Today we’d like to introduce you to Evander
Hi Evander, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My name is evander, and I’m a singer-songwriter, guitarist, and music producer.
I spent my adolescence in Sacramento splitting my time between playing guitar and doing high-level competitive gymnastics. Originally, gymnastics was my main focus, and music was more of a fun creative outlet. For middle school and high school, I attended a performing arts-focused school, but I never truly devoted myself to music until I developed severe depression around age sixteen. I was able to channel my mental health struggles into writing fingerstyle music for guitar, and I haven’t looked back since. Honestly, I felt that music had saved my life, so I decided to devote my life to music. Seemed only fair.
After I graduated high school in 2016, I moved to Southern California to study music at UCLA, where I received the university’s top scholarship (Regents Scholarship) for my guitar playing. In college, I decided I wanted to learn to sing, so I joined choirs and attended a bunch of open mics. Then, I started writing songs, mostly gravitating towards pop-country, which is nothing like the pop music I currently make.
Living in LA, I tried to really put myself out there and take advantage of every musical and networking opportunity I could find. Through this, I found myself working as a studio guitarist and freelance songwriter. As a writer, I would get called into recording sessions to help artists and producers write songs, so I was able to meet and connect with a variety of people in the industry.
Utilizing these connections, I got the opportunity to record three debut country singles at the Universal Music Group recording studios in early 2020. Unfortunately, partway through rounds of drafts of production on my songs, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Recording studios shut down, my songs were abandoned, and I had to move back to Sacramento during my senior year of college.
Living back in my childhood home, I decided to learn to produce music myself. Through producing, I fell in love with hip-hop, R&B, and pop music, so I decided to completely change directions musically. After a few years of writing new songs and honing my production skills, I moved back to LA and reached out to some of my old connections. As a result, I was able to land a distribution deal with Bungalo Records/Universal Music Group. Currently, I’m working with the renowned Paul Ring to market and release a string of singles and music videos through that deal.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely has not been a smooth road! The old cliche is right — the journey to any amount of success in the music industry is riddled with rejection and struggles. I’ve been rejected more times than I can remember, and through the years, many “exciting” opportunities ended up leading to nothing. As an artist, it’s definitely important to always keep your head up.
Like I said, my biggest industry setback was the COVID-19 pandemic. I had to abandon the progress I had made in my music career in LA and move back to my parents’ house in Sacramento. All the shows I was playing were canceled, and all the music I had been working on was left unfinished. I spent a few years feeling somewhat lost. But through this struggle, I was able to find new direction, and I ended up spending the pandemic learning to produce music. This led me to my current project, so, in a weird way, I feel thankful for this struggle.
Another struggle for me over the years has been dealing with my mental health problems. I’ve been treating my depression since I was a teenager. It’s something I’ll always have to deal with at some level, and it goes through varying waves of intensity. But as an adult, I’m much more adept at dealing with it than I was when I was a teenager. At times, my depression has been a massive challenge, but at other times, it has acted as potent fuel for my creativity. The topic of mental health is a through-line in my current music. All my songs talk about it in some way.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
These days, I mostly write, perform, and produce pop music with heavy influences from R&B, hip-hop, and rock. I release my own songs, and I produce for other artists (notably Megan Jade).
I think my unique musical journey really sets me apart from other musicians in my space. First of all, guitar playing is a massive part of my musical identity. I played guitar for about ten years before I decided to learn to sing, and at this point, the guitar feels like an extension of my body and voice. Most of the songs I produce are guitar-based, and I like to use the guitar in experimental ways. For example, my song “honest.” is made almost entirely of reversed guitar recordings.
Also, my years of writing and performing country music have had a lasting impact on my music. I really love the way country emphasizes the importance of storytelling in songs. I put extensive thought into my lyrics, and I try to use them to accurately capture the intricacies of intense emotions. My songs center mostly on sad topics (mental health issues, breakups, emotional turmoil, etc.), and my hope is that they can provide a sense of catharsis to my listeners.
Out of all my work, I think I’m most proud of the song I just mentioned, “honest.” I describe it as a sonic metaphor for a relationship in retrospect. Reversed guitars and voices evoke a feeling of rewinding through memories, and the lyrics embody the chaotic waves of calm and pain that overcome you when you decide to allow a romantic flame to die.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Luck has played a huge role in my music career so far, in multiple ways. First and foremost, I’ve found that networking to form useful connections is the key to making career progress, and successful networking relies on three things: being in the right place, being there at the right time, and having a good reason for people to want to connect with you. Being in the right place and being there at the right time both require substantial doses of luck. So, while I was in college, my strategy to maximize my odds on these fronts was to go to every event I could find that was remotely music-related, however big or small, formal or informal. I basically tried to cast an extremely wide net. I prioritized this over everything else in my life, and my university studies took a back seat to me attending recording sessions and networking events. As far as giving people a good reason to want to connect with me, I always used my guitar skills as my main bargaining chip. I feel very lucky that the instrument I decided to pick up as a child is so sought-after in the current music market. As a fingerstyle guitarist, I was able to find a niche for myself accompanying artists in acoustic shows as well as writing and playing guitar parts for pop and hip-hop producers (who love featuring guitar in songs but often don’t play themselves).
Lately, luck has been playing a new and interesting role in my career. For the past nine months or so, I’ve been releasing new songs and music videos every month or two through my distribution deal with Bungalo/UMG. I’ve been focused on social media, marketing, and trying to make mysterious computer algorithms work in my favor. Social media is extremely fluid, and it’s constantly morphing and changing in terms of cultural trends and the ways platforms work on the technical side. Playing the social media game is a lot to keep up with — but it’s a lot of fun to try to figure out, and a substantial element of luck is definitely involved.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evandermusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPNgtYYlmJ6IVm2-6maaXNg
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@evandermusic
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1JYYQQAj6HOKaSBsyKtq5b
- Other: “honest.” https://evandermusic.lnk.to/honest
Image Credits
David Miller
