Evening Elephants Debut New Album at Lolloapaloza — Wholeheartedly, Terribly Sweet
There are worse ways to spend the morning after releasing your first album than sitting under a tree at Lollapalooza talking about it with a writer who is doing his best to look like he knows what he’s doing. Sam, Brandon, Chris and Dante had played two sets the day before, and Wholeheartedly, Terribly Sweet had landed on streaming less than twelve hours earlier. But sitting with them the next morning, there was none of the stiffness you might expect from a band in the middle of a very big weekend. They were joking with each other, talking about the record, and generally seemed to be having a very good time being in a band. Amid the Lollapalooza whirlwind, we found a patch of shade near the press lounge and talked about the new album, festival crowds, and what happens when your equipment stops working in front of thousands of people.
The album itself is surprisingly hard to pin down—and thankfully so. “Snow on the Bluff,” the band’s breakout single, feels like walking through Soho on a Saturday afternoon when you have nowhere to be: a little sun-drunk, a little nostalgic, moving without quite knowing where you’re going. Then “Blind Leading the Blind” and “Westside” kick the door open. They are the songs you put on when walking stops being enough and you need to actually get somewhere.
Sam, the band’s lead vocalist, has a tattoo of an all-seeing anime eye on his neck, a permanent reminder of the Naruto universe that gave Evening Elephants both their name and, apparently, a fair amount of its lore.
You can see that attitude in the people who show up for them, too. Fans have been spotted wearing T-shirts that read I HATE THE EVENING ELEPHANTS, and their manager even gifted me a keychain at Lollapalooza that read LOLLA HATES THE EVENING ELEPHANTS. The joke travels from the band to the fans to the manager and back again, becoming its own little piece of Evening Elephants mythology.
And that might be the best way to understand the band. They make good music, but they also seem to genuinely enjoy the ridiculousness of getting to make it. They leave stupid voicemails on their own album, bring fans onstage, joke with each other, and keep SpongeBob songs in their back pocket for when the equipment inevitably stops working. They seem less interested in looking like a rock band than actually being one: making songs they like, bringing their friends along, and seeing what happens when the rest of us start singing along.
ON PLAYING LOLLAPALOOZA
Glenn: You guys are really playful with your sets and you always interact with the audience. What’s your favorite moment at Lollapalooza—or playing festivals like this?
Brandon: We have a fan who normally follows us around to all of our shows, and she sings a full verse of one of the songs. We’ve brought her onstage before. For me, that’s one of my favorite interactions.
Dante: I really like seeing what happens when we’re playing for new crowds. There’s that brief moment where you kind of have to win them over because they don’t know what to make of it. I like keeping an eye on them during the set and watching them light up more and more. Then they start jumping, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, we just got, like, five new people.” It’s great.
Chris: I also love when we have technical difficulties. I have a couple of silly songs in my back pocket that I can play on guitar.
Sam: Yeah, SpongeBob.
Chris: A little SpongeBob theme, you know, a little Eminem, “Lose Yourself.” Those tend to go over really well, and they’re really fun.
THE VOICEMAILS ARE REAL. OBVIOUSLY
Glenn: The first question I’ve got to ask is about the manager’s voicemail and the artist’s voicemail in the album. Was that a real voicemail or did you re-enact it ?
Sam: Oh yeah, that was me. He never answers the phone the first time I call him, so I always leave him snarky-ass voicemails like that. I was super hungover, woke up the next day, had some questions for him, and he wouldn’t answer the phone.
Glenn: Were there any other playful things you wanted to put on the album but didn’t?
Sam: Oh, there were probably like 50 voicemails. Those were just the two that were the most pertinent to the album and the funniest.
A HYPOTHETICAL ABOUT “BLIND LEAD THE BLIND”
Glenn: One of my favorite songs on the album is “Blind Leading the Blind.” So I have a question for you: would you rather be blind for an hour a day, or be blind for a whole year?
Dante : Get it all out of the way in one year. I’ll probably do that.
Glenn: Yeah, so you’d take the full year?
Dante: Yeah.
ON DREAM COLLABORATIONS
Glenn: Last question. If you could collaborate with anybody in this Lollapalooza lineup, who would you pick?
Sam: Wet Leg, Wet Leg.
Brandon : I’ve recently become a very big Slayyyter fan, so that would be—
Chris: Yeah. I used to be in bands with Jesse from The Neighbourhood. We were in hardcore bands together in high school, so I think it would be fucking fun to do something with him.
Glenn: That’d be cool.
Dante: Part of me wants to say Charli XCX, but the real part of me was gonna do it with The Story So Far.
Glenn: That’s the way it is.
The album is such a great listen, honestly. These guys are some of the most down-to-earth people I’ve met, but what I liked most is that they don’t seem particularly interested in convincing you of anything. They can make “Snow on the Bluff” sound like the soundtrack to a movie you’ve somehow wandered into, then turn around and make something messy, loud, and deeply rock-and-roll. There are backyard melodies here, big hooks, and a willingness to let things get a little weird. The songs are earnest, the jokes are stupid in exactly the right way, and the whole thing feels like a group of people who are still having fun making music together.
That feels increasingly rare, especially with a new band. They clearly know what they want to sound like. They’ve just played Lollapalooza, and they’ll be back in New York soon. Go see them before you have to pretend you discovered them early.
Five songs to start with:
- Snow on the Bluff
- Blind Lead the Blind
- West Side
- What Channel Is Daydreaming On
- Olive Tree.
Check them out on Instagram, Tour Dates, Songs and Merch Here.