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Evolver One roll with the punches

Evolver One return with a new name, a new sound, and a new attitude. Singer and guitarist Peter Pote, keyboard player Sean Murphy, and drummer Tulsa Pittaway explain the changes, talk life on the road, reveal how nothing ever goes to plan, and why their fans are so important.

How did each of you get into music in the first place?

Peter Pote: I've always listened to music. My folks listened to records - The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis - so I've just always loved music, and I guess it's the only thing I really stuck to. I did jewellery manufacturing, but I didn’t see a future in it. I was always playing guitar, always wanted to be in a band and now I'm doing it.

Sean Murphy: I was forced to take piano as a child. When you're at school and everybody went to break, I had to go play piano. Luckily at high school the music teacher was very hot so I liked it a lot more.

Tulsa Pittaway: I had two older brothers and my dad played music so I was pretty involved from an early age and steered in that direction.

PP: It kind of finds you in a weird way - it's not really a choice.

Peter, you and Sean first "found" each other at a Battle of the Bands?

PP: Yes, I was with my first band at the time - we had one rehearsal. It was funny, actually. We had the craziest guitar player.

SM: Ja, the songs were really good and there was something there - but the band were not great.

PP: Shaun saw the whole shindig go down. It was a long time ago.

The two of you went on to form Evolver - how have things changed since the early days of the band?

SM: We focus on the fun aspect of the show and we stopped focusing on the fun aspect of the partying. We don't drink when we do shows and we don't drink on the day, so if you have consecutive shows you have a very sober band. For us the focus is the good time we have on stage - we all know we're in the same headspace, it works a lot better that way, the sound's a lot better than if we're smashed.

PP: I think we've done that. We started out, as when you start a band, the whole idea is sex, alcohol, rock 'n roll, but along the way you start fighting more as individuals with hangovers. Spending a lot of time on the road just drinking every night takes its toll. It's very difficult, and at the end of the day you're going around the country to put on a show - it's all about the show really and, if you're not feeling 100 percent great, you can't really put on a good show.

We've realised that people are coming out to see us perform, not to see what happens after the show. Everything is about that hour you have on stage, so you want to be prepared for that, you want to give people a reason to come back to your show. They're not going to come back if you’re hungover and can't play.

So we've definitely implemented that professionalism into the band so that everything revolves around that hour we have on the stage. We give it all, and then to be able to carry that across to the next day and the next day and try to keep that consistency.

The band line-up has also stayed consistent – especially for a South African band.

SM: I think that's due to the mature approach we've been taking, otherwise the band would have broken up. But at the same time it's about finding the right guys to do it with. Initially we went through quite a number of different guys but the reason was we accepted people who didn't really want to play in a band - they just wanted to be rock stars. Whereas the guys in the band now are all level-headed and able to roll with the punches and are dedicated to what we can become.

PP: That's the big thing: nothing runs according to plan. You have to be able to bob and weave and just roll yourself around all the obstacles that come your way. From the smallest things - like cars breaking down so you have to stay over somewhere you don't really want to - you can't let that mess up your momentum, you have to just keep going. And whatever comes your way, you just have to know that you're doing it for the right reasons.

Being in a band, when the magic's happening, it's all magic and you're together in a room and everything's tremendous and you're creating magic vibes. But then to stay like that - four people just doing music - is almost a miracle.

You've got to think out of the box all the time as well – you have to present yourself as a band as something fresh the next time you bring out an album, you can't just stick on the same thing you did last year. So there are a whole bunch of different elements you have to keep thinking of all the time. Being independent, we book our own shows, we basically book the whole tour so there's not somebody telling us where to go - that's all internal. It's a lot of work.

What's been the biggest punch to dodge this year?

PP: There's always little things.

SM: We've put a plan in place for this year and so far everything's gone to plan. There are things we wanted to happen and actually things are going better.

PP: I think it helped that we actually planned it, whereas three years ago a lot of the problems would have been the result of not planning or being ready for something. We threw out those faults, those little flaws. We straightened ourselves out.

SM: I think the biggest stumbling block is that we didn't plan, whereas this time around we did plan and making forecasts is very important, even if you're playing in a band. If you don't do it, you are going to hit massive stumbling blocks and you're just going to be wondering why it never went the way you wanted it to - it's because it's a very focus-driven thing.

PP: A lot of it was also due to leaving things to other people. Whereas now we're all hands on, which has made a difference.

TP: That's also part of the reason of deciding to take more control. If you're with a label and their focus isn’t on you, you can fall through the cracks and there's not much you can do.

The other big change has been the band's name.

SM: It's more of a name upgrade than a name change. We wanted to keep the Evolver portion so that the South African guys wouldn't completely lose touch with us - all of the work we'd done in the past would have disappeared if we completely changed the name. But obviously there are other products and bands around the world with the name 'Evolver' so that's why we decided to change.

And the 'One' is significant to us: we've changed the focus - with the no drinking and the focus on the band - and we wanted to spread the positive energy to the fans in South Africa. So the 'One' represents us coming together and for the general optimism in the country. We also do a lot of charity work and we try to give back as much as we can, whereas we didn't do that in the past. It was all about having a good time.

In terms of giving back, your lyrics are also quite uplifting.

PP: I think I've always tried to write positive lyrics - they could deal with harsh situations but I always try to shed a positive side to it. With the lyrics there's obviously a lot of rewriting - they're not from the original manuscripts, so to say - but I take inspiration from everything that's around me, and everything isn't as dark and gloomy as you may perceive it.

Along with the name upgrade, you've changed your sound.

SM: We wanted to grow, and having guitars and keyboards in the band we have a unique situation where we could carry on sounding very '70s rock - or we could do whatever we liked. So we dropped all the vintage analogue sounds I was using and went for a lot of synths. And when we got in touch with Nathan Winkler, who produced the album, he drove us crazy with different synth sounds. We sat for days going through different options. But it actually worked.

TP: You've got to evolve or what's the point? You can't just put the same album out 12 times.

PP: Unless you're Nickelback...