Check out Jordan's latest interview with the rock band Evans Blue!
Two years ago, I met Parker Lauzon and the rest of Evans Blue in the green room at Phoenix's Marquee Theater. They were fresh off a "Best New Band" nomination at Canada's Juno Awards, and their second album, The Pursuit Begins When This Portrayal Of Life Ends, had just been released by Universal. Things looked very promising for this heavily followed Canada-based rock group. But in the summer of 2008, lead singer Kevin Matisyn was voted out of the band because, according to Parker, "He simply was not making good decisions for this band anymore and we as a group have decided to move on." After a long search, the group chose Dan Chandler as their new frontman and subsequently wrote and recorded their third album, Evans Blue. I caught up with Parker and Dan backstage at the House of Blues in Dallas on June 27th to talk about life, the new record, and fan reactions.
Hey man! So it’s been nearly two years since we first met up in Phoenix.
Parker Lauzon: Wow, that long?
Yeah and a lot has happened since then. You got married…
Parker: Yeah I got married. I’m gonna have a baby, well I’m not gonna have a baby, somebody close to me is gonna have a baby. I’m pretty sure it’s mine.
Dan Chandler: Uhh, I need to tell you something!
Parker: Yeah but Dan’s been staying at my house a lot so who knows!?
Ohh no.
Parker: Or it could be the black guy in the band!
Yeah but that’s an easy one to figure out!
Parker: Haha yeah so that’s pretty much it for me.
And then you parted ways with Kevin Matisyn and went on a new singer search.
Parker: Yeah we had our own little American Idol going on for a little bit. I think it took a total of six months. We narrowed it down to a few, actually we narrowed it down to one and then everybody was determining whether they wanted him. Then Dan came out of the woodwork. He should tell you this story.
Dan: There was a guy in a band called Alienate…
Parker: That’s the guy we narrowed it down to.
Dan: His band broke up and a friend of mine was a big fan of his band. So I called him up and asked him what happened to the band, total fluke call at midnight while drinking, and he tells me what happened, he was really cool, and then he tells me Evans Blue is looking for a new singer. At the time I wasn’t doing a whole lot so I hit them up and they sent me a couple tracks and then they sent me an original track to write to and sing to. I sent that back and then flew out there…
Parker: And it was ok!
And it clicked, huh?
Dan: Yeah!
Well that sounds kind of like the story of how you got Howard through the Breaking Benjamin guys.
Parker: Yep. We’ve had our rough patches with bandmates, with our first drummer leaving in the middle of a tour. Chad, the drummer for Breaking Benjamin, was actually gonna play on our second album then he found Howard and he sent us a DVD and that was that. So this is Evans Blue now.
Nice! So tell me about the writing of the new record.
Dan: I did the lyrics, the melodies. A lot of it was guitar riffs sent over e-mail Parker would do.
Parker: This was the first collaborative writing thing for Evans Blue. Before that, I wrote both of the albums. Not lyrically, obviously, but melodically. Vlad wrote some songs, I wrote some songs, and Dan wrote some songs on this album. So now it feels like a band now.
And that’s awesome because it all flows together even though several contributors were involved.
Parker: And it makes my life a hell of a lot easier because I’ve got a lot of shit going on!
Like possibly a black baby!
Parker: Hahaha yeah exactly! Never know! But yeah it still sounds like Evans Blue.
Except to me it’s harder than previous releases.
Parker: It is definitely heavier.
And that’s an awesome step that you took in your career to do that.
Parker: Yeah we needed to go heavier and everybody I’ve talked to has said that Evans Blue needed to go heavier. And we definitely did. We brought the rock!
So how is the tour going so far?
Parker: Great!
Dan: Yeah tour’s been awesome. Texas is pretty badass.
Parker: And the day of the CD release was in his hometown [St. Louis] and it was a badass show.
That’s awesome.
Dan: Yeah that was really awesome. Every show has been really cool but last night [Houston] blew me away. I know it’s a big town for Evans Blue out here and I’m the new singer so I didn’t know how the turnout would be but geez it was awesome.
Parker: They had a big room and we kinda got worried but man they packed the house! Like Texas always does! It will be a packed house tonight, too!
Especially with tickets being less than $15.
Dan: I think as of right now there are maybe 25 tickets left.
That’s amazing.
Parker: I love it. At the beginning, I think there was a little hesitation, they were worried [about a new singer] but they hadn’t heard anything.
Dan: I think that’s a natural thing.
To be completely honest, I was a little worried because I didn’t really know what to expect.
Parker: Exactly! But you can’t blame people for that.
But then I heard “Sick Of It” and I was hooked.
Parker: But see a lot of people got mad at us for “Sick Of It” because they said it was commercial rock and that we sounded like every other band. I was like, “You mean like every successful band? Are you trying to insult us?” This was our direction, we want to do music but we also want to be successful at it. We’re not writing to purposely be commercial, some of it is just coming out that way. And that’s not a bad thing, I don’t think.
And I thought the production on this album was vastly superior to the previous two.
Parker: It’s a very riff-oriented album. Pitter, our bass player, I’m looking at his beautiful face right now, he’s even got his time to shine on a few songs and we’ve never done that before either. “Sick Of It” has the bass in the verses.
Dan: We’ve got some guitar solos.
Parker: Yeah guitar solos. We just fucking threw everything out there, we’re doing all of it.
So what’s your favorite song on this new album to play or to listen to?
Parker: Can’t fucking pick one yet. I just don’t know. Live? “Say It” is my favorite song to play live. “Step Back,” man I’ll just end up listing the whole album.
What about you, Dan?
Dan: I like “The Future In The End” a lot. As far as live goes, I’d say “Say It” also. The chorus hits and…
People seem to really respond to it?
Parker: Yeah they do. It’s got this Deftones-like kind of bridge.
So how much longer you got on the road?
Parker: We go until the 4th of July and then back home. Maybe one date after that, we’re not sure but I’m expecting my first child so taking a couple of months off then back out in the fall.
Nice.
Parker: Yeah I get some time to play with my new baby and then leave on tour and hopefully my wife doesn’t kill me. But we’ll see!
Well you better plan a fall date here in Dallas!
Parker: For sure. It would be better to come back here later in the fall so it’s not like two billion degrees outside.
It’s not as bad as Phoenix!
Parker: Oh no. But Phoenix is a dry heat, right? Hahaha. Does it really even matter when it’s a 120 degrees?
So what about you Dan? What’s your background in music?
Dan: I’ve been playing for about 10 years, singing, trying to sing at first. I was in a band for probably about 6 or 7 years out of St. Louis, my hometown. We moved out to California, L.A., tried that out for awhile, about a year. Then I came back and everybody kind of started going in their own direction and I started writing a lot more. We still jammed but then this came up and I had to jump all over it obviously.
One more thing: I’ve seen a lot of people asking if the record will be available in stores. Do you know anything about that?
Parker: It will be eventually. We don’t know when but it will be. Right now it’s iTunes and we have hard copies with us on our tours. And you can order it from our Myspace, too. There’s a link for you to order the hard copy. I promise everybody it will be on shelves soon.
Check out live photos of Evans Blue at Dallas's House of Blues in our Photo Gallery!
Listen to the first single, "Sick Of It," below!
