Drummer Alan Evans is a workhorse. Between his regular gigs with Soulive and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, not to mention his role as a studio engineer, Evans is relentless in his passion for organic music. Evans is nothing but playful and open in this new interview with L4LM’s Rex Thomson, talking extensively about Soulive’s new album and working with Pretty Lights for the process. Check out the full Q&A below, and don’t miss Evans in his various forms throughout 2015!
L4LM: I hear you’ve been in the studio with Soulive. Anything you can tell us about the new album?
Alan Evans: What can I say? The biggest thing of note I guess is that Derek Smith, A.K.A. Pretty Lights is producing the new album, which some people may know by now. That’s been really cool. It’s just a really interesting session. It was really different for us, this whole recording process. It was really cool being in there with him. That dude, he’s just like an incredible artist and he knows a LOT about music.
The funny thing to me is that when people got wind of the fact that we were in the studio with him, of course, our social medias blew up with stuff like “Awwww man, Soulive is going EDM!” or whatever…but…Naaaah man. (Chuckles) No. Of course not. I guess that happens with all those artists. When you’re known, for instance, for being in one band or one kind or style of music, a lot of people assume that that’s what you do, and it’s all that you can do. That’s not true of most musicians I meet. You can run into a heavy metal guitarist and get to talking and they start hipping you to some stuff that you’ve never heard of.
A perfect example is Chris Robinson, from the Black Crowes. This cat is the most knowledgeable dude I have ever met in terms of music. I mean…he’s knowledgeable about a lot of things, (Chuckles) but music man…I mean, we’re hanging out and we’ll be talking music and I’ll ask “Have you ever checked out this Jazz-Funk Avant Garde composer?” and he’s like, “Yeah, he’s great but you need to check this other guy out…” and he starts talking about this Swedish avant-garde guy who had some of the most far out stuff I had ever heard. Most people would just assume that Chris Robinson is just this rock singer, but no. It’s the same thing with Derek. He knows so much music, man. In the studio he was constantly hitting us with stuff, we were hitting him with stuff…and it all influenced the recording session. And to be honest, to me at least, it’s sounding like one of the most “Soulive” albums we’ve made…ever, in terms of sound. If you’re talking about the quintessential Soulive sound.
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L4LM: Really?
AE: Definitely. We’ve surely made some albums that were pretty far off from that heart, whether by accident or by experimenting. People are really gonna like this…it’s awesome!
L4LM: You touched on some interesting points there. I’ve done a lot of these interviews, and many artists have mentioned feeling that having wide musical tastes helped them make better music.
AE: Yeah, I totally agree. You can’t please everyone, so you might as well please yourself. (Laughs) You gotta keep doin’ what you do, and hopefully a few people at least dig it as well. But if you’re not progressing as an artist…dunno…I don’t really see the point. I don’t see the fun in that…I don’t see the challenge in that at all. Keeping an open mind, listening to new music..to be honest everything I listen to influences me. Everything. Even if it’s something that isn’t my cup of tea, then maybe what I’m getting out of it is something I don’t want to do…(Chuckles)…but I still learned something, I’m still taking something from it. Hopefully it’s something that helps better me…helps better my craft.
L4LM: You said this recording experience was different from the others you’ve had. Can you elaborate on that a little?
AE: This has been a recording process that really started with A Color Map Of The Sun, that Kraz (Eric Krasno) and (Adam) Deitch were a part of with him. I guess he was ready to take it a little bit further, in that we didn’t have any songs written for the album. We had a couple of ideas, but for the most part we…I don’t know if I wanna say improvised, but improv was definitely part of the process. We sat in the studio for a bit first, got our sounds together, got comfortable. For each tune, we would come up with, say, three sections. Sounds we were diggin’ on, y’know? (Chuckles) And we would name them each one, two and three. Derek was in the control room, we were in the live room, all together, with our headphones on…there’s a few cool things to explain.
First I wanna tell you, it felt like a really natural recording process. We would be playing, and the entire time Derek would be talking to us in the cans and he would say “Hey Al, lay off the Hi Hat” or “Kraz, play that line again but maybe an octave higher” or “…a lil busier” or “Neal [Evans], lay off the Clavinet, play one of the other keyboards.” He just talked to us while we jammed, til he felt comfortable. And once we all felt comfortable with how it was sounding we would go to section two, and it was the same process again, Derek in the cans giving us instructions and notes, and us responding. Then he would start calling out section changes…”Alright, go back to section two! Section one! Back to three! Go to two. Back to one!” and the entire time it’s morphing. Most of the times, by the end of a session, section one was a lot different than it was at the beginning. Now, the tape would be rolling the entire time, and we would play like an hour and fifteen, and hour and a half…just non-stop playing. That was one part of the puzzle.
The second part is the physical act of the what was going on in the control room. I’m sure you’re familiar with the recording process, but not everyone knows this kinda stuff. This was all recorded to a “Chew Track,” basically. All the microphones and amp went into one side of the console, and out of that was a twenty four track tape machine. That signal got looped back into the console because we wanted to get the flavor of the tape. Derek would mix these signals live, and that’s another aspect of his input in it. He was adjusting things, while we were playing, and talking to us at the same time…and this was all going on the chew track. So…it is what it is. This would happen for each song. So when we had finished this whole recording session, Derek edited all these sections down and made them into songs. Now we’re having these “Over dub” sessions, where we’re gonna add some flavors on top of it, get it done. There are literally stacks and stacks and stacks of reels, man. (Laughs) We probably have like four hours of music, so it’s pretty crazy. (Laughs) We’re probably gonna do something with all of this beyond..it’s gonna be pretty interesting, is all I can say. (Laughs)
L4LM: It’s been a while since anyone put out a quadruple album…
AE: (Laughs) Exactly! The process was a lot of fun. One of the cool things about it was that we would be playing these grooves, all of us players in the room together, so there’s eye contact and a sense of unity. Traditionally you go into a studio, and you have, say, a four minute song, and you rehearse it and you say to yourself “Okay, we’re gonna go into the studio and we’re gonna nail it.” And then you go in there and there’s all sorts of pressure, not just from outside, but that you put on yourself, to get that four minute song in one or two takes. This process was different in that we would play just like one section for like ten minutes. That really changes things. You’re able to really find the groove.
I would maybe move the kick drum pattern back like a millisecond…there would be these moments where Neal and I would look at each other and be like “We got it…we got it.” It’s all in the nuances, and the cool thing was we had the time to find it. And Derek knew…that’s the thing. When we hit that moment he would be like “Okay, move on to section two.” It was like a meditation, as a group. Then Derek would start ediiting things together. The crazy thing is later on, we would go into the control room, and a bunch of us would be hanging out and this music would come on and we would be like “Damn man, that’s some crazy stuff. Who is that?” and Derek would say “That’s you guys!” And that would happen every day! We were recording sooo much music, and it was changing constantly so much through the process that after just a couple of hours I didn’t even realize it was us. (Chuckles)
L4LM: You did some recording at the new Parlor Studio in New Orleans. Did you like it in there?
AE: Definitely! I’ve recorded in a lot of studios, and that is definitely one of the nicest ones I’ve ever been in. I mean, it’s a beautiful studio. The guy who co-owns it, Matt Grondin, is a great musician as well, and there was just a lot of thought that went into the place. You can tell that it wasn’t like some design firm came in and did it, y’know? It’s definitely like someone who knows how a musician thinks, because…because he’s a musician. It’s a great place. The vibe is great, it’s laid out amazingly and it just came out so well. They’re gonna do some really great things there, without a doubt.
L4LM: I’ve toured the place. It’s pretty damn pimp!
AE: Yeah, right?! One of the things I really loved the distance, you know, you been there, the distance from the lounge to the recording studio, the main room. That is a walk. (laughs) You’re able to clear your mind. it’s like the lounge and the recording rooms are two different worlds. And that is THE biggest control room I’ve ever been in. It’s huge. The control room is bigger than most studios! (Laughs)
L4LM: The list of guests you’ve had on Soulive albums is like a who’s who: John Scofield, Chaka Kahn, Reggie Watts, Dave Matthews Talib Kwali, Black Thought and Fred Wesley. How have you managed to get such an impressive roster of folks? Do you have like the largest blackmail file in the world?
AE: (Laughs) We’ve just been really fortunate. All those people that you listed dig what we do, and we dig what they do. That’s the key for us. I guess it’s easy for some people to just cold call someone and just pay them a lot of money to come and guest on your project, so you can say you have them there, but whatever. I’ve been in situations like that, but those situations never seem to gel. To me you can hear it, you can feel it y’know, when it’s not organic.
We just like to work with folks who dig what we do, and we feel the same about them. The thing we pride ourselves on is that we love doing our thing, we love being Soulive, the three of us interlocked on a stage. But we’re also really good at being a backing band. There’s a big difference. There are a lot of cats who can do that, but it takes a certain level of musicianship, a certain level of respect for the other people who are onstage with you. It takes time to learn, but I like when people play with us because, in that moment, it’s not about us. n We’re trying to make this whole thing work, not just us making ourselves look good.
L4LM: So it’s been announced you’re back with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe. I spoke with him and he had nothing but kind things to say about you. How excited are you to go into the studio and on the road with him?
AE: Actually we’ve been in the studio already. We’ve done two sessions already. One was after Jazz Fest down in Austin, the other was in Nashville in between his runs with the Stones and the Greyboy All-Stars. Lately I’ve been cutting some stuff for the album here, in my studio in my house…tightening some things up for Karl’s album. This year kinda got crazy on me there for a minute..we had Jazz Fest, I had gigs with Soulive, I had gigs with Karl, then we headed down to Austin to the studio, I came home for a few days then back to New Orleans to record the Soulive album…that was my experience for the summer. (Chuckles)
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L4LM: Are you just looking to see how many records you can appear on in one year? Is this a taxes thing? Should we start a Kickstarter for you?
AE: (Laughs) Oh man. (Laughs) Oh man, it’s just life. Actually, in all of that I just finished a solo album.
L4LM: Jeez!
AE: It’s like the documentary about “the Wrecking Crew” that just came out. (The Wrecking Crew was a loose assortment of twenty some odd studio musicians who performed on numerous hits and albums in the 60’s, notably as Phil Spector’s celebrated “Wall Of Sound”) That’s how it is in this business…You gotta jump on it when it’s there. (Laughs)
L4LM: One of the things we here at Live For Live Music hope to do with this interview series is to let folks know how much the music business is about grinding it out…in the studio, on the road…
AE: Exactly. Karl and I have a joke about it…we say we get paid for the travel, not playing. You travel for six or seven hours, set up, play for an hour or two, break down…very little sleep…hop on a plane, hop on a bus, hop in a car…that’s what it is. People say “Aw man, you get to go to all these cool places, and have all that fun!” That’s true, y’know, but I see a lot more back stages and hotel rooms than I see the cool sights of the places I play. It’s a hustle man. Then you come home and for me, I’m also a studio engineer…a producer and I’m constantly mixing albums and tracks for people, recording people. Thank goodness for Google Calendar… (laughs) Earlier this year I went from Connecticut, to New York, to Nashville to San Diego to Alaska…in a weekend. (Laughs) So all you young cats out there…be careful what you wish for! (Laughs)
L4LM: Karl said you were one of the smartest people he knew. Ever had an IQ test?
AE: (Laughs) Not that I remember..
L4LM: Your main home for more than a decade has been the band Soulive. You’re headed out as the original look trio. How does that feel?
AE: It’s evolving. Ever since being in the studio with Derek the whole process, those long takes. Our last few shows were affected by that process. When we’re not playing together, I’m off playing with Karl, Neal is off playing with Lettuce, Kraz is off doing his thing, and when we come back together we always have a lot of new stuff to talk to each other about, through our music. We’ve traveled with horns, but it’s always really been about the three of us. We are locked into this thing together, and there’s something special about that. We may stray from time to time, but we always want to go back to the trio. That’s where it starts and ends.
L4LM: I can barely be in the same room with my brothers for more than an hour…what’s it like living in a tour bus with yours?
AE: It’s amazing really. We get along great. When it comes down to it, there’s no one I’d rather play with. there’s tons of folks I love to play with, but there’s nothing like playing with him. We’ve been playing together literally our entire lives. I started playing drums when I was nine months old, and the same with him. He’s a pretty talented drummer as well. Then he got into playing keys and the piano when he was seven. There were many, many years, me and him, playing together down in the basement.
L4LM: We always try and wrap these things up with a few questions from the fans. Do you mind a couple more quick questions?
AE: Not at all. Hit me!
L4LM: What’s the status of the Alan Evans Trio or Playonbrother?
AE: (Chuckles) That chapter is closed. it was a lot of fun…definitely a learning experience. But that book is over.
L4LM: I hear you’re quite the Ping Pong player…ever think of going pro?
AE: NO! NO! (Laughs!) That can not..definitely not. Who asked that? Was that Schmeans? (Adam Smirnoff, guitarist of Lettuce) Those Lettuce cats play a lot…but I am not any good! (Laughs)
L4LM: Well sir, thanks for taking the time to chat with us! Look forward to seeing you out on the road!
AE: Thank you man! This was fun.
