Evermore

Evermore found its feet early. A precocious child, you could say. While many bands dither about after early successes and become either bloated parodies or rehab tragics, Evermore are doing it right the first time. Their second album 'Real Life' demonstrates a progression from their 2004 debut Dreams as obvious as it is remarkable. This won't surprise any of their seasoned fans but what may surprise them is the maturity behind this progression. It hints at still greater things to come.

'Real Life' is a dynamic and uplifting album that stands out immediately for just this reason. No bling, no hos, nothing but positive songs and excellent songwriting. Bassist Pete says Evermore's demanding tour schedule has shaped the band and honed not only their playing skills, but introduced a tangible maturity in how they view their music and their relationship with the fans.

"We're definitely more confident this album," he says. "From the response we got from our last album, we realised people really care about what the songs say, and mean. We realised we should say something positive." Drummer Dan agrees, saying, "We perceive our music differently now we know there's an audience. There's more responsibility to it. You realise you have to get up and sing this to people."

Noble sentiments indeed. Evermore is a band that learns from experience, and all three Hume brothers are unanimous in their endorsement of live show experience in shaping a sound that will not only sell records, but win hearts in the process.

"From the constant touring, we developed a taste for rockier stuff, and realised the importance of having fun on stage," says front man Jon. "Recording 'Real Life' was great in that we knew what would work live and what wouldn't - our instinct became that we wanted more guitar driven, uplifting songs and it's worked really well."

'Real Life' also marks a significant departure from 'Dreams' with regards to how those songs are produced. While Jon wrote most of the songs for 'Dreams', all three members contributed heavily to 'Real Life' with Dan alone reportedly producing a catalogue of over 100 songs. It speaks volumes of the democratic approach the band take, an approach perhaps shaped by sibling rivalry as much as anything.

"After all the touring we did, everyone had so much creative energy that we just had to get it down on disc," says Jon. "It was great this time because I could focus more on production...we keep discovering new things about ourselves. For example, Dan was more focused on music before whereas now he's discovered the importance of lyrics. There are so many layers to a good album, and we're still working out how to do it."

But despite their successes as a band, Dan, Jon and Pete are brothers first and foremost, an aspect that becomes amusingly obvious when discussing how the new album has highlighted differences in songwriting approach. Pete takes a good natured jibe at Dan's penchant for organization, saying "Dan has all his songs catalogued by the day it was done, and has this colour coding setup with a different colour for finished songs, or songs that need work on the lyrics. Me, I'm the disorganized one." Jon agreed wholeheartedly. "The only way to work out which of Pete's songs to use is he'll be playing away and we'll go 'hang on, what's that song called?'."

But whatever approach they used, it has obviously worked out a treat. The debut single from 'Dreams', Running, debuted at number 7 on the ARIA charts and is still climbing, and the accompanying album is one of the most hotly anticipated of the year. It represents the culmination of 18 months work, so how did they know it was as good as it could be? Pete has a typically refreshing answer. "You put it on the car stereo," he grins. "You go for a drive and if it works in the car, it's there."

Andrew Lees