EVOLETAH Jamsphere Interview
EVOLETAH Interview with John Murch (Radionotes)
Interview with Rip It Up Magazine,
prior to the 'Sleepwalker' album launch.
Matt Cahill
Evoletah interview: dB Magazine 2-15 December 2009
by Steve Jones
Matt Cahill might not have reached the dizzying heights of fame that he may have once craved, but he has experienced the giddying sway and bitter aftertaste that came with industry expectations and, ultimately, broken promises. Fronting Adelaide band The Violets for thirteen years and penning the indie hits Mary Who? and Somewhere before quietly slipping into a self-imposed exile, Cahill has now rejoined forces with former Violets drummer Jason Eyers-White and ex-Monte guitarist Andrew Boyce to become Evoletah. They’ve got their second release in as many years ready to go, and this time everything is 100% on their terms.
Cahill explains: “when The Violets finished up, Jason and I always wanted to keep working together but then he joined Kaleidoscope and went off to tour with them. I kept threatening to get together with Andrew, and before I left to go live in New South Wales about five years ago we both had a loose jam and of course we loved what was happening there. From there, although it was very slow to come together we decided to go ahead and we named the group but that was more for our own indulgence,” he smiles, with obvious content.
“And then probably after about a year or two I started to get that itch so then came the phone calls and emails to see if everyone thought that it was worth pursuing and what we could do about it? So then holidays presented a really good opportunity,” Cahill continues, leading up to their first CD, ‘Fool’s Errand’.
“I remember booking the studio six months in advance and I hadn’t written anything at all so that got me kind of working again,” he laughs. “Then we did the Pro Tools sessions between us all and this and that got added. Until the day before we cut all six tracks in the same day, we had never played that record in the same room together, and even then we’d only spent about five hours in a rehearsal space just to polish them up,” he concludes, rightly satisfied.
“We work with Brett Sody all the time and we’ve got a good working relationship with him and he’s a producer in the true sense of the word. It never seems like he’s treading on our toes if he tells us that something is rubbish or not going anywhere, so he’s just like another member of the band really. Brett even came down to that rehearsal session and advised us to chop this, change or rework that, that’s rubbish and that’s great, so if you get to hear the demos they’re kind of different but still have the same themes and feel but now the songs are much more polished,” Cahill elaborates.
“Then we struck a distribution deal with an American mob and the record sold out over there, which was really good because that then paid for the video clips (The Door, Bloody Circus), and now for our new record. If I have to personally write a record there would be that danger that I’d fill it with what people expect of me,” Cahill reveals of the latest territory explored on ‘Evaporating’, “but I don’t want to work that way because it’s a whole new band and whole new dynamic. Music was such a big part, if not all of my life, and I was probably being a bit too autobiographical in the past,” he explains.
“There’s only so much of your life that you can tell without telling the whole story, and I’m sure people don’t want to hear that anyway. I mean, those kind of themes are still there; like for example, Ballad Of Broken Wishes is a song I wrote for my son, and with Idiot that’s really how I felt as a kid,” he allows. “And The Forgetting is still very sad. There’s still a lot of pain in these lyrics but it’s just more subtle and I’m a lot steadier in my beliefs and more solid in who I am as a human being, and that’s got to come out somehow. Like, we wanted to be rockstars when we were kids but now I just want to be an artist,” Cahill happily concludes.
“I really can’t paint that any differently. We were sitting around and waiting for someone to press that magic button to make us famous, but there is no magic button. Now, we’re just trying to get out and be heard as broadly as we can and all we’re saying is, if you like what you hear we’re planning to get on and do more.”
by Steve Jones
Matt Cahill might not have reached the dizzying heights of fame that he may have once craved, but he has experienced the giddying sway and bitter aftertaste that came with industry expectations and, ultimately, broken promises. Fronting Adelaide band The Violets for thirteen years and penning the indie hits Mary Who? and Somewhere before quietly slipping into a self-imposed exile, Cahill has now rejoined forces with former Violets drummer Jason Eyers-White and ex-Monte guitarist Andrew Boyce to become Evoletah. They’ve got their second release in as many years ready to go, and this time everything is 100% on their terms.
Cahill explains: “when The Violets finished up, Jason and I always wanted to keep working together but then he joined Kaleidoscope and went off to tour with them. I kept threatening to get together with Andrew, and before I left to go live in New South Wales about five years ago we both had a loose jam and of course we loved what was happening there. From there, although it was very slow to come together we decided to go ahead and we named the group but that was more for our own indulgence,” he smiles, with obvious content.
“And then probably after about a year or two I started to get that itch so then came the phone calls and emails to see if everyone thought that it was worth pursuing and what we could do about it? So then holidays presented a really good opportunity,” Cahill continues, leading up to their first CD, ‘Fool’s Errand’.
“I remember booking the studio six months in advance and I hadn’t written anything at all so that got me kind of working again,” he laughs. “Then we did the Pro Tools sessions between us all and this and that got added. Until the day before we cut all six tracks in the same day, we had never played that record in the same room together, and even then we’d only spent about five hours in a rehearsal space just to polish them up,” he concludes, rightly satisfied.
“We work with Brett Sody all the time and we’ve got a good working relationship with him and he’s a producer in the true sense of the word. It never seems like he’s treading on our toes if he tells us that something is rubbish or not going anywhere, so he’s just like another member of the band really. Brett even came down to that rehearsal session and advised us to chop this, change or rework that, that’s rubbish and that’s great, so if you get to hear the demos they’re kind of different but still have the same themes and feel but now the songs are much more polished,” Cahill elaborates.
“Then we struck a distribution deal with an American mob and the record sold out over there, which was really good because that then paid for the video clips (The Door, Bloody Circus), and now for our new record. If I have to personally write a record there would be that danger that I’d fill it with what people expect of me,” Cahill reveals of the latest territory explored on ‘Evaporating’, “but I don’t want to work that way because it’s a whole new band and whole new dynamic. Music was such a big part, if not all of my life, and I was probably being a bit too autobiographical in the past,” he explains.
“There’s only so much of your life that you can tell without telling the whole story, and I’m sure people don’t want to hear that anyway. I mean, those kind of themes are still there; like for example, Ballad Of Broken Wishes is a song I wrote for my son, and with Idiot that’s really how I felt as a kid,” he allows. “And The Forgetting is still very sad. There’s still a lot of pain in these lyrics but it’s just more subtle and I’m a lot steadier in my beliefs and more solid in who I am as a human being, and that’s got to come out somehow. Like, we wanted to be rockstars when we were kids but now I just want to be an artist,” Cahill happily concludes.
“I really can’t paint that any differently. We were sitting around and waiting for someone to press that magic button to make us famous, but there is no magic button. Now, we’re just trying to get out and be heard as broadly as we can and all we’re saying is, if you like what you hear we’re planning to get on and do more.”