Our reporter Estin met up with Drew, Josh and Craig of Evergreen Terrace at their recent gig at the White Rabbit in Plymouth. As well as trying to get Estin to do a press-up into Drew’s ass they also sat down for a chat about touring, recording and sidewalk moshing. Check it all out below…..
HTF – Hit The Floor
ET – Evergreen Terrace
HTF: Hey I’m Estin for Hit The Floor. We are here at the White Rabbit in Plymouth with Evergreen Terrace! How you doing guys?
ET: Good! When we got here it smelt like piss
HTF: That’s not unusual
ET: It was weird the venue smelt better than the outside. Normally it’s the opposite
HTF: Its cus we are right near a bus station with most of the plymouth down and outs
ET: That explains a lot.. bus stations and piss go hand in hand
HTF: Alot of americans seem to like the way we talk and find our slang quite funny. Whats your favourite british slang term?
ET: Any of the dialouge from shaun of the dead. Josh: I’d probably say put another shrimp on the barbie (Laughs)
HTF: Yeh i use that one all the time!
Josh: That or ARRGGHHH HELLOWWWW WELCUMMM TU SCOOOTTLANNNDDD! (Laughs)
ET: That’s what we were told the other day when we turned up in scotland by some little monster. He looked like the devil. Bloody Hell that’s pretty good. What do other bands like?
HTF: Wanker?
ET: Yeh wankers pretty good
HTF: Have you noticed much difference between the british and US audiences?
ET: Actually i noticed they are exactly the same. I think mainland Europe is alot different. Over here its very trendy from our experience which is what it’s like in the states. It’s cool to like a band if it’s cool to like a band, unlike Germany, where it’s cool to go ballistic. They just love music.
HTF: What the reaction been like on this tour?
ET: Honestly it’s 50/50. Two shows awesome….. two shows aweesssommmeee (Sarcastic) (Laughs)
For us is doesn’t matter if the crowds really into or not were super stoked to be at a different place. We were really pumped to goto scotland and say we played there and we had a blast. I dont know if they did but we did.
HTF: What’s been the funniest moment of the tour so far? You guys seem like you like to have a laugh
ET: When Craig got so drunk he turned to voilence and threw our merch guy into a thorn bush.
Craig: That was day one. I had to get it out of my system
ET: Then day two you tackled Drew to the ground
Craig: He shouldn’t have dressed that way!
ET: We went bungee jumping. That wasn’t funny that was just awesome. You know what is funny…. Tim our tour manager got so nervous that his nose just starting bleeding and then he said “You know what. When i first started having sex for the first few weeks my nose would bleed cus I got so nervous before having sex” (Laughs)
HTF: What do you guys like to do on a day off tour?
ET: Depends where in the world we are. If we are somewhere out of America its go out and find local food, get cultured, sight seeing but if it’s in America its goto the movies all day long, eat junk food and lay in a hotel. We had a day off this tour in Cologne in Germany and we went to the dome and walked up like 9 million flights of stairs and was walking round the whole town all day long. It was alot of fun.
HTF: If you were to spend your day off in plymouth what would you do?
ET: Find who’s responsible for this piss smell
HTF: Being new to Evergreen Terrace I’ve noticed theres a fusion of genres from Punk, Metal to Hardcore. When you first started out did you stick to just one or did you mix it up from the start?
ET: We just started off really bad (Laughs)
ET: We started off as punk dudes trying to playing metal and hardcore. We would write a song and then say lets write something completly different like a punk song or use this kind of riff or this kind of riff and because we all like different stuff it ended up being quite diverse.
HTF: What were your influences back in the early days?
ET: As far as heavy bands then Boy Sets Fire, Snapcase, Stretch Armstrong, Hatebreed, Poison the Well and Trial. But then bands like Good Riddance and Propagandi to U2 and Tears for Fears. Even post-hardcore stuff like Hot Water Music and Leatherface.
HTF: You have always been a very independent band and always self produced up until “Almost Home”. What was it like to hand that responsibility to someone outside?
Craig: He worked with us on the vocals, all the music was still self produced. It was more of a collaborative effort. He had some good ideas but he kinda went with the original skeleton and just tweaked a little bit here and there. I think it was a great experience I would love to work with a legitimate producer that would just come in and kinda shape a little bit cus weve always completly done it ourselfs.
Josh: When we went in to record, all the music was self produced ,and we went to Jason Suecof for the lyrics, but we treated it like any other record and already had all our melodys and everything completly prepared. Then when we got there he was just like “Oh! you should try this crazy harmony” and then Craigs like “Ahhhhh!” and then we were like “Yeh that sounds great” . So it was cool because he had more knowledge on ideas than we did. Craig: He also mixed the record and he was the first person that weve worked with that was actually from the scene and was familiar with the music and style so that was refreshing as most other people were just engineers, like just rock engineers, and just kinda let us do whatever.
HTF: You have five albums now. How do you decide your setlists for shows?
ET: It’s tough! Its usually based on the age of people at the shows. We arnt gonna play anything off our first record because if you were into it when you were 18 your 28 now and have kids and jobs and shit like that. We usually try to put something in from every record but especially the last 3 because I think that most of our fanbase that is still currently coming out is from the last 3 records so from 2005 to now. Plus with the last 3 records were figuing ourselfs out as far as the indentify of the band, the sound goes and I think weve evolved to the point where we wanna play the songs that represent the band the best
HTF: I noticed Josh online doing something with sidewalk moshing? I was pissing myself for a good hour when I saw that. Have you been doing that at all this tour?
Josh: No but if you wanna show me some moves? (Laughs)
HTF: You were asking people if they have ever practiced a mosh move at home infront of a mirror. Have you ever done that yourself? Im ashamed to admit I have!
Josh: Everyone has! Ive been in a room with my friends, 14 years old and start moshing around but I was never a mosher. Drew and I were always like circle pitters and stage divers so I never really went in my room and practiced them.
Craig: I poggo’d once at a Reel Big Fish concert. That’s the extent of my moshing. Never skanked though
HTF: It’s been brilliant talking to you guys tonight. Have a great set!
ET: Thanks for coming to see us!
Interviewer: Estin Micklewright
