Photo Credit: EVER
Cleethorpes-based EVER have gone rather viral as of late. An indie band made up of 3 teenagers and one of their 28-year-old brothers, they were propelled to relative stardom after their acoustic cover of Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’ was viewed over two million times and counting. Yet, as the quartet went on to prove, there’s a lot more to them than just covers.
The three singles released so far have been received very well, and there’s even talks of them recording abroad soon. So, I caught up with the group to chat about their humble beginnings, sudden, meteoric rise, future ambitions, and just how the hell they manage to balance all this, as GCSEs loom.
I just wanted to start at the impetus of this whole thing. You said that you met at Howlin’ Jack’s record store. I just wanted to ask what the circumstances of that meeting were? What kind of made you gravitate towards each other?
We didn’t meet at the record store. We met at school before, but that meeting was when we first decided to start gigging together. It kind of just happened. We wanted to do music, but we never said to each other “Let’s do music”, we just did. We just said “Oh, do you wanna play here?” And it was like, “OK, yeah.” It was never like “Do you wanna start a band?”, more just, “OK, let’s get this person to play guitar and this person on drums.”
I’ve read in places that your inspirations are bands like the Foo Fighters and Green Day. Obviously those are some strong influences, but would you guys have a way of defining what you think your own sound is?
I have no idea because we take inspiration from a lot of our favourite bands. It’s quite hard to specify what we are, but we try not to sound like other bands, at least when we’re writing, we’re more conscious of it.
One of the things that made you guys go “viral”, as it were, was the acoustic cover of ‘Basket Case’ that has been viewed millions of times. How did you react to that? I’m sure for anybody, seeing something that you’ve done get that amount of attention seemingly out of nowhere is quite a quite a shock.
We were really, really excited. We were like, “Oh, it’s blowing up! It’s going viral.” We celebrated it getting 500k views, and then and then it went up to 1 million, and then we were like “Oh my God it’s going to reach 2 million!”
I remember we celebrated 3,000, because at that point, that was the first viral reel we’d ever had. It was the best thing ever. We actually had a bigger reel on our own song, ‘Don’t Know How To Love.’ 6.2 million views on Instagram, which is really cool. It really boosted the release of it.
You guys are based in Cleethorpes, and that seems to be quite important to you guys, because you play a lot locally around there. I was just having a look on Wikipedia, and the list of notable people from there is quite long [including Kristian Adams, Bill Appleyard, Peter Collinson, Michele Dotrice, Gemma Merna, and Michael Parsons]. How do you guys feel about being the next big thing in Cleethorpes?
I didn’t even know that. It’s news to me. I’m gonna have to go on that page actually, because I didn’t know there was anybody. That would be cool, to be the next big big thing in Cleethorpes. We’re sort of an end of the road town. It’s great to have the feedback we have. It’s quite overwhelming.
How do you guys manage the workload? You’re at the age where you’re doing GCCEs, and I remember when I was doing GCSE’s, the workload with that alone was not light. So I just wondered how you, either mentally or literally, try to balance it all?
I guess we kind of just go with it, because we practise whenever we can, and so I think we more revise around practice, as in we set practices, and then if we have time to revise, we do, but if not then we just practise instead. We can’t resist. We love it. Connor’s a working man, so I guess that’s the difficult balance.
I read recently that as much as you say revision comes first, equally, you’re really looking forward to, as soon as it’s over, just getting out there and doing stuff.
Yeah. When it’s over we’re going to be doing a lot, hopefully, fingers crossed. There’ll be more of a focus on doing lots of gigging and stuff, but we’ll be writing as well.
On that point, the three singles that have come out so far (‘Don’t Know How To Love’, ‘Overdrive’ and ‘Wake Up’) have been very well received. I read that you were looking to go and record in America soon. So are these tracks planned to be part of a larger release? Is there a full album release down the line?
We would like to hopefully be able to build and create an album. We have some of the songs for it, but we need to think about recording, and potentially even writing more songs to put on it. We have enough songs to put on the album, but yeah. We’re getting our album produced by Rob Cavallo, the producer for Green Day. He did ‘Dookie’, ‘American Idiot’, and also ‘Dizzy Up the Girl’ by Goo Goo Dolls.
I was going to ask, if there’s anybody that you would want to work with, but I imagine Green Day’s producer is right at the top of the list?
Yeah, to be fair, there’s nobody better I guess. We have our manager [Rob Cavallo’s sister, Lisa]. She’s amazing. She found us by chance on Instagram, came forward, and contacted us. We’ve had a blast, haven’t we Lisa? Since the first messages, we’ve been in meetings pretty non-stop, every week. It’s been a bit hectic, to say the least.
I wanted to ask about live shows as well, because you guys recently played a gig at Docks Academy, and you talked recently about wanting to create mosh pits in whatever crowd that you’re playing to. You guys must really get a buzz from playing live?
It’s awesome to play live. You get such a rush of adrenaline. It feels awesome to see a responsive crowd as well, like one that really sings along and moshes. Obviously they like the covers and stuff, but when you see them dancing and enjoying your own stuff, that’s a really good feeling as well. A lot of people say “I really like your own stuff as well. It really fits in.” Physical feedback is really cool as well, when you just see people tapping their feet or nodding their head.
We played a gig at The Spider’s Web, which is a local pub. It’s a good one that we regularly go to, and that was the first time we had people singing. We could just hear them singing our own stuff back to us. That was an incredible moment.
Do you have what you would call a most memorable show? Or maybe some “funny tour moments” if you want to put it like that?
I’ll probably remember the most recent gig at Docks for a long time. The sound that we got was awesome, and the response from everyone was awesome as well. We couldn’t ask more from the crowd, could we? It was absolutely epic.
I would say Armed Forces Day back, in June. That was a really good gig as well. There were a lot of people.
You guys are, I think, around, 15-16-ish, three of you and-
Connor: I’m 28, just to put it out there [laughs].
Oh right, yeah, but most of you are coming up to GCSEs, and for people in what you might call a “proper band”, you’re quite young. I wondered whether your age is ever factored into the way that you want to be perceived. Whether you might have annoyances about being called a “teen indie band” or what have you. Is it a sore spot? Or is it something that you use to your advantage?
I think when people look at us online, they don’t actually realise that we’re young. When people look at our Instagram, they don’t look at us and think, “Oh, they’re, they’re 15-16.” It’s the same when we’re playing gigs as well. People will watch us, and then they’ll walk up and be like, “You’re small” [laughs]. They don’t know that we’re this young, we don’t really promote it or say anything about it.
So would it annoy you a little bit if people started writing about you like “teenage indie superstars” and stuff?
Well, maybe the indie bit [laughs]. I don’t mind us being called teenagers. I mean, we are.
Connor: Enjoy it while you have it.
A final word from the manager…
Here in Los Angeles, we’re just huge fans, and we’re excited. Done Deal [management]’s really excited to work with them. My brother’s set to record them at his studio, Penfield Studios, and we’re doing it. It’s going to happen, so stay tuned.
For all the upcoming news about the band, including new music, live dates, and behind-the-scenes antics, you can follow them on Instagram and TikTok @everbandofficial_
