The Ghost. That's based on a true story. I'm not going to mention any names. Edgar Anpault.
Hello and welcome to WNC Original Music Episode 113, the blind Pew episode. This week we have returning Steven Evans, a very talented singer-songwriter from Asheville, North Carolina. Steven plays both solo and with his band, The True Grits. You can find Steven Evans' music at StevenEvans Music.com and don't forget to go back and listen to part one of his podcast episodes.
There are three parts. This is number two. So there's one more to come. Here is Steven Evans.
The Ghost. That's based on a true story. I'm not going to mention any names, but it's a grandpa. Basically, it's a personal story to you.
I'm not the ghost. I am the guy that is being haunted by the ghost. And it's based on a event that happened where a friend of mine was dating this woman and they went on a trip and the guy ended up dying. A drunk driver hit them and killed the guy and the lady was survived.
We became friends. Over a certain amount of time, we became more than friends and started trying to be together. What happened with that is that the woman had trouble getting over him, that guy and him dying and all that. That was the haunting aspect.
That's why I wrote that song. I'm sorry for your friend. One of the questions I asked people was, do you believe in ghosts? It's like asking people that for a year now?
I do. I don't know what they are. I don't know what they're just like. I just think they're maybe energy.
Left over energy. Something in our mind. I mean, in the case of this song, a very strong memory that haunts someone and by proxy haunts you, I guess. You said you don't talk a lot before your songs.
Are there stories you talk about before you play them on stage? I do a little bit. Depending on the song. I'm feeling like telling people about it.
I feel the room. They're certain songs I'll talk about more than others. If you're in a brewery and everybody's talking, it's not a bit noisy. Is there any particular stuff?
If you are talking, it's not about the song necessarily, but any stories you tell between songs? I'm not a really good storyteller. I know I try not to do things that I'm not good at. I'll try to make jokes.
Even those fall flat sometimes. But mostly, I'll tell them about what the song's about. Bruce Springsteen is a great storyteller and other people are too. Have you ever heard about Todd Snyder?
He's known as music maybe. He'll tell 20 minute stories and they're on his albums. I'm just not good at that. Give it your heart.
I wrote that right when I started getting back into music again. It's like a long break. I started playing it again in 2014. I decided I'm getting old and I want to put this music on a record.
I've been writing for 30 years but I hadn't made any records. I wanted to and I wrote this song that year in 2014. It was basically a pep talk. If you're going to do this again, give it all you got.
It was my pep talk to myself. Is it work? I'm still doing it. You play two or three shows a week sometimes.
Where are you playing? Western North Carolina, a lot of places outside of Asheville play out of state. I haven't played out of state a lot. I've gone into the Knoxville and I'm playing in South Carolina in Greenville coming up in Charleston in April.
Generally, my beaten path is Raleigh, Charlotte. I played in Greenville, North Carolina. I don't know if it was open. I don't live there in 15 years.
Is there a Euro pub? There's not one in Africa. Maybe. Maybe I do remember.
Was it downtown? It's right near the school. Yeah. We're not in the south.
I'm trying to do the, you know, getting my circle wider and wider. It's hard. It's hard when people don't know who you are. You guys spend a lot of time getting rejected.
Not getting rejected. Not getting an answer. Not getting an answer back. That's hard.
It's easier to ignore emails. Yeah. Yeah. And I was talking to a guy who did booking one time and he was talking about how he was like, I'm pretty, I come from the business world and I'm pretty professional.
I'm used to answering emails and even I don't answer half my emails. And it's just because you get a bunch or you don't have to. There's no accountability. If you're in the business world, you don't answer an email, you get in trouble.
But if there's an email where you're like, I'm not going to, there's no accountability. You don't think about it. And he's like, and sometimes I think about opportunities. I'm like, he said, who did he say?
There was a, not like, it wasn't like Houdin, the Bluefish, but it was somebody very well known that he could have had and say like they were the first, this is like first place, one of the first places they played. Shoot. It wasn't. Anyway.
And he's like, I think about all the time. And he's like, I know I'm like leaving out people. But you know, when you leave, when you do this job as a booker for a brewery, it's not a, you know, high accountability job, you know. So there's a lot of people doing their jobs.
And it's sometimes like not even their job. Right. By the time I email them, they've already changed. Yeah.
Exactly. And it goes a lot of weird. They ask the head bartender if he can take care of it for a while. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's, I understand. I don't like, I never, when I send an email off, I'll have to expect not to hear from them. Yeah.
It's, it's, I don't take offense to it because I know they get a lot. Yeah. So the songs you play solo, you play with the trigger, so you'll have like separate size with them. Yeah.
I don't think there's anything. I mean, there might be a couple of cover teams. I don't play with them because I, because I do play out more and I, I try to change it up. I play out more solo.
So I try to change up and add different covers. But they don't play. But we, I think they play every original that I've ever written. Oh.
And do they ever travel with you out of the area? As far as we've gotten his, uh, bravard. Cause they have other responsibilities. No overnights.
Right. More from Steven and just a few moments. Uh, I forgot to mention a very important thing. Uh, you might know this if you heard Steven's first episode, but during this recording, there was an adorable pug in the room with us and, uh, he had a quite a loud snore.
So anything you hear that sounds gastrointestinal is probably that pug snoring. Once again, make sure to go to Steven's website, Steven Evans music.com and also follow him on Instagram and Facebook, Steven Evans, and also look for his bands, Facebook page, Steven Evans and the True Grits. And of course, we'll have links to all that in the show notes. Also go to Western North Carolina writers on Facebook and see them in person.
Western North Carolina writers is, uh, Steven's project with a couple of other songwriters in the Asheville area, including Nick Mack and Jesse Frazil among a lot of other talented people. But they have usually three songwriters of various genres that play together, tell stories, kind of compliment each other. It's really, really good show when you see that. So check out the link to that and go see them in person if you can.
Of course, don't forget to follow the podcast, subscribe wherever you get your podcast, WNC original music, or you can go to wnseoriginalmusic.com and there are convenient links there. Also follow the podcast on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. Uh, do not follow the podcast on Twitter. That's just a waste of time for now.
I'll let you know for changes. This is Alison Price Lang in your listening to Western North Carolina original music. So I turn up loud while I'm asking that sound. It's there in the middle of you and don't think you won't know what to do.
You can hear that sound. So I turn up loud while I'm with sound and turn up loud while every time I see her. Put your sound. She says you're lucky enough.
Hey, thanks, love. You got that sound. I'm not surprised. But I found so I turn up loud while I'm with sound.
Sound, I wrote about the love of music and realizing that's what you want to do. Um, is to and just really knowing that and not being afraid to do it. Pretty much. Um, and I wrote it with the just and there's a lady in the song that's like an older woman that kind of gives me that advice just to like, you know, you know, what you want to do.
Uh, look, look inward and really think about it and don't try to search for things. Just, you know, what do you, what makes you happy? Yeah. That's music.
That's why I called it sound just because you know, music is like I said, it was a one syllable word. So it was easier to put in the song. To the garden, breathe into my soul, even I harden. So all the dreams become old, laugh, and laugh to face our possible fear the ever after.
Swim in a shallow goal. Music never time. I could drown in a bottle. I could smoke away my brain.
Not that lost, not so awful. I could drive myself insane. Inside, I'm in the answer deep through space and time. I live like a dancer.
We're laying through the supply. Never die. Never die. Never die.
Never die. I stick on the mountain. You might read. I look 11 after biting to the sweet and core and read the chapter.
I have learned that one more to the sky. The dream every day. Are there times when people come up to you or play songs and they've talked to you, is there anything memorable that someone said, hey, I really like this song and it meant a lot to me or anything like that? Yes.
The one I have gotten more recently is the garden. The garden for some reason, especially people understand that nature, especially around here in Asheville, people, a lot of people move here because they appreciate nature. That's a plug, by the way. If you can hear that.
Nature really affects people in a great way. If you go on a hike, just don't have to be anything hard. Something out-the-door with all the smells and everything. That's what that song is about.
If you don't get out in nature once in a while, you tend to close up. Nature opens you up more, I think. That's what that song is about. I think that resonates with a lot of people when I sing it because they feel the freeing, they recognize the freeing aspect of nature and how it can help you.
That is an interesting approach or comment you made about how this is in this area. People come here for nature. You're getting people who are into nature and they are in nature in an area where they can experience that. There's probably people who come here for other reasons, but they still experience that.
I think most people move here. That's part of it, but most of all not as well. People have to move here because they're gone. They're like, I hate nature.
I'm going to move there. Smaller-centage. I'm like a lifetime movie. I want to stay in the city, but they're making me move to Ashley.
Then I don't get along with this female small-town girl that I'm going to be falling in love with. That's a lifetime movie too. I put a little hint of a garden of Eden in there with the book and bite into the apple thing. You're a little reference to that.
I snuck it in. I'm not a religious person by any means, but no offense to anybody who is. It's very different. I like the visual of the imagery of those kind of stories.
Okay. Once again, I want to thank Stephen for being on the show. Just a really great guy. Stephen also does on our Facebook group, which is Western NC, original music.
Every Tuesday night, he does a live stream where he talks about upcoming shows. If you are a musician in Western North Carolina or if you're coming through Western North Carolina, send Stephen a note to his Facebook page, Stephen Evans Music on Facebook and send him a message and let him know when your show is. He will be happy to talk about it and listen up here. Also again, go to Stephen Evans Music.com to listen to a lot of Stephen Evans Music.
For our closing song tonight, we have a track from Denver based EndiFolkBand Distance Walk. You can find them at distancewalk.com and you can find their album at distancewalk.bancamp.com. I forgot to say that Denver is my hometown, but I think people are starting to catch on to that. So I might need to mix it up a little bit.
Here is Distance Walk. Have a good week.