FEATURED INTERVIEWS                          

Everlea

Unbridled and enthusiastically sound pop-rock. Everlea has arrived.
By: Gian Erguiza - - October 24th, 2008 - 9:08 am PST



Everlea's debut is a genuine pop-rock album with great vastness and potency. From start to finish, Everlea keeps the novelty hits coming served on a silver platter with cherries on top. Mr. Justin Dube was kind enough to answer a few questions and let us in on what he thinks about current presidential contender, John Mccain. Let's meet Everlea.

Hey Justin! Can you guys give our readers some background on how Everlea got started and your humble beginnings?

Everlea got started when the high school band that Casey, Brendan and I had played in lost a member. We replaced that member, re-evaluated our musical aspirations, and changed our name to Everlea. We've been rockin' ever since...

Nice! So How's it going Justin? What's new in the world of Everlea?

It's going good. We're about 5 hours into our 9 hour ride home to Kingston, Ontario after playing w/ Cartel in Bowling Green, Ohio last night... been using the time to catch up on some much needed sleep :) What else is new... Casey got a blackberry, I got a (very) used car, Chris got broken into (and had 4 guitars stolen), and Brendan almost cut off his finger... never a dull moment.

Geezus, you ain't lying! Hope they catch the thieves and I'm glad to know Brenand's finger is still attached! Let's talk album. Your latest release is absolutely great. What went into making this album as far as production, sound, and recording?

Lots of time, work, and patience went into making this record. The majority of the record was written almost 3 years ago?? The songs started out as demos that I recorded in my basement. I brought the demos to the band, we learned them, and then started working with producer Kirk Ellard. Kirk had produced our "friends hurt friends" E.P. and had become a very close friend and mentor to the band. He worked us really hard in pre-production, helping us focus in on subtle things like "feel". Once Kirk felt the songs were ready, we started tracking @ Sound Master Studio in Ottawa, Ontario. The studio was set up as a kind of "boutique" studio by mastering engineer David Cain. David had acquired a great collection of vintage mics and mic pres, so we spent a good amount of time experimenting with different sounds before actually recording, trying to find the perfect combination (of mic w/ mic pre) for my voice, our acoustic guitars, drums, etc...

Once tracking was finished, we had planned to have our friend (Jay Ruston) mix the record out in L.A. He had helped us out with the mix for "friends hurt friends" and we were really stoked on his work, but he was just super busy, getting bigger and bigger projects, and our record kept getting bumped back, so David Cain (who engineered our record) offered to do the mix. However, David also turned out to be very busy, and again deadlines were missed. So yeah, even though tracking had been wrapped since March of 2006, we didn't have a finished record until April of 2007. We then released the original version of the record ourselves, in May of 2007.

Shortly after releasing the record we caught the attention of Glassnote Records, in NYC. We did some showcases that summer (summer of 2007) and ended up signing with Glassnote in September, 2007. Almost immediately after signing with Glassnote, they sent us to Baltimore to rework the record with producer Brian McTernan. Brian owns his own state of the art recording studio (called "salad days") that has a living space for bands. Being able to actually live at the studio was amazing, it was the first time during the whole process that we were able to devote all of our attention exclusively to recording.

Working with Brian was a dream. He helped us de-construct our songs, having us re-write parts to make sure the everything was the best it could be. He's all about trying everything and anything, which was really different for us, but also very exciting. We made use of the amazing sound of his live room to re-track the drums for the entire record. We also redid a bunch of the bass, and even re-recorded a few of the songs from scratch with Brian. When we were finished tracking (for the second time), Brian re-mixed the entire record, and then sent it to NYC to be mastered.

Whew, sounds like some work alright! Now listening to the album closely, I can tell that a lot of hard work went into making this record. What was the most challenging aspect of putting this record together or getting this record done?

Well, as you can see from the previous question, the whole recording process was spread out over a considerably long period of time. I think one of the most challenging aspects of putting the record together was maintaining the vision we had for the record when we had started working on the songs, way back in 2006. There were a number of problems we ran into during the course of the recording, namely keeping the member lineup intact.

"In my opinion, if Americans are crazy enough to vote for McCain, then they probably deserve the mess they'll be getting. Some of the things John McCain said were completely ridiculous, his train of thought is just so random and hard to follow"

After we finished the initial round of tracking, before signing to Glassnote, our drummer, Brendan, decided to leave the band. It took almost 3 months before we found another drummer, Dan, who joined in Nov, 2006. Things were going well with him, but then just before releasing the record ourselves, in May 2007, he decided to leave to pursue academics. Luckily, Brendan rejoined just in time for our 2007 CD release tour. Then, after signing with Glassnote, and returning from our sessions in Baltimore, we were faced with another line-up change. Our old bass player, James, decided to leave the band in February of this year. It wasn't until April that we found our current bass player, Chris. So yeah, as you can imagine, it was hard not to get discouraged with the amount of time it took to make the record, and the difficulties we had with lineup changes. Maintaining the vision of the record we had started out with was challenging, but I think we were able to do accomplish what we set out to do.

Most definitely. What's the songwriting process like for you guys? Where do you guys derive inspiration from when songwriting?

Most of our songs start out as quirky little snippets or song ideas that I record in my project studio. I then present the song, in varying stages of completion, to the band and we learn/finish it. Most of the inspiration for our songs come from life, with more attention to the struggles/frustrations that ppl deal with. For instance, I wrote our current record during a transitional period in my life, so most of the songs deal with the feelings that accompany change -- the conflict between old and new, trying to move forward while at the same time being anchored in the past. In the future, I'm hoping to derive inspiration from a more diverse field of experiences... try writing outside of myself, tell stories that aren't necessarily my own

Has the album met or exceeded you guys' expectations so far?

Haha, personally, I think it depends on when I'm listening to it... if I haven't heard the record in a long time I can be surprised by how great it sounds... but much of the time I'm too close to it, and I start nitpicking and finding things I'd like to improve. How the record has been received by the public so far has definitely exceeded my expectations. We've been able to connect with a lot of ppl in ways I didn't expect we would, it's great

What's the significance in the name Everlea?

Well, we had a bad band name, then decided to change it... to a slightly better band name :P and to something that we thought would better represent our sound. We went with the name everlea because we felt it had a melodic/musical sounding quality to it, which we also felt suited the sound of our music. For me, changing our name to everlea was significant because it marked the change from being in a "high school band" to being in band that took music more seriously. The change marks when we decided to actually try to make a career out of music.

The musical landscape is changing everyday with the arrival of new bands to the scene. Where does Everlea fit into the equation in this vast musical landscape and what are you guys' thoughts on the music scene as a whole as of recent?

I'm not sure exactly where we fit in. Our focus isn't on a specific area of music, or scene, it's more on just writing the best songs we can. I think when bands focus on writing great songs, they have a better chance of transcending the musical "boxes" that people use to categorize music. So while I'm sure we will get lumped into a scene, it's my hope that our songs are strong enough to appeal to all fans of music. It's a bit idealistic, but we might as well try, right? :P

Let's take a detour here. Liam Gallagher of Oasis recently suffered broken ribs and some other injuries due to an irate fan jumping onstage and shoving him down into his monitor. What in your guys' opinion can venues, bands, or promoters do to keep the safety factor in place at all times?

I think as long as people are decent to one another, use common sense, and try to have a good time then we should be ok.

Great answer. Keeping up with politics guys? Any thoughts on what's happening in the presidential race?

I do keep up with politics... and unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Canada is also in the midst of a federal election. So while I've been following our own election here at home, the US presidential election is proving to be much more interesting. I watched the presidential debates the other night. It was the first time I really had the chance to see Obama and McCain in action. In my opinion, if Americans are crazy enough to vote for McCain, then they probably deserve the mess they'll be getting. Some of the things John McCain said were completely ridiculous, his train of thought is just so random and hard to follow... are South Koreans really 3 inches taller than North Koreans? And if they are, what relevance does that have to anything? ... John McCain is nuts.

Let's pick your brains. Give me the 5 best rock phrases or the 5 best rock albums of all time?

I don't know if these are the best rock records of all time, but in my lifetime, these are records that have had a huge influence on me:

Weezer - Pinkerton (such a bad ass sounding record)
Nirvana - Nevermind
Radiohead - Kid A (for most, OK Computer is the seminal radiohead record, but for me, Kid A is when radiohead really took it to the next level.)
The Beatles - white album (I found this record (vinyl) in my basement when I was in grade 7. My elementary school were kind enough to give me an old record player that year, so I spent the whole summer vacation listening to that record, it really got me into the beatles.)
Hum - You'd Prefer an Astronaut (such an underrated band)

It's really hard to choose just 5, but these were the first 5 that came to mind :)

Do you guys ever pay attention to the charts or what's happening on the radio?

Not really. I listen to CBC radio, which is the Canadian Equivalent to NPR..except for that CBC is like, 10 times better :P

Everlea thinks that __________________________ are beautiful.

Kittens

What else is in store for the rest of 2008, going into 2009 for Everlea?

Hopefully touring, and when we're not touring, writing. We're gonna start working on a video for cigarettes... hopefully we'll get that out before Christmas.

Awesome! Any additional comments or shout-outs?

Check out our online home videos. Casey (our guitar player) is a genius with the camera. We shoot and post random home videos/webisodes every Wednesday. Check it, like it, love it.

Thanks Justin and keep up the good work!



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