Eva Under Fire In-Studio Interview with Meltdown
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00:00what's up this is eva and this is rob we're from eva under fire and we're on talking rock with
00:04meltdown right now all right we got eva and rob how you guys doing eva under fire so cool man
00:15thanks for having us in this is fun well they told me that i had to um meet this quota of people with
00:20blonde and dark hair so i thought i know the perfect person there we go see i'm just checking
00:26the box and plus you guys have a lot going on so we're gonna get into that here coming up in just
00:30a few minutes but first uh rob why don't you tell us uh kind of the gist of how you guys got started
00:35so uh we played in a previous project before for a little while and we thought we were kind of sort
00:41of done with trying it at this level and uh wait so when you say we like um myself and yeah we were
00:49done with the bar gigs yeah but like all of us respectively were from different projects okay
00:53just grinding grinding right and we ended up going to like uh uncle sam jam and running into
00:59our now rhythm guitar player chris and we're like hey let's let's get together and jam and then like
01:05that first jam session we wrote like three songs immediately which if you talk to like a lot of
01:09musicians i'll tell you like it's really hard to have that uh energy like when you first started
01:15you had a chemistry yeah and um so it worked right away and then we were just off and running and
01:21we didn't even have a band name i don't think for like the first five months we were like you know
01:27i we we immediately fell back in love but we weren't willing to call it love yet we were like
01:32let's just see how it goes you know and now we're in your studio several years later we just couldn't
01:37get away from it yeah that's right so how do you come up with the name eva under fire all right so
01:43there's i'll give you the real story so the eva part is actually a song reference you remember the band
01:48orgy from like the 90s yeah right okay so they had a they had a ballad chris is like the loudest
01:54guy in the room but he's also like a super softy heart right so he likes ballads so he was like i
01:58think it'd be cool to have like a woman's name and you know because it's a female fronted band and like
02:02i think it's really powerful stuff and so rob was like well you can't just be eva like what else is
02:07there right so didn't you do like some kind of deep dive to like figure out what yeah so me i something's
02:13always got to connect it's always got to make sense it's like i wanted a story behind the name so
02:17basically i did like a google search on the word eva and sifted through like for like two hours
02:24trying to find something that made sense what can go along with eva so i found this story about some
02:30old colony back in the middle east that rose up against their government and dominated them and
02:36over through their oppressors won their freedom and and in the text it said under fire yeah and i was
02:43like eva under five there you go there you go yeah i see how that works now yeah and so do you
02:49remember um i i know that you guys you talked about this in your bio about the uncle sam jam thing uh do
02:54you remember what bands were playing that that weekend yeah so we were there to support our other
02:59buddy who was also doing bar gigs in a band called after the tide so and and that was a person that i
03:04had jammed with since i was like 16 so we were all just there for like local support you know i think uh
03:10who was the headliner that year we weren't there for the headliner to be honest with you we look
03:14because we left after we definitely just went to like support our buddies okay i got you yeah for
03:19those that are listening outside of the area um uncle sam jam is like it's like a festival and they
03:23got carnival rides and the whole thing and but then you have a national stage band national uh band
03:28stage i should say and this year like jacqueline buck cherry played on you know that was fun so
03:32which is so cool and i was so mad that we missed those guys because we're friends with uh francis
03:36in buck cherry oh is that right yeah yeah yeah the very first professional tour that we went on
03:42buck cherry took us out for and how long ago was that that was 21 two years yeah 2021 right right
03:48out of the pandemics everything was still a little sketchy yeah but uh we did it it was interesting but
03:54we did it it was so cool though because those guys you know we talked to francis and francis is just
03:59a great vibe you know so he's telling us you know you guys this is a really important moment for rock
04:04music and to be out here and to be doing this when it's it's brand new after the world has been
04:09crazy you know he was like we're the brave hearts you know so you guys you guys are doing awesome and
04:14uh you know he's just so encouraging of the whole thing so how many dates did you do with those guys
04:19we were out for several weeks it was like three weeks uh some of the dates got canceled because of
04:25the covid stuff oh is that right i'd say um maybe 12 dates all together 12 or 15 shows something like
04:33that yeah yeah and so what was that experience like for you know um i mean this is fairly new
04:38to you then right yeah that was that was a whole different hustle i mean we're uh you know chasing
04:43their bus in a van and uh you know it's a club tour so there's like not a ton of space right and they
04:50could have they could have been you know not worried about the whoever was opening for them and it did
04:56but they were very accommodating you know every time there was like extra catering stuff or whatever you
05:02know they're like hey you know if you guys didn't grab lunch it's up there you know come on make
05:06sure that we get sound check full sound check you know no line check craziness and just like rushing
05:11us off the stage and you know um but they were they were really really cool guys and um and i think
05:16because of that it was easier for us to i've always kind of said touring is like camping because you
05:22don't have a lot of amenities but if you love it you love it right and it's uh it's just the adventure
05:26of it you know and having great personalities makes it that much more special and now that's the
05:31outside of it but talk about the stuff on the stage talk about like um when you're on that first
05:35tour nobody knows who you guys are so how do you try to win a crowd over well you know jay troy rock
05:42music's a little different because especially with us that grown up in the grind yeah and bar gigs we're
05:46used to competing for attention right we we're used to competing against the pool tables and the game
05:51that's on the tv and whatever you know so we make sure that when we go up there we genuinely have
05:57a great time we love playing live um and that's just always been a part of who we are so i think
06:02people fell in love with the energy pretty quickly even if they didn't know what songs we were doing
06:08um but we also also we'd like to throw in a cover or two because of that right especially when we're
06:13new um so what'd you guys do like crazy bitch and lit up and stuff no but you know what chris did
06:19they did pull up chris to do that song with them by the end of the tour yeah that's that's what i mean
06:23like cool personalities right um but uh what what were we where was it separate ways back then
06:28yeah we've been playing that for a while yeah like so uh you know just that's that's uh we like
06:35to try to do the songs that you're not supposed to touch just because it's kind of a fun thing for
06:39us yeah a little taboo yeah did you hear the version with uh dodgy and lizzie hale we did yes
06:43and uh and we we've actually it's funny when we got the chance to open up for them on just like
06:48a one-off date hailstorm yeah and uh so lizzie and joe were standing side stage and they're like
06:53she had instagrammed me afterwards and was like that's like my go-to karaoke song like if you do
06:58it again she's like if i would have known you i'd have crashed your set i was like first of all
07:01yeah right you just have a permanent invite to crash our set you know i said secondly uh that would
07:07be amazing um so it turns out later on she ended up doing the song with daughtry and that that
07:12was a whole different like release for them but um we did i did end up getting to sing with her
07:16um the next time we opened they did a rock show it was like super uh fun for me i love that
07:23hillstorm song it's an older one that i hadn't seen them play um so eventually we did get to sing
07:27together but yeah she loved that song too yeah lizzie's one of the best people in that whole band
07:32just the best humans yeah no doubt like truly the most incredible people yeah so you guys go on
07:38this tour with uh with buck cherry and things uh start to uh start to move a little bit for you guys
07:43what's what's your next step then what where do you go from there so we actually kind of got lucky
07:48uh there wasn't a lot of bands doing a whole lot at the time um so we landed a skillet tour and then
07:55immediately after we landed a theory of a dead man tour so we were busy for like the buck cherry tour
08:01happened like summer 21 and then skillet was fall and theory was fall slash winter so we were pretty
08:07busy that whole year yeah are you guys just touring with all the greatest people on the planet
08:10because i mean john and those guys are so nice the theory guys are from canada so they have to be
08:15nice that's the law no they're the best i mean you guys have had a had a pretty good run here yeah
08:21i can't i can't tell you how fortunate we really have been and i don't know if i i would like to
08:27believe that it's just the polarity of the universe brings great people together because we just genuinely
08:31enjoy what we do right and we just so happen to fall in with a bunch of people that also love what
08:36they do and it's been an amazing time so i don't i'm sure there's gonna be some point where we like
08:43hit a wall and it's not gonna be the greatest time ever but like i don't know it hasn't happened yet
08:47so maybe we just skip that part i had one bad experience with the theory guys you did yeah we
08:53watched the pittsburgh pittsburgh penguins win the stanley cup that was a bad experience i should have
08:58known this was sports related so one of the things that i would uh make sure i told tyler at least a
09:03couple times on tour was at the canucks suck yeah right he's from vancouver yeah very good that's
09:08yeah and by the way your pompadour is a little bit out of a little bit out of whack tonight right you
09:12might want to check that hairdo that's right i did gain a new respect for him though because he is a
09:17very talented musician yeah they're in there they're like you said they are the best people i was in
09:22vegas one time and uh dave texted me and he's like hey i'm in vegas too and he was there this wife
09:27but it's like his baby baby i'm baby like in a you know in a carrier and stuff and uh but anyways we
09:32could talk stories all day i told you i have a lot of stories but uh anyway so we're here to
09:36talk about you guys so um so now tell me about what's going on with you guys this year because
09:40you guys have a lot of stuff happening don't you yeah yeah well first of all what have you done so
09:45far we're halfway through the year and you guys have done a bunch of things i think it was just one of
09:49those like you know shake the bottle and see what happens and we got a ton of stuff right um it was
09:55this is the one year anniversary of our album love drugs and misery which was we were hanging on to
10:00with you know like claws for the whole pandemic finally got to release it so now with the one
10:05year we've got a bunch of cool stuff that's coming out on the deluxe album yeah and in order
10:09to celebrate that we were like okay well we want to stay busy what can we swindle our way onto
10:13um and the answer was like all of the festivals we got all of the festivals this year we were at
10:19incarceration all the danny wimmer festivals yeah you played all of them really well not all
10:24all all but we played a ton more than we did in previous years um what did we do upheaval
10:30incarceration so we played one day the women festival and that was uh incarceration we played
10:35rock fest and uh we got blue ridge upcoming this year oh no and then in between there we just sprinkled
10:41a bunch of dates with some friends right we've got some pop evil dates which is great we just got
10:46back from uh more people that are just terrible but go ahead i know lee is a big sweetheart right
10:52and like made sure they came out like day one and was like okay just want to make sure that you guys
10:57have the greatest time ever and then i took my sunglasses off he was like it's you because we
11:02met at district 142 before they're michigan people and so we've we've kind of like was that the first
11:06night it opened that no so they had been oh they did play they did play an acoustic set yeah first
11:13night that district opened yeah because i was i introduced him on stage so how did i not see you that
11:16night i wonder if it's kind of crazy chaotic stuff well they've they've been they've been um
11:21there are several times and we've been there several times so we just keep meeting each other
11:25and passing but right never never shared the stage together before now so we got a couple of dates
11:30with them that we did so wait a second back up for one second because you sent me that picture which
11:33was just uh from what i understand just a week or so ago wasn't it yeah yeah we just got home yeah
11:38so you saw any dates you do with them we did two before i told him i was ready to sing trenches
11:43oh okay trenches great song yes he's he did he was like uh you know we try to you know shout out
11:49our bands and stuff that that are openers for us he says so you know maybe maybe by a couple weeks in
11:53get you guys up there and and i said man you know that that'd be awesome right and i just left it
11:59alone so the next time he mentioned it i said just so you know i did i took that very seriously and i
12:04learned it so like if you wanted to i'm ready i'm ready yeah and i i had family that was going to be
12:11in town uh where they live in new orleans and we were doing the house of blues in new orleans show
12:15and he was like well if your cousins are going to be there man just come up i was like all right
12:19cool let's do that that's awesome so yeah so like night three i was up there with them so and then
12:25do you still have another like coming up yes uh we got another two or three shows with them but oh
12:30that's it i thought there was gonna be a bunch of shows so so it's it's a bunch of shows something
12:34might be in the works for later on this year okay yes yeah for right now we're it's all together it
12:39was seven seven shows okay we're manifesting more dates with them though because they're so
12:43amazing yeah and i just can't you know new friends um so it's like their festival schedule
12:49and our festival schedule is kind of like ebbs and flows right so there's pockets of like dates with
12:53different bands that we're doing in between these festival gigs which is great um because the next
12:58up is uh after three or four more pop evil shows then we got the finger 11 shows that's right yeah
13:05what yeah plug that one in district 142 yes and that's uh september six six yep yes so um and
13:12because the district 142 people love us they were like hey listen uh this local that you got on your
13:18on your show if it sells out then uh we might do a back-to-back show so so make sure that you come
13:24because uh we might party two nights in a row yeah if it works out good yeah you guys sold out a show
13:29there already once we did we were the first sold out show there which was pretty awesome i mean what a
13:33what an honor for us and and julie's been a long time friend as well yeah um so it was pretty killer
13:38so then after that uh in like october we go out with the taproot guys oh yeah more terrible people
13:46more michigan homies man i just don't know what this is it's like the summer of michiganders i don't
13:52know i am so happy for steven he's key i i watched him the other day like kind of quit his job and
13:57you know he's going out on taproot putting the band back together so good for that guy i know man it's
14:01it's been a really cool run uh you know for for us because this is just like stuff we've known
14:07even since high school and then now we're getting to meet all these people yeah like some of them
14:11are you know a lot of people are releasing new music and so i feel like we almost got that
14:16resurgence in 2020 where like a bunch of bands were coming back and then the world shut down yeah so i
14:21feel like now that the world is like living and breathing again we're seeing all these really cool
14:25bands come back together and i i love it i love it so much now the song blow obviously has put you
14:29guys on a different level and the fact that i'm a huge horror fan and have yet to see that movie
14:34i i know i can't i can't i can't believe i haven't watched it in my heart i know it i love that
14:40stuff and i can't find it i think it's only on shutter or something jackie send it to meltdown man
14:45i'll tell you so anyways but yeah so that song and then you know working with uh spencer from ice
14:52nine kills i mean so tell me about how that song kind of changed the trajectory of your life
14:57it did a full out so here we are brand new band nobody knows who we are right and the label goes
15:04i do you think spencer would want to jump on the track i was like is that an option could you just
15:09call him to do that i don't know sure so what is that no way how did i mean does he just they just
15:13pull a name out of a hat so they were both that we were both in the retaliators movie so that's how
15:18this whole thing works wait a second you're in the retaliators movie before the song we well yeah
15:22because we we needed to do all the casting for the film and that was something that the label was
15:29doing and so i was like i volunteer as tribute and i'm a big chicken so like these guys were
15:34like dead laughing at me on the floor like you're gonna be in a horror film that's not gonna happen
15:39specifically as like a zombie-esque yeah i was originally i was like all bloodied up and crazy
15:45i can't watch it anymore yeah i can't watch it period because i have nightmares but um anyway so i get in
15:50i get into this i'm like i i love i love acting and i've not gotten a chance to do it a lot but
15:55this is you know my debut so i said okay let's do it so i get involved with this movie and then
16:01spencer of course is ice nine kills intensely based in horror films right their whole that's their whole
16:08thing um they write amazing music that is horror themed but um so so he was going to be in the film
16:15and then that's when they said we want blow for the soundtrack and i was like really because
16:21that's like a a super um catchy song but it's very much not about anything horror related so i
16:28couldn't visualize it and then we got the treatment for what they were going to do in the music video
16:33i was like oh this makes way more sense i was like i kind of love this spin on this this song
16:39because i didn't envision that at all but then they said well spencer tarnas from ice nine is
16:45going to be in the movie i wonder if he'd want to jump on the song because it was going to be they
16:48knew that they wanted this to be a big push and that this was going to be our single so we said okay
16:54well i mean listen if you can get that guy you know we don't know him but the suits made their magic
16:59happen and uh and it was a wonderful thing then spencer comes back and he's like why don't we write
17:05the second verse according to my character in the film so that's how the whole thing and it was just
17:11a really cool collab but we didn't know each other and it was a weird time in the world yeah so like
17:17fast forward to the next year the first time i ever see this man in person was at welcome to rockville
17:24and i'm just i'm like literally sitting outside of the bathrooms waiting for these guys wait that
17:28was the first time you ever met him met him okay met him that wasn't like a zoom call right like a
17:33weird like thing yeah so um and i vowed from that day forward that anybody that collabed with us i
17:39was going to try to like onboard them right because it felt so strange to me that we just couldn't meet
17:43but so we're at welcome to rockville i didn't even know because the song had been released already
17:47i didn't know if he was going to know who we are or like remember from way back when right
17:51so he's walking across the little like you know uh where all the um the artist compound
17:57artist compound is right he's walking this way i'm sitting there waiting for these guys
18:01and i just kind of like wave i just hope that he remembers who i am and i don't look like an
18:06idiot and he not only waves back he points to me and he comes over and he's singing the hook
18:10i'm about to blow it was so cool it's the nicest dude ever uh we take a selfie we like it was like
18:17we commemorated this actual thing it was like it brought it into reality that this happened
18:21and he was like that's such a great song i'm so glad that you guys thought of me to come do it
18:25you know thanks again for including us and just a wonderful vibe so so now we're manifesting
18:30you know maybe a tour with those guys because that would be amazing and they're incredible
18:34humans too so well you're gonna have to you know watch more horror movies or more horror themed i
18:39mean you wouldn't even understand the references on stage i would too they have a lot of classic
18:44references i've seen those ones yeah that tour that they're gonna be coming up with uh with uh you
18:49know avatar and uh new year's day yeah in this moment that is like your nightmares come to life yes
18:56yes it is but it's so cool to watch yeah on stage like the the the actual like um i'd love in this
19:02moment and all of the different like set changes yeah they do a lot of theatrical stuff but incredible
19:07show yeah they were great last year at riff fest so speaking of uh collaborations you also have
19:12something coming out this friday as we record this correct i do i do i was just telling everybody
19:17on instagram that i was going to talk to you about having new music for you to play yeah all right so so so as
19:23we record this august 4th yes uh go ahead tell us what you got going on yes so i mentioned we're
19:28doing a deluxe version of the album right so our song unstoppable um when we were in europe with skillet
19:34hit hit the books crazy over there so they were like hey we should we should release this as a single
19:40here in the united states and i was like wow i love that idea and they said well why don't we because
19:46it's a very swing feel type song it's got a lot of like cool outlaw themes in the lyricism so they
19:53were like let's see if cory marx wants to jump on it and i was like okay now i see where you're they
19:59just have these ideas where like they see what's happening with you know artists like jelly roll
20:05artists like how you say you say you say the or they i should say is that your agents yeah well we
20:10have a lot of cool people on our team that come up with these awesome ideas right because i'm like
20:14okay here's this wonderful song unstoppable that we wrote and then their whole vision is
20:17what can we do to elevate this track even higher right because everybody loves the song and when
20:23we play it live we have a cool thing that we do in like the interlude we do like a queen we will
20:28rock you thing okay um which is super dope so so they were like look we've got we have this other
20:34uh you know maybe you should talk with cory and cory was amazing super down uh i know he's worked
20:40with you know five finger death punch and a couple other people on like some he's got that
20:44great blend of outlaw rock and roll you know but it just takes it into a little bit more of that
20:50country vibe which i kind of love um because you know us as writers we kind of take inspiration from
20:57so many different sides of music right i grew up listening to a bunch of like pop music and trying
21:02to keep up with like the christina aguileras and alicia keys of the world so it's you know nothing is
21:07off limits for us so so i love these ideas where there can be more of a blend and more of a um
21:12you know where we we have other featured artists so cory marx just made a lot of sense to me uh and
21:17then we recently did a music video together and we were like like immediately best friends like i felt
21:23like it was a stepbrothers moment do we just become best friends it was that vibe so i'm i'm so excited
21:30to see um how how that's received because i think people will love it by the way i also keep up with
21:35christina aguilera but in different kind of ways i went to a well this is not very manly of me but i
21:41went to a backstreet boys concert last year yeah man that's not very manly of you no hey we we loved
21:47it we sang along all of us right it is my daughter to see taylor swift like 10 years ago not the the
21:52most recent uh incarnation but uh that was about the oh i took my wife to see shara that's a story for
21:57another time uh but uh anyways so uh so you guys uh just pretty much gonna wrap up the year here just
22:03like uh touring you have any you have any music you're working on anything like that so i'm i'm
22:07actually excited we have uh some trips to la uh coming up in october for the next trips begin what's
22:14coming next and i'm really interested on this new stuff because like as she mentioned um you know
22:20she listened to a lot of pop music so she has like those roots so she can sing country like a
22:25carrie underwood she can rap like a cardi b she can scream you know similar to like a howard jones
22:31and she can you know obviously has a good uh clean singing voice as well so it's like i want to like
22:36manifest all these things and try to come out with something truly unique yeah isn't cardi b the one
22:42that just had something thrown at her on stage and then threw it back then she threw the microphone
22:46and there's her vocal vocals kept going now that's really a great singer when you can do that i mean
22:51that is unbelievable that's pop music for you i here's here's what i love though i love that um
22:58in rock music you can't fool rock people right rock fans are a different breed yeah they will know
23:06and they will know if it's genuine or not and that's why i think we love being at the live show so much
23:12because when we just when when there's there's the instruments and there's the vocal and then if you
23:19we've been on tour and blew our stage box and then like used adelita's ways gear because they
23:25were so kind right you mentioned we just run into the most amazing humans ever on tour right so they
23:30were like here use my pack right yeah and we got two songs in at least because of the the changeover
23:36and the crazy stuff but we you know we blew a stage box we got out there with nothing but like
23:40literally there's no metronome there's no tracks and we played two songs and people loved it and it
23:45was you know you have to be able to do that in a live setting right um and i just i love that we
23:51can i love that these guys you know attention ladies get yourselves a hype man like that guy you
23:56know they'll tell you you can do anything i'm like yes i can thank you so much but like literally like
24:01when we when it's down to the wire and we have to perform we do every time because because of uh the
24:08the the grind and the bar gigs right we've right you you up there with monitors that are like
24:12half drowned in beer right that don't work right yeah you're not a pop star yeah you're not like
24:19this pop star just came out of a factory somewhere like i should say a pop factory not like a real
24:24sure that they just churn out pop stars and they have no talent we have detroit rock roots right and
24:32that's that's saying something you know detroit rock of course you know so obviously yeah you gotta
24:37you gotta have that that kind of moxie that kind of grind and i've seen other bands that we've met
24:42along the way they all love playing here for i think that reason because yeah yeah that yeah i
24:47mean i you know i have a lot of friends and a lot of bands and they circle this date on the calendar
24:51and that's why they record live records here that's why they do all that kind of stuff live videos
24:54yes because they know my friends tell me all the time i go yeah we'll go into such and such city and
24:58people are standing there with their arms folded you know not here no not here well listen guys i i'll
25:04cut you guys loose i appreciate you guys uh coming down uh like you said september 6th
25:08with uh with the guys from finger 11 yes by the way uh trivia do you know what they were called
25:13before that i think i told you didn't i you did and i don't remember but it was monkey something
25:17rainbow butt monkeys that's it yes and i actually played them on the radio when they were called that
25:22stop i did oh so you were the original believer well i don't know about that but uh i remember
25:27auditioning for a radio station in canada and they were you know obviously they're canadian so you have
25:33to play canadian stuff so i love that rainbow butt monkey is back way back in the day way before
25:37you were even born probably i'm gonna i'm gonna have to ask for that t-shirt i'm sure they got
25:43some somewhere right you'd be like listen dude in the back of your like you know garage somewhere
25:49it's got to be like that has to exist yeah yeah so that's gonna be great so uh well good luck to
25:54you guys and uh of course they had the pop evil guys for us and uh and man a lot of stuff happening
25:58around the eva under fire camp thank you guys so much for coming in oh thank you for
26:02killing it for us i appreciate you yeah great thank you