studio outside of Melbourne.
You visited 6 different places - LA, Buenos Aires, Paris, Jerusalem, Spain and Morocco?
Yeah, that sounds right to me. I’ve had this idea for quite a while about having a mobile studio that you could just sort of take with you and write songs for an album as you travel. So that’s what we did really, we packed up some guitars and some speakers and recording equipment and, just a very simple set up, took it with us and just captured what we came up with as we went.
And how long was the entire process once you decided to hit the road?
I think the trip lasted nearly two months. It’s quite a lot of time if you’re sitting in one place to make an album, and you know, for most people it’s plenty of time to make an album in normal studio, but I think when you add in all the travelling and the fact that we wanted to check out where we were and enjoy the trip as well, not as much got done as what you might expect on a normal writing session.
Did it take you coming home to actually pull everything together?
Yeah, it did. I think we ended up with a whole lot of different elements and different songs that we were really excited about… in a way they were moving in different directions. I think it just took coming home to Melbourne and working in our own studio and just taking the time, and time again, to just, sort of, bring all the different elements together and made it sound like one piece of music.
What about the cities you travelled to – why them?
It was just places that we’d never been to and we were intrigued about; little spots on the map that we were like “wow, I wonder what that’s like”. Places like Marrakech or Jerusalem or South America are places we’d just never been, and most musicians never get to go to, so it was sort of just an excuse to do a bit of exploring I think.
Has being exposed to those places changed your sound?
I think it drove us to find what we really had that was unique and what we had that was adding something to the world of music. It’s sort of overwhelming how much diversity and how many different ways you can approach songs, or approach making music, and travelling around you capture so much of that. At the end it was like, well, we’ve seen all of that, and absorbed some of it, but what do we really care about, and what do we feel is important to us? I think that’s where the songs ended up being quite personal, we almost wrote them as if we were writing a song for a friend or a family member, they were quite close to home.
Like postcards from the road?
Yeah, it has that element. I think that sometimes when you are exposed to different environments you end up drawing into what feels like home. And that’s the sound of the album I think.
Do you have any favourite memories or moments from your travels?
We had such an amazing time in Jerusalem actually, it was such a different place to what you expect. It was one destination that we just kept meeting random people and they kept saying things like “we’ll take you to the Dead Sea” and we’d find ourselves travelling with all these different groups of people and just enjoying the ride, and it was really fun. For whatever reason, when we went there we had so many cool experiences in such a short space of time, it was really fun.
We heard the police in LA patted you down for weapons?
We definitely learned a lesson that in America if you run out of gas, you don’t just walk to the gas station. The cops and everyone freaks out because they’re not used to seeing people walking along the side of the road. It was kind of a bad idea, in retrospect, because it was just starting to get dark and by the time we got to where the gas station was, and it looked like it was a lot closer than it really was. I think in America there’s a slight paranoia where anyone who’s not doing exactly what they should be doing could be terrorist. They just wanted to make double sure that we didn’t have any weapons or explosives.
You’ve just come off the end of a tour for the new album; how was it received?
Great! It was really cool. The album wasn’t even out, so we were just kind of travelling around Australia giving people a little preview of the songs, and what’s to come when it comes out. It was heaps of fun, and people didn’t know the songs, except for a select few fans who have managed to earn the right to have a little sneak preview. But people really dug it. I think it’s cool because when the album comes out, there’re already a few people who have a little bit of awareness of it.
Earlier this year, you released a few demo tracks on your Facebook page, what was the idea behind that?
That’s from this album. It was really early on, when we just started writing the songs. I think people don’t realize how much of a process is often involved in making an album, so our fans were getting impatient that it wasn’t out yet. So I think it was really cool being able to give people more of an insight into how it all comes together.
I think people really dug the fact that it was just the song stripped back to the more raw elements of how we would write something. In that sense, the fact that people liked it that way, made us kind of influence the album to not be as, maybe not as produced as the last one or two albums we’ve made. We kept some of those simpler ingredients in the music the whole way through, even on the final album. So I guess it did have a little influence on the final album for sure.
After your previous ARIA nominations, is this the album that will see you win?
I don’t know! I don’t really think about that. I think that the number one thing for us is people hearing our songs. We just want to write songs that mean something to people, and help them out if they’re having a crap day, or whatever they’re going through. That’s our main thing, and stuff like awards, it’s great when you get them, but you know, it’s not the main focus. I think it’s always a bit tricky for us, because there’s some debate about whether we’re truly an Australian or a New Zealand band.
What do you class yourselves as?
I really, to be honest, feel like an Australian, because I was born here. We grew up in New Zealand, but we’ve been living in Australia for nearly 10 years, so it’s home here now; I’ve married an Aussie now. I’m part of the fabric of Australian music now, there’s no escaping it!
Do you have a favourite song from the new album?
There’s a song that’s probably going to be our next single, called "Hey My Love", which I wrote on a ukulele. It’s one of the simplest songs I’ve ever written, and it’s just so fun to play live, and it’s had such a great energy to it, I think it’s kind of infectious. It’s probably my favourite at the moment. But you know, it always changes.
And what are the plans for the new album? Touring?
I imagine it’ll be early next year when we announce a headline tour, but we haven’t locked anything in yet.
Follow The Sun was released nationally on October 12.
