Few bands’ horizons looked better than Eve 6’s did back in the late ’90s and early ’00s. The alt-rock outfit enjoyed a major-label record deal, a platinum album and smash singles in “Inside Out” and “Here’s to the Night.”
Then, ironically enough, things fell into a “beautiful oblivion.”
Sales of its third, heavier release, 2003’s It’s All in Your Head tanked, so Eve 6 was dropped from RCA. With front man Max Collins openly struggling to go sober, the band soon went on an indefinite hiatus.
“We all sort of needed that time to stretch out creatively and personally,” guitarist Jon Siebels said. “Being that we were so young, we ended up in the Eve 6 bubble right off the bat and just stayed there. It was nice to grow — musically and personally — into individuals and have our own identities.”
Several side projects later, Collins and drummer Tony Fagenson reformed Eve 6 in 2007 for occasional shows, and Siebels rejoined last year, prompting a full reunion tour and a new record, Speak in Code, due April 24.
The guys were somewhat surprised that the emergence of the Internet after their demise sustained a demand.
“There’s still this huge crop of fans,” Siebels said. “People showed they still cared, and there was this opportunity to be out there, still doing what we love.”
To record Speak in Code, Eve 6 found a better fit in Fearless Records and opted to work with producer Don Gilmore (Pearl Jam, Linkin Park), who helmed the act’s first two discs.
“We used our original formula.
I’m happy to have made, again, a real album, from top to bottom. It sounds like us,” Siebels said. “It’s an Eve 6 record that’s not just about one song.”
Although sonically, Code most closely relates to 2000’s Horrorscope, the band is quick to note it’s not a carbon copy, either.
“It’s a natural evolution,” Siebels said. “We have more programmed, synth-type elements, but at the core of it, it’s drums, bass and guitar, while branching out to find new sounds. It’s going to be familiar, but feel like progression as well. It was a nice happy medium. It won’t be like, ‘Whoa. What happened to Eve 6?’”
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2012.