The Evil Beat Questioned

The Evil Beat are a five piece Trip hop/rock band based in Bristol. The band started in 2007 in Lancaster and moved to Bristol in early 2009. Their influences range from Deftones, Tool to Bat for Lashes.

Alex Greenwood (AG)
Aaron Mulheron (AM)
Craig Fletcher (CF)
Natalie Bennett (NB)

Band Background

How and why did you get started?

AG: I met all the guys at the same time, although Aaron was the first person I jammed with.
AM: We started playing for no reason. We bought Andy a drum kit and had this idea of who we wanted to play in the band but not to be a band and just jam. So we used to go round Andy’s and make a racket. We just all used to play our own thing in the same room.

How did you find it joining an already existing band?

NB: I don’t ever feel like it was a problem that they all knew each other. They talk about a lot of stuff about their past that I don’t know about but I’ve never felt excluded.

How did you find the move to Bristol?

NB: It was hard at first to know where to play. In Lancaster, because it was so small, it was quite easy to figure out the places to play. Aaron got our first gig in Bristol when he met someone on a night out who needed support for a gig. That’s how we played Mr Wolfs for the first time.

What things are most important to the band?

AM: I know a lot of bands think the same but I genuinely think it’s a unique sound. I’m always trying to find albums I like but they can never quite hit the spot and I feel I’m trying to make that album because I can’t find it.
AG: I would love to write music that people genuinely respect. Not just like, but get real plaudits for it.
NB: I really want to write something that I am genuinely excited about and that someone else could be equally excited about who isn’t in the band.

Do you all have similar influences as a whole or do you all bring your own individual influences to the table?

AG: The four of us apart from Natalie all have very similar influences of mainly rock and metal.
NB: Since I’ve been with the band I think my music tastes have changed slightly. Generally I think I am quite open and wouldn’t fall into one genre. I like knowing about as much music as possible. As a female vocalist I tend to enjoy female vocalists.
AG: We wouldn’t have the unique sound if we had found a singer with exactly the same influences as us. It was totally vital to us.

Creative Process

Do you have a set process of song writing?

AM: When we start a song, everything is writing individually and we get two thirds of the way through the song and we come together as a band to finish it.

How long do your songs generally take finish?

ALL: Years. (Laughs)
NB: We are constantly editing even when we think we have finished a song.
CF: We can’t finish songs. We keep thinking we can make them better and do a better job.
AM: It shouldn’t be a factory process. I think its good that every idea should be unique and take a different amount of development.

Is there a lead songwriter?

AG: I always prefer bands that are collaborative. You are probably going to get better ideas. There’s more quality control, which is why our songs take so long to get written because we are all perfectionists.

How do you develop your lyrics? Do you go for melody over words or the other way around?

NB: The majority of the time I have lyrics before melody. The words really help me create the melody, as I know what the tone needs to be.

Recording

What are your future plans in regards to recording?

AG: I think we are a band that could benefit from sounding heavily produced. Being very polished and with lots of layers. There’s a difference between having a raw, rough, live sound in recordings and just making mistakes.

Gigging

How do you find gigging in Bristol compared to Lancaster?

AG: Lancaster has so few venues and has quite a good music scene so it’s easy to get people to go to your gigs. In Bristol there is a lot of venues and there’s always gigs going on and if you haven’t got a name for yourself its hard to get people to come.
CF: There’s more competition than in Lancaster.
NB: Its bigger and harder.

You have a unique live stage show. Can you describe it and the reasons for it?

AM: We dress up like skeletons (Laughs)
NB: We got to the point where we thought it wasn’t working for us in Bristol. We saw it as a way of branding ourselves and communicating our music in another way. It’s a way of making it about performance and something visually attractive.
AG: Skeletons is quite neutral. People aren’t going to recognise our genre from it.
AM: Its not happy music we make and some people don’t know how to react to that so we have that visual element for them to take in.

Future Plans

What are your immediate plans for The Evil Beat?

AM: We want to make something visual so that people know what to expect from our live show. Something accessible to a lot more people. Like a performance video in a studio.
NB: I’m looking forward to writing together as a band.
AM: Because of it being such a different creative process, the product might be quite different.

Are you looking to have any change of direction musically in the future?

AG: It’s too early to say that. We haven’t finished our first set of songs yet. We are all writing the music we want to write.
NB: I think we are writing in the direction we want to be going.
AM: All of our songs unintentionally fit a certain mould and it would be nice to break that mould.

What do you find the biggest challenge for bands like yourself?

AG: Getting a name for yourself.
AM: We get told by promoters that they don’t know who to put us with. If we were a punk band we could go on any punk bill. I guess it would be easier.
AG: Its hard being a band in a city where its very dj and electronic orientated.

What do you think would help you overcome those challenges?

AM: Putting a donk on it. (LAUGHS)
NB: We sometimes don’t put enough effort into the promotion side.
AM: We had the right idea with one of our recent gigs where all the bands had female vocalists. It gives people a real reason to come and see these unknown bands.