Evership
There are numerous routes to captaining a progressive rock band. Shane Atkinson’s voyage to Evership is one of the less conventional ones…
Introducing this talented US prog duo from Tennessee.
Having grown up with a father in the American military, Evership keyboardist Shane Atkinson’s childhood was itinerant and consequently frequently solitary. “As a military kid I moved every two years, so it was very difficult to make relationships. I really didn’t have any friends. There’s a song on Evership II called Real Or Imagined about imaginary friends growing up. I was a very inward turned child. I wrote stories and was into progressive music. But back then I didn’t know it was progressive, or that progressive was a genre.”
Atkinson and his brother James lived at various times on both the west and east coasts of the United States during their childhood and would jam together as a garage band, with Shane on drums and James on guitar.
“When I was 14 or 15, in the summer we would open the garage door regularly on a military base in North Carolina. The neighbours would come and put out their chairs and listen to us playing classic rock – Rush, Queen, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, whatever.”
On graduating from high school in 1988, Atkinson moved to Nashville and enrolled at Belmont College. “They had a phenomenal music programme; musicians from the Nashville Symphony taught there.” But after his second year, aged 19, Atkinson was playing
so much music outside the confines of Belmont that he dropped out of college and went on the road for almost a decade.
He built up his road miles not in the prog world but rather in contemporary Christian music as a drummer for acts including The Imperials, Kim Boyce and Steve Taylor. In parallel he composed music for commercials and as a session fixer. “I did any kind of ‘sweetening’ that needed to be done, such as playing strings and doing post-production for bands. Nashville was the big hub for that.”
“My influences are the same ones as bands like Genesis, Kansas and Rush had. That’s why Evership has a classic rock sound and it’s not an accident by any stretch of the imagination.”
In the mid-1990s Atkinson drummed in alternative rock band Curious Fools. After trials and tribulations with various labels, the band were signed by Warner, but Atkinson decided to resign. “We had gone through three record labels, getting picked up and dropped. All the drama started to wear on me. My son had just been born and I was getting tired of the road. I was frustrated with the music industry and just wasn’t getting enough out of it musically.”
Atkinson focused on raising a family and building a career in the software industry, teaching himself how to programme and design software. He also stepped almost completely away from his musical passions. “I cold turkeyed it. In hindsight it probably wasn’t the best thing to do.”
But although he was no longer playing or listening to music, he continued to write. In 2003, however, he found himself becoming very despondent.
“I was just going mad. I felt I had done everything I could do in software and the music was starting to come back and haunting me. I was pretty depressed, but all through those years that I did software, any musical idea I had I put down.”
As a result, when Atkinson decided to focus properly on music again he had amassed a wealth of potential material. Initially he was unclear of his future direction. “I could have done anything – I had written musical theatre stuff, opera, pop and then this more eclectic rock band music.” While cataloguing 50 hours of ideas, it was the last category that captured his imagination.
The next step was a relocation. “We had moved about an hour out of Nashville, so that I could get my head together. For a time I couldn’t stand to be in Nashville. It took me about five years to get centred again, and then I felt a call to move back into Nashville.”
Following his return to Nashville, Atkinson spent two years building a recording studio and buying equipment with the proceeds of his work making music for commercials.
On initially demoing his songs he had little idea of the ultimate outcome. “I had no idea what I was going for or that it was going to be prog. I didn’t even know prog was a thing. I’d been a progressive rock fan growing up, but I didn’t know that I was. I was the only one listening to Yes, Rush and King Crimson.”
With work on the debut Evership album at an advanced stage earlier this decade, Atkinson faced a significant challenge when his intended vocalist backed out. “He’d sung the alto part in The Imperials for a season and was always going to sing on my record whenever I made it. Twenty years was a little long for him to wait!”
Atkinson was faced with a conundrum. “I was stuck, because I had composed this large-scale operatic rock music and I didn’t want a 1990s-style vocalist singing in his speaking register. I wanted a Robert Plant, a Steve Walsh – someone with range. I was panicking and started praying.” He seriously considered transposing the songs down to sing them himself. Salvation came when he was introduced to vocalist Beau West.
On its release in 2016, Evership I made a reasonable splash, garnering significant support from the House Of Prog internet radio station, which prompted an invitation to play RoSfest. Atkinson was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the album, not least as he was largely unaware of the strength of the progressive music scene having avoided listening to much music since exiting Curious Fools.
“Because my head was so full of my own music, I couldn’t really listen to other music – it hurt too badly to listen to something that I wasn’t doing. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the feedback for Evership I had been: ‘Why are you using mini Moogs? Don’t you know it’s 2016?’ I’m even more shocked and thankful now, knowing how many progressive bands are actually out there.”
Evership I and II, which was released late last year, are glorious retro prog confections to delight fans of Kansas, Yes, Styx and Queen. However, Atkinson cites early fusion jazz, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea and Al Di Meola among his influences, while also namechecking Debussy, Ravel and Puccini.
“My influences are the same ones as bands like Genesis, Kansas and Rush had. That’s why Evership has a classic rock sound and it’s not an accident by any stretch of the imagination; we’re all the sum of our influences and there’s no way to escape that. But creatively I’ve always strived to be fiercely independent.”
In many respects and despite the time between them, Evership II is a companion rather than successor to the debut album. “The first album was actually going to be a double album. But it took so long to do that my wife said I needed to stop and release something! Evership II is really ‘Part B’ of the first record because I had such a sea of material.” Indeed, The Serious Room, which opens II with gusto and for which a video will be released later this spring, technically pre-dates the debut album as the first song Atkinson wrote on his return to Nashville.
While Evership II is thoroughly entertaining, it perhaps falls short of the high standard of the debut. Atkinson confesses that II isn’t perfect from his perspective and is alive to its shortcomings. “It was done in 10 months; the first record was done in 10 years. I had a deadline with this record, which was Progstock [he wanted to have the album finished and available for fans at the festival last October]. I didn’t have as much time to fuss over it as I’d have liked. The record was rushed and there are parts I’m not completely happy with, recording-wise. I had to take an 80/20 approach. Overall I’m not disappointed with the record by any stretch. It has some wonderful material and moments on it.”
Having played less than 10 live shows to date, Atkinson is now keen to solidify Evership around the core of himself and West, and to get the band on the road. “That’s a work in progress, but we’re building our team. We have a solid band and have been looking for management and people to help us book shows and festivals. At this point I’m chief cook and bottle washer and need to offload the booking side.”
Atkinson is also turning his attention to a third Evership studio release, which will be a concept album, with much of the music already written. “I have four or five albums in my head that I want to put out. If our current upward trajectory continues, we’ll be in good shape. But I won’t try to make an album in 10 months again!”
Evership II is out now via Atkinsongs. See www.evership.com for more information.
“I could have done anything – I had written musical theatre stuff, opera, pop and then this more eclectic rock band music.”