Evaline… Respec’
Interview: Evaline
Published on June 13th, 2012 | Jonny Abrams
“There There” by Californian rockers Evaline has been chosen as the soundtrack to UEFA’s newest Respect* campaign promoting the positive message of diversity in the world of football.
The advert featuring the song is to be played multiple times daily on each network that has bought the TV broadcast rights to show Euro 2012 matches, as well as constantly at the stadiums of every EURO game. In addition, it will be shown at all Fanzones in the host cities in Poland and Ukraine. According to UEFA, Euro 2008 was broadcast around the world to a cumulative global TV audience of 6.6 billion viewers.
Chances are, then, that an awful lot of people are going to hear “There There” over the next few weeks, so Rocksucker caught up with Evaline’s bassist Steve Pedersen for a quick natter about it all. First, though, check out the song’s official video…
…and of course the Respect advert on which it features…
Congratulations on being chosen to soundtrack the Respect campaign! How did it come about?
We’ve had our music on quite a few sports events over the last couple of years because are management are good at that kind of thing. They managed to get the song into the right hands. We were strung along for a couple of months not sure whether it was going to happen or not, so we’re very excited that it’s worked out.
How does it feel to think that billions of people could have heard your song by the end of the tournament?
It’s really hard to imagine that number of people! (Laughs) It’s the best thing we could ever want for our music, for it to reach that many people. Even if one per cent of them like it, that’s still a huge number of people.
Have you already noticed a swell in your fan base off the back of it?
Yeah, we’ve been trying to keep up with the statistics and we’ve definitely noticed more action on our online presences.
What’s next on the agenda for you guys? Are you playing any festivals this summer?
I wish we were playing festivals this summer! We’re actually looking into getting onto some of the big European festivals later in the summer. We have a show confirmed in Greece actually, for September I think, and we’re going to line up some more European shows around that date, like in Russia. It looks like we’ll be touring until the end of the summer. Right now we’re writing our second album and it’s going really well. We’re really excited about the music to come. It’s a long process because the band members live all around California.
Do you know yet if you’ll record the album with Quinn Allman of The Used again?
It’s always a possibility. We haven’t really communicated with him on that so we don’t really know yet. We’ve talked about the idea of doing it ourselves but the more we do the more we realise a producer would be helpful!
It’s a big workload.
Yeah, it is.
Do you still keep in touch with your old tour buddies Placebo? If so, do you know what they’re up to at the moment?
Yeah, I think they’re working on a new album in Barcelona right now. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say that or not! We do keep in touch – their drummer [Steve Forrest] is a really good friend of mine and of the band, and hopefully we’ll do more shows with Placebo in the future.
You guys have had some fantastic support slots. Which ones have stood out for you?
Well Placebo is definitely number one for us, but yeah we’ve been very fortunate with our support slots. Some of our other favourites have been Linkin Park, a small club show tour we did with Apocalyptica, and some of the festivals we’ve done – there were a lot of big names on last year’s festival circuit. We’ve done Neon Trees, another good band called Civil Twilight…I’m sure there are some important ones I’ll forget to mention, but we’ve been really fortunate and we’re always grateful to get to make friends with all these bands! We try to be respectful and pump up the crowd, get them ready for the headline band, and in doing so we make all these fans so it’s a win-win situation.
Are there any up-and-coming bands you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?
Yeah, there’s a band from California called Atlas who are doing really good things, as well as a band from South Dakota called Avian Sunrise.
Finally, if you had to spend the rest of your life with the back catalogues of just five different musical artists, whose would you choose?
Radiohead, Sigur Rós…(mulls it over)…I can’t think of any others right now so I’ll just stick with those two. As soon as I get off the phone they’ll come flooding to me!
Steve Pedersen, thank you.
“There There” is available on iTunes as a single download or as one of the tracks of the band’s debut album Woven Material, which is out now on Riverman Records – click here to buy the album on iTunes. For more information, including a list of live dates, please visit weareevaline.com
*”Respect at EURO highlights UEFA’s continuous commitment to combat any form of discrimination, increase access for fans with disabilities, promote health through physical activity and encourage intercultural dialogue between fans and the host cities.” Michel Platini, President UEFA.
About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
