Evan Stegner is a songwriter and a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Auburn University, currently studying to get his doctorate. Evan is from Crestview, FL and decided to come to Auburn for school since it was only three hours away from home. While in Alabama, Evan has been growing his music career and is getting ready to release his debut full-length album this week.
So, how long have you been playing music?
So, I took some piano lessons in first grade, and I guess that was probably my first exposure to playing an instrument, but I didn’t really start latching onto it until middle school when I picked up the french horn. Also, my mom found a guitar in a dumpster and brought it home and I had no idea how to play, it had a couple strings. That was probably around sixth grade, I got my first real guitar in seventh grade and didn’t really stop learning once I had that. I just kinda picked guitar right up and loved it. In my middle school brain, I wanted to become like my guitar idol, who at the time was Eddie Van Halen, an influence I picked up from my dad. I was immediately hooked on guitar. I wrote little songs every now and then all throughout high school, and even tried to start a band, which was named ‘Thursday Comes Slowly’; we had practice on Thursdays. Throughout high school, I played guitar in the jazz band, which really opened up the instrument for me. I didn't start trying to sing until my sophomore year at Auburn, mostly because singing is such a personal thing. It's really easy to think of singing as something you either have, or you don't. I now realize that learning to sing is like learning any other instrument. People are born with different levels of talent, but everybody can get better at it. I began singing harmonies at local worship nights alongside my guitar playing, and slowly grew confidence in my ability to sing. The real breakthrough happened when I started going to open mic nights at a local bar, Eighth and Rail. I think the first time, I went there and played a lackluster cover of ‘Waiting on the World to Change’. Even though I knew it went poorly, I also knew that I could do so much better if I kept going. So, I went back week after week, trying to cut my teeth. I am definitely an introvert, but something about being on stage was intoxicating, and I was surprised to find that I wasn't even nervous up there.
And this album that’s coming out on February 14th, ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Like That’, this will be your first album, correct?
Yeah, it is! My senior year at Auburn, September 27th, 2017, I was getting lunch with Joseph, a friend of mine. I must have been saying something about how much I wanted to get my music out there that day. He made me a bet, if I put music on Spotify within a year, then he owed me a steak dinner. I agreed to the bet, recognizing that losing would be expensive. I didn't really put much effort into winning the bet until the summer of 2018 when I was about to graduate. Honestly, it kind of fell into place. A friend from high school jazz band reached out to me, asking if I wanted to write some music, maybe put out an EP. He was attending University of Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, MS. I ended up making the drive over to Hattiesburg for a weekend. It was a whirlwind. We spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday writing music, and then on Monday, we recorded what we had. That album, ‘Door's Wide Open’, was originally intended to win the bet. What I didn't realize is that mixing and mastering takes some time, and there was no way it would be ready in time to get my steak dinner. So, I scrambled and dug up some old bedroom recordings on my computer, and sent them off as a last-minute effort. Those two tracks were released as ‘The Steakhouse Demo’ in October, so I still lost. I enjoyed the process so much though, that by the time classes were done in December 2018, I wanted to give it another shot, and see if I could get a little higher quality out there. I recorded and released two more singles, ‘Cold Feet’ and ‘Live Wire’, which represent my first time really trying to produce a track. I'm both a sore loser and a glutton for punishment, so I renewed the bet again with Joseph in 2019. This time it was even more: a full album by 2020. And here we are today. Not really sure if I won, but that's not too important. The bet was really just to keep me accountable. [‘I Don’t Wanna Live Like That’ will be] my first solo album. I did kind of an EP sort of thing with a friend from high school, actually, back in 2018, right after I graduated. We call ourselves ‘The Suitcase Kids’ because on his drum set, the bass drum is a suitcase. That was released probably about the same time last year that my solo album is gonna be released this year. We haven’t really done much to spread it around, it was kind of a, I drove over there for a weekend and we wrote songs over a weekend and recorded them on Monday. So, it’s very quirky, very off the cuff. It’s fun though.
How would you describe the sound of this album to someone who’s never heard you play before?
I guess the first place to start would be which kind of sounds inspired me. I listen to a lot of Bon Iver, I used to listen to a lot of Jack Johnson so that kind of filtered in there as well. I listen to Andrew Bird, Chris Thile, and The Punch Brothers. I hope I sound like my inspirations, but maybe I don't. Mostly people say a mix of John Mayer, Bon Iver, Jack Johnson, I've heard Post-One Direction Harry Styles even. I tend to like authentic acoustic music that kind of has an intelligent sensibility. So, yeah, it’s a guitar-driven, very analog sort of album. It’s got a lot of honesty in it, I think. It’s got a lot of things on the lyrical side that came from the heart, things that I saw in myself. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe your own genre. I think it’s very me though.
So, did you produce the album yourself?
I did, yeah. Last year, Auburn released the news that we have creative cloud on campus, which gives you access to recording software and that was great news for me, so I made full use of that. It’s all out of my bedroom. I basically set up the cheap microphones I had and even drew a little layout, I felt kinda like an architect. And as soon as it was finals week, it was time to start recording.
What was your favorite part about recording the album?
I’d say, after I finished recording everything, just listening back to it and thinking, ‘I really like this. This is good. I think people would want to listen to this. I would want to listen to this in my spare time.’ It was just fun to spend a lot of time on something and put a lot of effort into something and then have it come together in a way that I was happy with.
Can you tell me anything about the album that you haven’t already mentioned? A little bit more about it?
Sure!” he paused to think. “Three of the tracks on the album are actually re-recorded and expanded. ‘Best for Me’, ‘Cold Feet’, and ‘Doors Wide Open’. I felt like there was more potential in each of them, especially ‘Best for Me’.
I kind of designed the album to flow back into itself. That’s something that all my heroes tend to do with their albums, where you listen to it start to finish and it flows, and then and you have it on repeat, like you should, it goes right back into itself and it flows just like it did throughout the whole thing. The album is called, ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Like That’ and basically, it’s me saying that to myself throughout the whole album. Things that I’ve seen that have disappointed myself, or ways that other people live that I see and I don’t wanna live that way. [Learning from other people’s mistakes] and my own mistakes. And really, it’s almost a statement to myself when I listen back through it.
The whole thing is kind of summed up in the last song which is called ‘Turtle’ and it’s about taking chances, getting outside your comfort zone, it’s really a summary of my time at Auburn, as well as, I guess, my whole life. My freshman year, when I first came here, I started a list on my computer called ‘Terrible Ideas and New Experiences’ and I still keep it updated to this day. It’s a cool document. I haven’t really shown it to anybody, but I like to talk about it. The terrible ideas are terrible ideas, but all the new experiences, something I realized was that every time, it caused me to grow. Every time I did something that I might have been scared of, but really took a chance with, it was a net positive every single time. The song ‘Turtle’ is kind of about doing that and finding new experiences. Not necessarily seeking out bad experiences that you shouldn’t be interested in, but seeking out things that you’ve wanted to do for a long time, but have always been just a little bit hesitant about.
What is your favorite song on the album?
Aw, that’s hard. That’s like picking a favorite kid. I like them for different reasons. I’d say, musically, I think I like ‘Flowers’ best. Really, it’s more about, what are my favorite moments on the album. I love the organ as it fades into a guitar on the track ‘Turtle’. I love the harmonies in the second section of ‘Flowers’, how they just kind of escalate the tension and it goes right into a guitar solo that just sears. I love that part. I really like how I was able to play french horn on ‘Turtle’. I haven’t touched it since high school, but I still have it, so I pulled it out and was able to add some three-part french horn harmony. You have to listen all the way through the track to finally hear it. If you make it that far, it’s one of my favorite parts. I love that in ‘Cold Feet’ there’s a really, almost eerie guitar solo at the end. I’m a big fan of that. It’s very heavy reverb, almost like you’re in an empty stadium or something. I like the grit in ‘Red Wing’, my voice really starts to break up in parts of it. I’m glad I was able to make my voice do something a little different. Singing is not necessarily something that comes naturally to me. I’d say those are most of my favorite moments. It’s those little things that made me, when I was listening to it later, just made me proud of what it was and made me think, ‘Wow, I would listen to this if I didn’t know me.’ [To wrap up,] I tend to have favorite moments rather than favorite songs. However, if I were to forced to pick a favorite track overall, probably ‘Flowers’. Lyrically, probably ‘Roots’.
While we’re on the subject of the songs, if you don’t mind, pick one song and tell me what it means to you.
That’s tough. They’re all so personal, which one do I choose? There’s seven, I’m narrowing down the options. We’ll go with ‘Doors Wide Open’, that’s sixth track. So, ‘Doors Wide Open’ actually also showed up on The Suitcase Kids album that I did, but I didn’t have the full verses in it. On [I Don’t Wanna Live Like That] it’s got an extra verse and... ‘Doors Wide Open’ is about when I graduated in 2018 and back in that Spring, there were a lot of questions about what I was gonna do, because I was about to be a graduated Senior and move on from college into real life, and that’s a tricky time for everybody. I had been actually considering taking a job as a missionary, I’d applied for that and that turned out to not be the right place for me. And I considered taking some engineering jobs in Huntsville and just moving right into that, and that also turned out to not be quite right. And eventually, I got to the point where I had several independent people say, ‘Hey, have you thought about grad school?’ and I hadn’t. And I hadn’t thought about teaching either. All of it came together in a way that I can’t really explain. And, so, I decided to write a song about it and that’s what ‘Doors Wide Open’ turned into. The song is about, in retrospect, hindsight is 2020, right? Looking back on the things that have happened in your life and saying, ‘Wow, it really does seem like this path was kinda designed for me.’ And that’s something to celebrate. And in my mind, as long as you’re keeping your attention focused on God and the things that really matter in life, then all you can do is trust and celebrate that you’ve been carried along the way.
Where do you commonly get inspiration for songs?
It comes from a lot of places. A lot of times it’ll be a single personal experience that I have that really strikes me some different way, and I don’t really know how to describe it in just a few words, so I have to write a song about it. For instance, ‘Doors Wide Open’, I didn’t really know how to describe how I felt, other than I was thankful and happy about it and the way that things have turned out. I would say, the songwriting process is pretty fluid. You know, as a songwriter probably, too. No two songs are written the same way. But in general, I tend to draw from my own personal experiences and any sort of emotion that tends to stick with me for a long time, I think, ‘Wow, this is probably something I could write about and probably should write about.’
So, keeping on the topic of inspiration, what artists inspire you the most? I know you mentioned a couple earlier.
I would say my biggest inspiration, up top, is gonna be Christ Thile, who is a mandolin player. He’s a genius, he actually received a Genius award and that’s always been like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that was a real thing.’ But he started a band called The Punch Brothers which do a sort of alternative bluegrass almost, but that doesn’t really describe it fully. He’s very inspirational to me. Madison Cunningham lately has been one of my biggest inspirations. She’s actually my age, she graduated with me, she released a new album and I found it to be incredible. Andrew Bird’s a huge inspiration to me. Elliott Smith, just for his songwriting. People sell him short because his voice is spider web thin, but he’s awesome. I love the chord changes he uses. Bon Iver, the story of his first album, that’s always something that’s inspired me. To add a few more [just by name]: Jack Johnson, Nickel Creek, The xx, Josh Garrels, John Pizzarelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Called Quest, Gillian Welch, The Tallest Man on Earth. I hear ingenuity in all their music and I want to make music like that.”
I think that wraps up all of my questions, but is there anything you’d like to add for our audience?
Thanks for listening, I hope you listen.
Thanks to my little brother and my friend Joseph for encouraging me to get out there.
I’ve sunk a ton of heart into this and I hope that comes through. And I hope my music has a positive impact. I think that’s something that every artist wants to do.
Evan will be playing an album release show on February 22nd in Fort Walton Beach at Enlightened Studios Sound Cafe, time of set TBA. Following that, he’ll be playing the Opelika Songwriters Festival in Opelika, AL, which will take place March 27th - 29th. Evan’s time, date, and stage of performance for the festival have not yet been announced by the hosts.
Evan Stegner’s debut full-length album, ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Like That’ releases this Friday, February 14th on all music platforms.
Comments