It's a long way from the green and pleasant land of New Zealand's North Island to Seattle, the caffeine and grunge capital of the universe, as Evermore will gladly tell you. Yet that's the journey that the New Zealand-nurtured, Sydney-based moodists undertook to conjure up their star making debut LP, Dreams. For a band that only really kicked in during 2000, and whose most senior member is all of 20, the life of Evermore has been one seriously weird trip. For starters, Evermore seems to be a band that revels in doing things in reverse. Frontman and guitarist, 20-year-old Jon was born in Australia, but then settled in the sleepy New Zealand hamlet of Feilding (12-times winner of NZ¹s Most Beautiful Town award, incidentally). His brothers and bandmates, bassist Peter (18) and 16-year-old drummer Dann, were born, raised and home-schooled there. Brought up by music-loving parents, they were fed a steady diet of The Who, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, U2 and Bob Dylan, which, combined with their rural isolation, left them no option but to form a band. "Because we all grew up so closely," says Peter, "we would all influence each other musically. We weren't really influenced by what was being played on the radio at the time. "Whispers about Evermore started to spread when they scored top marks at the 2000 national high school band comp, The Rock Quest! The proceeds went straight into their home studio, as the Humes started to dream in digital. By late 2002, their debut single, 'Slipping Away', had been blessed with high rotation by the tastemakers at Triple J. The station's then Music Director Arnold Frollows was among the many Evermore converts after catching one of their first-ever shows/p> "They were so good that I thought that my drink had been spiked," he declared. "You could say I was knocked out.".
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