What was the most liberating thing about becoming Bob Evans?<\/p>\n
I think just the ability to step outside the confines of a four-piece rock\u2019n\u2019roll band, you know. Jebediah does Jebediah better than anybody else, but I was becoming more and more inspired by other kinds of music, and I wanted to explore a broader range of instrumentation that just seemed difficult to get over the line with Jebediah.<\/p>\n
I appreciate you\u2019ve probably been asked this 1,000 times, but why could you not have done any of that as Kevin Mitchell?<\/p>\n
Yeah, it\u2019s a great question. Kevin Mitchell was the singer from Jebediah, and I didn\u2019t want to ever be accused of riding on the coat-tails of the band\u2019s success. It was really important for me to protect what Jebediah had that was so special. So I went out incognito.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re pushing your Bob Evans album, Suburban Songbook, for its 20th anniversary. How do you feel about that record now?<\/p>\n
I love it. It\u2019s one of the proudest things I\u2019ve ever done. From an artistic point of view, a songwriter\u2019s point of view, whatever \u2013 it\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever done.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
OK, that probably answers this question \u2013 are there any songs you wrote when you were younger that you find harder to relate to and sing now?<\/p>\n
Oh, totally. Heaps, especially with Jebs. A lot of those early songs I wrote when I was still a teenager. Teflon<\/a> is the first one that comes to mind. Such a stupid song! But even the ones that are a bit awkward, there\u2019s something endearing about it for me, because there\u2019s an honesty about it, which makes it hard to hate it.<\/p>\n What\u2019s been your most memorable interaction with a fan?<\/p>\n When Suburban Songbook came out, I got this incredible email completely out of the blue from Brad Shepherd from Hoodoo Gurus. He wrote to me saying how much he loved the record, how much his family loved it, his daughter, it was something they all enjoyed together. And it\u2019s fucking Brad Shepherd from the Gurus!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Maybe the fact that he wrote it in an email was better, because I was able to really take it in. If we had just bumped into each other at a gig or whatever, it would have been this fleeting thing, and I probably would have forgotten about it.<\/p>\n Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?<\/p>\n Oh, absolutely, yeah. I think it\u2019s far more likely, in this ever-expanding infinite cosmos, that there are other things out there than not. It\u2019s just a statistical probability. I think it\u2019s madness to think that there isn\u2019t. I\u2019m not convinced that we\u2019ve ever come in contact with them. It\u2019s possible that they\u2019ve come into contact with us. Maybe the aliens were cruising around with the dinosaurs, I don\u2019t know \u2013 but I do believe that aliens exist, yes.<\/p>\n What would you say to them?<\/p>\n I\u2019d be straight on the peace train. I\u2019d be like, dudes, I know it looks bad down here, but 90% of us are just loving, peaceful people. It\u2019s just a few bad eggs that are making us all look bad.<\/p>\n Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean, or out in space?<\/p>\n Out in space, for sure!<\/p>\n Shorts on stage. Yes or no?<\/p>\n Well, I\u2019m guilty of doing that in my younger years. It\u2019s a big no now, but yes, I committed that crime many times. I haven\u2019t worn shorts on stage for a long time. Maybe I should. I\u2019ve actually got pretty decent legs. I should probably be making the most of the few parts of my body that still look good.<\/p>\n Apart from shorts on stage, what\u2019s been your worst fashion crime?<\/p>\n Oh God. So many. The first festival we ever played was the Summersault festival<\/a>, and I wore brown jeans that I cut off into long shorts that went past my knees, just with scissors. I had this stripey T-shirt \u2013 which was OK \u2013 and then I had this weird old beanie that I put on, and I was really skinny. I looked like a condom.<\/p>\n What was the last thing you played on Spotify \u2013 or maybe another streaming service, since Spotify is basically evil<\/a>?<\/p>\n Yeah, I don\u2019t really use Spotify any more. My family have got an Apple account that we all share. I\u2019ll have a look \u2026 the La\u2019s was the last album. They only made one. Everyone knows There She Goes<\/a>, but there are some other songs on there that are just as good.<\/p>\n