I Remember You: Eve6

Five years. If you look at the timelines, study the histories, and do the math, you'll notice that the vast majority of bands don't last longer than five years. It could also be argued that if a band does indeed stay together longer than five years, anything they do from year six on is generally dogshit compared to the magic of the first five. Some bands, however, continue to thrive well over this supposed watermark.

- Look at Pearl Jam, who continue to make interesting records and stay relevant over fifteen years into their career.
- Green Day almost fell into the five year trap, but then discovered what I was trying to tell you people all along: rock operas are sooooo killer!
- Our nation's most beloved, The Tragically Hip, have survived (without so much as a single band member replaced) and thrived for twenty years now.
- Of course, a discussion on longevity would be useless without the obvious mention of The Rolling Stones, who maintain superiority in concert revenues to this day. Not bad for a band who once opened for Jesus.

Wait a minute... what the hell does this have to do with Eve6?

Everything.

Formed in high school under the name Eleventeen, Max Collins and Jon Siebels had a record contract with RCA before they even graduated. In 1998, now with drummer Tony Fagenson rounding out the lineup, they released their self-titled debut album, and smash lead single "Inside Out". If you weren't there, trust me: this mutha blew up. All over radio and video channels, the song helped Eve6 go platinum. Subsequent singles "Leech" and "Open Road Song" didn't really get the same kind of love as "Inside Out", which gave the naysayers every right to proclaim the band as just another in the long line of one hit wonders.

Unfortunately, they were pretty much right. The next album, 2000's Horrorscope, found the band toying with their sound, adding some electronic elements and overdubs to the mix. The first single, "Promise", garnered little attention, and a lot of fans who picked up the album early were turned off by the blatant studio sheen and effects tinkering. After all, this was a rock band using a vocoder filigree (aka that annoying as shit voice effect most remembered from Cher's "Believe"). And, though Horrorscope did eventually go gold (thanks largely to the one night stand power ballad/mislabeled grad anthem "Here's To The Night"), most fans had abandoned ship by the time their third album, It's All In Your Head, was released in 2003 (read: five years after their debut).

A platinum recording artist selling less than 200,000 units of their third album isn't a good sign, and RCA soon dropped Eve6. A fan site for the band cites the poor sales of It's All In Your Head to lack of promotion from the label. More credible sources, however, attribute other, less flattering factors.

At the end of the day, Eve6 will probably be remembered more for their catchy hit "Inside Out" and X-Files referencing name than for being a solid band that just, somehow, went awry. If you sit down and read the lyric sheet to their first album, you'll see songwriting that was incredibly smart, considering the fact that they were still teenagers when the songs were recorded. While other bands with older members were singing about walking on the sun and pissing the night away, Eve6 were singing about pain and love, growing up, and wanting to go somewhere... anywhere. And, in the end, Eve6 took the scenic route to obscurity. It's a shame, because when I first heard that debut album, I thought they had infinite potential.

Oh well... it was a good five years.

And fuck, that's a badass Ratt shirt Max is sporting!

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SOUND BITES

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