Following the love from his latest single and video (Somebody Say) Evil, ex-Butterfingers front man Evil Eddie hits the road with a stop-in at the Hotel Great Northern on Friday. Mandy Nolan caught up with Mr Evil.
After fronting Butterfingers, how are you enjoying working solo? It’s great. Different but great. There’s definitely a certain amount of readjusting to do when you start taking responsibility for everything that is going on around you, which does tend to add stress, but at the same time the freedom is awesome. It’s like starting afresh but I’m glad I’ve got the history of Butterfingers behind me to help people connect with what I’m doing now, of course.
What are the new fringe benefits? There is a greater sense of achievement when you really nail a song or a gig or whatever, I suppose because you’re responsible for it all from the ground up. With a group you kind of spread it around. Less work, fewer rewards.
The downside? Well I thought I’d miss the camaraderie of a group situation but the guys in the band that tour with me, who were friends before, have become quite close and I seem to have found a balance. The best of both worlds as it were. Starting again though is kinda hard. All that re-branding; but whatever, I knew what I was getting myself into.
What’s with the Evil Eddie business? Is that a moniker earned from girlfriends perhaps… or their mothers? The truth of it is that I used to work at the iconic Brissy venue ‘The Zoo’ as glassy/bartender/ratbag and there were two of us on the staff at the time called Eddie. I got ‘Evil’ Eddie just to distinguish between us. Lord knows why; I was such a saint back then.
Are we still up for hip hop punk and things a little left of centre? Definitely. I guess I’m leaning more and more towards the hip hop side of things but mixing it up is my whole schtick. It’d be hard to bury that completely. If other people from any of the other bands I play in, or have played in, are in the vicinity of a gig I’ll usually try to incorporate some of that material into the set as well, so who knows what’ll come out.
What should we be expecting for your Byron show? Cannon, fireworks, nudity, a little music, all the usual stuff. Oh yeah, Rainman and Calski are gunna be there too. Byron extravaganzee.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW0ICn7X9GA&w=500&h=290]
Friday at the Hotel Great Northern.
