Meet Evan Klar...
Name: Evan Klar
Interview by Tiani Worrall
Photos by She is Aphrodite
The song “I do” was about a fictional character that breaks free from her past and moves on to a better life, do you identify with this character yourself?
I don’t think I really identify myself with her character, but I’ve used the story of her breaking free and running away from her home to then go off in to the night dancing, smiling and finding herself within a really short period of time to inspire me, as it’s the “fuck it” move forward mentality that I wasn’t so good at doing until I wrote that really simple story, which I use as a reminder to keep moving.
What was, the biggest problems you have overcame whilst creating this new track?
It’s actually been a really smooth process; I mean the thing with the song “I Do” is, I wrote it almost a year ago now. The really tough thing with music is just finishing and getting it released. I feel like I have gotten to a point now where I’m actually quite good at finishing tracks but then we’re like “Who’s gonna put it out?”, “How are we gonna put it out?”, “When should we put it out?”. Then things end up getting pushed back and that’s the main struggle I deal with. It started as a bit of a downer when I finished the track because I was like “ I don’t know if this is ever going to come out” and now it’s like the perfect time to come out because I’m not super attached to it so it’s been a really easy release for me. A problem turned good.
You recorded your reverse vocals on a mobile phone- was this for a more authentic sound?
We were in a room and it was one of them things were you just want to get an idea down and you don’t want to have to set up a microphone- it’s similar to how you would put a memo on you phone. I do that all the time in the studio and just email the voice memo across. I just dropped my friend Nicola into the track. It just sounded cool. So we ended up keeping it for verses.
What emotions were you feeling when writing the song?
To be honest I was just trying to remember the experience I had, seeing this person in Brisbane, what I thought they felt and what I felt at the time. It stuck with me, it was quite a while after that I actually wrote the song about the person. It was one of them things when we started to make the track, the feel and atmosphere of the track made me think of that story and that brought the emotion up. I think with pop music, you want things to be quite instant and quick, you want things to feel quite naïve and thought on the spot. Because of this I didn’t really have time to sort of let myself rekindle the sadness of what was felt at the time.
One of the themes of the song was an urge for change, is this a theme in your every day life?
I think it has been at times but I feel like I’m in a pretty good place at the moment. I’m working in music full time and I’m working on other people’s records, managing to fit some of my own stuff in there as well. I don’t have an urge for change because I’m really excited about everything that I’m working on.
It was said this song was produced with a broken bass guitar…. Is there a story behind this? How did you go producing with a broken bass guitar?
There isn’t a story behind it but I think it’s more like classic nerdy studio stuff where you deliberately use something that sounds shit because it sounds good. It gives a carefree sort of sound and I think we deliberately use broken things because they sound more bedroom-like I guess.
When you are listening to music on the radio do you still enjoy it?
Over the last year or so I’ve barley felt like I’ve had space to get back into music on a personal level and in my spare time. I really haven’t been listening to that much music outside of the studio because I’m hearing music all day long and I think that its had a huge affect on me in terms of my ability to enjoy music or just like any art with audio in general. Sometimes I feel like I really envy people that aren’t in the studio all day long because they have more space to really enjoy music for what it is. I’m constantly having to show music that I’m working on to other people to try to get they’re ears, ears that aren’t worn by being in the studio all day long. Every time I get a little brake if it’s a week off or something which seems to be pretty scares at the moment I’ll either be in an Uber or a friend will play a tune and I’ll really sit back and enjoy it, I haven’t done that in a few months. At the same time in my studio I’m working on an album at the moment and we are like really getting high off the record that we are creating every day, its really filling me up. It’s because of the music, because of the song writing and the artists that I’m working with that I’m really enjoying music. Music is just consuming all of me so I don’t have all of that free time for chill listening, silence is golden when I’m outside of the studio.
