When did you first decide you were going to be a musician?
I don’t know that it was a conscious decision. It was just something that happened. I developed an interest in the piano at age six. By age nine, I would listen to commercial radio jingles and the theme songs to TV shows and rush over to the piano to pick out the melodies, which impressed my mother. At age 10, I started taking piano lessons which I really didn’t enjoy very well because I didn’t like my piano teacher, but she did teach me to read music. By age 12, my mother would stop by the record store and buy music that she liked and would have me listen to it. After a few listens, I could usually pick out the vocal melodies and the chord changes. Or, if it was a difficult or intricate song, she would buy the sheet music. Then Mom would invite her friends over and I would be the center of entertainment. I developed quite a repertoire of songs as the requests would be quite varied. In rebellion, I picked up my first guitar at age 13. Although, I couldn’t tell you what kind of guitar it was. I think the kid I bought it from told me that he bought it at Sears. The only thing I remember about it was that it made my fingers bleed. So, a year later, I saw a Yamaha G-231 Classical guitar, strung with nylon strings that I bought for $150 dollars. It had a smooth action and a loud clear sound that really impressed me. I played it like a regular acoustic guitar, with a pick, basically because I didn’t know any better. I did later learn how to finger pick it, and use the backs of my fingernails to get a crisper sound. But it was my first real guitar and I still have it to this day.
Do you first write lyrics or music?
I’ve done it both ways. If a melody line pops into my head that I feel is strong enough to pursue, then I’ll usually grab by acoustic guitar and hash out the chord changes and see how it can be further developed. Lately, with all the collaborations that I’ve been producing, it’s been working in the opposite direction. The collaborations with BlueNevus, for example, have always started out with a very strong musical direction initially. I’ll listen to the track over and over until a theme or image takes shape, and I’ll write down everything that I can think of focusing on whatever particular concept seems to emerge. Then I’ll usually hash out a melody by singing utter nonsense until a strong melody materializes. After that I’ll take what I’d written previously, and heavily edit the text to make the words fit with the melody. I prefer having the music come first, because I tend to change my lyrics anyway to match the music. Sometimes it’s tricky because I don’t want to change the meaning behind the lyrics, just the rhythmic phrasing.
How did you come up with your username and your band name?
It’s a moniker that I invented when I started to post music on the internet back in 2004. I was originally going to call myself, ‘BloodOrchid’ because I’d read somewhere that the Blood Orchid is one of the few flowers that bloom at night, but I thought it sounded too gothic. So, I selected Evan, because it’s my son’s name. I just liked the way it sounded. The band name, Rustling Silk came from a Ken Follett novel. I forget which book, but I remember reading that phrase and thought it sounded like a cool rock band name and I presented it to BlueNevus and he seemed to like it as well, I think?
Who are your major musical influences?
I hate to say it, but I’m uncomfortable answering this question because it seems to me that it pigeonholes a musician into a niche. I like all-sorts of different musical genres and styles. I enjoy classical music and jazz, but I don’t have the chops to perform material like that. I inherited a huge vinyl record collection from my uncle who passed away when I was a teenager. It had everything from Led Zeppelin, Cream, Genesis, Van Halen, Pink Floyd, Yes, Jethro Tull, The Doors, Bad Company, The Beatles, The Who, Rush, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith-- basically all the great bands from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.. My aunt used to baby-sit us and exposed me to a bunch of the bands from the ‘80’s, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Styx, Loverboy, The Fixx, Men at Work, The Police, ZZ-Top, Talking Heads, The Cars, etc. When I got older bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addition, NIN, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cure, Depeche Mode, U2, Nirvana, etc., captured my attention. But, as far as the ‘influence’ goes, most of it was guided by the bandmates that I’ve played with over the years.
Since you are kind of a "one-man band", what instruments do you play and in what ways do you compose a song from start to finish?
Each project seems to be different, so it’s difficult to explain all the ways that various songs are composed and constructed. I just finished a collaboration with Leedsquietman , for example, in which he sent me a bunch of cool sounding 10 second segments of arpeggios, sound effects, and a great programmed drum track that I played with for a few weeks until a song started to develop. The collaborations with Scott Le Rock, usually just started out with a guitar riff, and over the course of a few weeks we’d build a song from it. With BlueNevus, our collaborations started out initially with Blue putting together all the music tracks and I would contribute the vocals and lyrics and would edit his raw tracks if the original arrangement needed some adjustments. After a while, I mentioned to Blue, that I’d like to contribute musically as well, and I think that our different styles have integrated into a unique sound that seems to click pretty well. So there’s really no formula in my mind as to how to put a song together. But yeah, I guess I do play the most popular ‘rock-n-roll’ instruments, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, keyboards and vocals. What more do you need for a rock band?
What gear do you use?
Back in 2000, my brother-in-law purchased Cakewalk Pro Audio for me for Christmas to try and resuscitate my musical talent. I didn’t touch it for five years, until Scott solicited me for a collaboration. I went out and purchased a thick manual called Cakewalk Power, to figure out how to use it. It’s still what I use for all my projects. I know that there are other software products out there, but at this moment in time, it’s what I’m familiar with and have no desire to change. I also have been using Sound Forge for a number of applications. Cakewalk has many similar functions, but I like the way the Sound Forge compressor makes my vocals sound. After my first collaboration, I purchased an M-audio sound card to replace the SoundBlaster card. The difference in fidelity was like night and day. My basic rig consists of: A Gibson Epiphone electric bass guitar, a Steinberger Spirit electric guitar, a Kramer Aerostar electric guitar, a Harmony Marquis 12 string acoustic guitar, a Fender Squire Bullet bass guitar, a Peavey Combo 300 Bass Amplifier, a Yamaha G-231 classical guitar, a Roland PC200MKII keyboard, a Yamaha YPT-300 keyboard, an Alesis HR-16 drum machine, an Alesis Midiverb 16 bit multieffect processor, an Audio-technica unidirectional Lo-Z dynamic microphone, a Digitech PDS-1550 programmable distortion foot pedal, a Digitech PDS-1002 two-second digital delay foot pedal, a set of Sony MDR-V500 dynamic stereo headphones, and lots of patch cords and my computer.
If you were marooned alone on a desert island, what two things would you NEED to have with you?
Now this is more like a Dmusic forum topic. From a practical standpoint, something to start a fire like flint or matches, and something to kill my food like a spear or a gun or maybe just a knife. It would be kinda hard to plan for something like that. If someone is marooned, I think I can safely assume that it wasn’t something planned. But in that Nirvana-like ‘wishful thinking’ part of my brain, in which being marooned on a desert island is imagined as a peaceful happy situation, then I suppose I would simply like my acoustic guitar and an endless keg of beer.
Which of your songs are you most proud of and why?
I’ll be the most proud of the first song that actually generates any money or broad recognition. This is more of a hypothetical question to me. So far my net total this year is $0
Besides music, do you have other creative outlets?
I’ve been dabbling in video production. That’s been just about as enjoyable as songwriting.
How do you come up with such brilliant lyrics?
Brilliant? That’s a bit subjective. Not to mention, that it’s kind of awkward to try to explain in an interview how my lyrics might be perceived to be ‘brilliant’ by myself and others. I don’t believe I’m quite that pompous. I have received some great comments from other Dmusic artists about my lyric writing, so I guess I should discuss it somewhat. Once again I’m going to stress the ‘theme’ concept. It’s just like any other creative process, whether you are writing a book, or screenplay, or directing a movie, or writing the lyrics to a song. With the Rustling Silk material, I basically will listen to a track over and over until ideas start to form in my mind. A mental image, an impression, a certain aura and ambience will eventually form and I’ll try to concoct an interesting narrative like a caricaturist. Once the theme is grasped, the ideas seem to flow pretty quickly. I’ve written a few songs with the basic theme of ‘Guy meets girl, guy is a jerk, guy gets dumped by girl, guy get depressed’; so I try to pull from any unique things that have happened to me or people that I know personally, and I try to put myself in that position like a character in a movie or something. I also tend to approach my singing in a similar manner, by creating a ‘character’. I would love to do voice-overs for cartoons if I ever got the opportunity.
How has being with Dmusic influenced your musical path?
The kind folks and characters at Dmusic have been a strong influence on me because they nudged me along and inspired me to be actively involved in the creation of music again. I had been on a 10 year hiatus from the music scene before I’d started posting material on the internet and it has enabled me to tap that well of creativity once again. And for that I’m truly appreciative.
You seem to do a lot of collaborations. How does this come about and what do you enjoy about that process? Is there anything you find especially challenging?
I just recently started putting together collaborations. Back in 2003, I bumped into someone who had recognized me from the ‘Gone House’ band and he asked me what had become of us. I gave him the long version and told him about a few analog tapes that I still had. He offered to digitize them to a CD that I could play in my car. I didn’t have any idea how to do that back then. I really didn’t have any desire to get back into playing or composing music when I first started posting on the internet, but I knew how to network. Hehe. The response that I received from many of the folks at Dmusic was really encouraging. Within a few months, I was asked by Scott Le Rock, if I’d like to put together a collaboration with him. I hesitated, but my darker side got the best of me and I agreed to do a project with him. I explained to Scott that, while I have previous experience playing with live bands, and may possess some song ideas, that I really wasn’t every proficient at Digital Audio technology. Scott was extremely patient with me and talked me through quite a number of issues. He directed me to websites that explained the current state of digital audio, and answered my questions directly. I was basically familiar with four-tracking and the studio work I’d been involved with back when I was 15, but professional recording was not something that I’d been exposed to. Well, I guess I’m a fast learner. Luckily, I still had most of my old equipment, including a nice Audio-Technica microphone that I still use for all my vocal tracks. When I wrote the lyrics to my first collaboration, Are We Having Fun?, it was the first time in almost 10 years that I’d written any lyrics for a song. Scott was very supportive and told me that he thought I sounded like Johnny Rotten, which I thought was pretty funny. When the song was nominated for Best Collaboration of 2005, I was stunned. Scott and I put together two more collaborations and still talk on the phone every so often. We’ve become pretty good friends.
In early 2007, I was approached by BlueNevus for a collaboration. So far we’ve managed to put together 15 tracks under the name of Rustling Silk. I’ve been amazed by the responses that we’ve received for our material from the folks here at Dmusic. I’d not really considered myself a vocalist until I started putting together these tracks with BlueNevus. I have sincerely appreciated all the positive comments regarding my developing vocal style, as I’d never really taken myself seriously as a vocalist before. I would be remiss if I neglected to mention some of my other Dmusic collaborative partners. Israfel and I have had a blast putting together our 4 collaboration. All of our projects have been extremely fun to produce and I appreciate all the great comments on those. Leedsquietman and I have just finished our second project. Both of our projects seemed to have gelled very nicely and I’m pleased to have had his expertise to work along side with. Mojosnake composed a fantastic guitar solo on a Rustling Silk track. I’m honored to have worked with Songbird. Her contribution to Bullseye was well worth the effort behind that project. Henri Roger unexpectedly wanted to work with me. The collaboration with Henri was a real pleasure and that song came out surprisingly well. I did put together another project outside of the Dmusic sphere. ‘Alone as a Stone’ was a song that was written by me 15 years ago. The story behind that tune basically involves a friend of mine who wanted an original song for his girlfriend, Kulli, to sing. I offered up ‘Alone’, and she liked the lyrics so she decided to give it a shot. Her vocals simply blew me away. I dumped most of the music that she tracked to originally and started from scratch. I tried my best to make the music equal her vocal performance with a slick pop sound, and then I had another friend of mine help me to master the track. Kulli later broke up with her boyfriend and I’m not sure where or what she’s doing right now. Last I heard she was in California.
What are your future musical goals?
In the foreseeable future, I’d like to continue to work with BlueNevus and to eventually create some kind of album with him under the Rustling Silk name. We have 15 songs so far with plans to continue our collaborative partnership. We might take some time and send it off to some labels just to see what the reactions would be, but, nothing too serious in the immediate future. I’m really enjoying the freedom of simply creating music for the aesthetic pleasure of it all.
Do you have a day job or do you play music for a living?
That’s the funny thing about these internet music sites. Everyone else seems to be a musical success story in one way or another. After I left the last band I was involved with, I went back to college, and earned an Associate’s Degree in Management- don’t laugh- it did open some doors. I did get a regular job making enough money to pay for a house and car and some musical gear. I kissed a lot of ass to make the bosses happy and I’ve ended up with a decent salaried position, and I’m currently working with some people that I like. So, it really hasn’t been too bad. But, it would be great if I could make more money than I’m making now, making music, but I don’t see it happening in the near future.
And finally....so why IS your avatar pink?
Geez, it’s not pink- it’s Lavender and Fuchsia- o maybe it’s Magenta with a splash of Amaranth- or it could be Salmon- ha, no, it’s definitely not Salmon. I’ll bet no one’s ever asked Roger Waters about any ‘overtones’ of the name Pink Floyd. When I created that avatar, I basically took a picture of a plant in our backyard with my digital camera. I started playing with Photoshop and I liked the contrast that the ‘pink’ had created. Then I put my ‘user name’ over the top. I honestly didn’t really put all that much time and effort behind it.
-kinda like this interview! -lol
To hear evansorchid, go to
http://evansorchid.dmusic.com/music/
Crystal
Distilled1
Israfel
ShadowMom
Gotcha! 
Great job, both of you. 
I enjoyed this 
hate9wicket
BOWILLIE
wait, no...
yeah, that's the one.
