’90s rock band to release a new album after nine years

Believe it or not, this year was the first time Eve 6 performed at South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW). The band that brought us the sing-alongs “Inside Out” and “Here’s to the Night” has played in Austin before, but never during the week-long festival. Eve 6 chatted with UWeekly during SXSW to discuss the upcoming album Speak in Code, which comes out April 24, and how fans welcomed them back after nine years of not hearing from this rock trio.

First of all, what brought you back together?

Tony Fagenson: We were walking down the street and I saw Max on the other side of the street and I saw Jon behind me.

Max Collins: What was I wearing?

TF: You were wearing your Speedo backpack which is full of speedos. (Max then turns around to reveal his Speedo backpack.) We came together and it was this glorious moment, like The Sound of Music. We started dancing, and we decided to be a band again. We’d spent some time off and done other projects. The name of the band had stayed out there. There were a lot of people out there that still seemed to like the band and were interested in hearing some new music from us. We thought, hey, let’s do this. Let’s get back together and make music again. It’s been a really good thing, so it’s just the timing was right for it.

When you first played together after your hiatus, did that come quickly for you or was it getting used to each other again? What was that like?

Jon Siebels: It was easy once we got into the room and started playing, I think, for me anyway. Once we jammed through some of the old songs and everything, it was like, oh, there it is.

MC: It did, and this record has a group of songs that were amassed over the last few years, and it also has a group that’s brand new that kind of happened when Jon reentered the band and we became the original three again. So it was definitely an inspiring thing and we got to work.

So writing the album came pretty quickly?

MC: Yeah, well I think the more recent section after Jon came back in was very quick. It kind of had to be. He came in not that long before we went into the record. Then the songs before that, some of them are older, some of them are newer, and we were able to take more time with them here and there.

You released your single “Victoria.” What was the response you got with that single and were you surprised by it?

TF: I don’t know. I feel that it’s very different now with the way the internet works. The outlets are just totally different now. There are a lot of other places that people hear about it and stuff, so that’s something that’s different now. But so far, the response has been good. We like to sit there and look on Twitter and see what people say about it. I don’t know. It’s been good.

JS: That’s a really cool thing about putting out a new record after so many years of not doing that, because you really get to see the cool stuff that’s going on in the world and being able to really interact with our fans through Twitter, through Facebook. It’s great seeing the instant response, especially when it’s generally good.

You had mentioned the new technology now. When “Inside Out” came out, we didn’t have Facebook and Twitter then. So when that started coming out, how did you approach it? Did you welcome it immediately?

MC: I feel like that’s one of the reasons that sort of allowed for the band name and the music to stay out there when we were virtually inactive for awhile. So we’re definitely grateful for that. There was this word-of-mouth stuff that could happen and access to our music without us having to facilitate it, which is kind of amazing. We were surprised when, after a few years of not doing this, we went out and started to play shows again, the reception was awesome, and there were younger kids at the shows. So it’s been really helpful, I think, to the band.

TF: Yeah, I kind of grew up as a computer geek anyway so it’s great that it’s all caught up to that. We’re so attached to technology and computers now as a culture, and it’s great to be able to use that as a tool to help promote your band and again interact with fans. So the tools out there are really great right now, and we definitely jump at every opportunity to use them.

JS: And the fans are able to interact with each other, too, which is cool. They got their own little community going on, and they talk to each other on our websites and stuff like that. They talk about Eve 6 online, so it’s cool.

How much are you engaged with the interaction with your fans?

TF: I think anyone that reads Max’s tweets that knows Max knows that it has to be him doing the tweeting personally. No intern is coming up with that stuff. We read a lot of our tweets and our mentions. We’re the ones behind our personal twitters and everything, so we like to be hands-on as much as we can, within reason. I mean, we can’t answer every single question, but we try to be as informative as we can and let people know that they are actually speaking to us, that we are interacting with them, and seeing what they’re thinking, and we appreciate it all.

Sarah Vasquez