By their own admission, Evol Walks got lucky.
Finding themselves on the bill for the 2015 Woodstock Festival in Poland was remarkable enough, but when they saw what time they would be performing – and caught a glimpse of the size of the crowd – things were knocked up a gear. With their EP The Other Side offering a glimpse of the band’s evolving sound, and a national tour underway, there’s really no better time to get acquainted with Australia’s dark horse rock stars.
“I sort of see why they call us that,” says lead singer Leah Martin-Brown. “In everything we do, I feel we’re kind of the dark horse. We’re playing classic rock’n’roll, which is a bit different these days, and we’re also female-fronted. There are a lot of female-fronted bands [but] the kind of rock we’re playing is usually male-dominated. The songs are usually about heart-breaking women, things like that. So we’re coming from this position of, ‘I’m the girl that they were singing about all those years ago.’”
Martin-Brown laughs. “Also, people don’t expect it, because we’re still so young. At Woodstock, no-one knew who we were, since we were there with these huge, established bands. Even the lesser-known bands were huge in Europe, so the fact we were on the main stage with this really good timeslot, people were like, ‘Whaaat?’”
By anyone’s estimation, Evol Walks’ trajectory has been the stuff of lucid dreams. They have shared the stage with Vampire Weekend and the Chili Peppers, and even supported those bastions of ’90s alt-rock, The Presidents Of The United States Of America. Consequently, they are no strangers to significant audiences. Yet at Woodstock, they found themselves faced by crowds of epic proportions.
“We played in front of 200,000 people,” says Martin-Brown. “We were on at about quarter to six or something, and by the end of the night they were reporting there were over 700,000 people there. It’s funny, I walked side stage to get an idea of just how many people were there, and had a little ‘Oh my God’ moment. And on top of that, I then remembered that this whole thing was being filmed, so if I fucked this up, everyone is going to see it forever. So I was a bit nervous, but you just put on your game face, and when I walked out with the boys, it was… there was nothing like it. All these people who are there to see you! Everything else falls away, you’re suddenly just there to give these people the show they came to see.”
Since returning home, Martin-Brown has at last found time to wind down, take a breath and fix her sights once again to writing. Evol Walks’ intention had been to spend their European downtime writing material for their LP, but their adventures proved too distracting. For now, we must remain content with the EP offering just a taste of things to come.
“We didn’t… quite… get anything done,” she says haltingly, and laughs. “Just before we left, we did some work, we wrote two songs. Now I’m back home, I’ve got some time before the next tour to get some writing done. I’ve been on tour before and it’s been hectic, but there’s always been some downtime. Not this time. But I definitely think The Other Side is an indication of the direction the band is going. I’ve always really been into writing things that are a little bit darker, so I think the album is going to have that darkness, but still be fun rock’n’roll.”
The Other Side byEvolWalksis out now independently and they play Frankie’s Pizza on Thursday October 8.
