New Zealand's The Eversons present visuals from their latest single “Marriage” with an exclusive listen to the b-side “Auckland City Song”. Found on their Summer Feeling album and brand new single, The Eversons ponder the pros and cons of “Marriage” in the premiere of the Ralph Matthews directed video. Shaking up the deodorant and perusing through the internet's listings of eligible bachelorettes; thoughts of getting married in a church, rounds of comical chiding from the band are presented in hilarious displays of displaced faces on everything from chicken nuggets to future possible family portraits.
The “sad and lonely” single life pursuit is cast into the lots of the dating game where the married life is portrayed through puppets and humorous sequences of the band acting out the multitude of matrimonial configurations. For every idea, plan and plot, the merry pranksters of Mark Turner, Alex Freer, Tim Shann, Blair Everson, and Christopher Young foil every aspect of ball and chain prospect through the thwarting refrain of “you'll never get married.” Blocked and obscured at every corner and opportunity; the band plays out the family farce of deffeat as a comical self-fulfilling prophecy of destined solitary confinement. At least The Eversons have each other.
Tune in here to catch an audio only listen to the a-side “Marriage”, followed by the b-side “Auckland City Song” that documents the band's move from Wellington to Auckland. On “Auckland City Song”, the relationship issues continue with a gleaming classic upbeat UK sound. The motion of moving on up begins with, “my girlfriend she was bringing me down, I hadn't seen the sun for days and I need to get out and so I packed my bags for a much bigger town.” With the band bringing on the 'la la las,' the Auckland adventure begins with unbound and relentless energy. “I've been here a while, everything's looking better,” where the weather and women are looking better than ever and perhaps the potential to find proper significant others are on the up and up. One thing we have learned thus far is that few lampoon the conventions of commitment and cohabitation like The Eversons do on a regular basis.
Through an exchange of long-distance cables, we initiated some marital counseling and therapy with The Eversons, and inquring into the move from Wellington to Auckland, New Zealand.
The Eversons' sentiments and thoughts on “Marriage”?
We're all in our mid twenties and a couple friends have gotten married. In particular a close friend of mine was married just before I wrote 'Marriage'. I like the idea of someone in their 20s really, really wanting to get married. I don't know anyone like that at all. And I like the idea that all their friends would tell them that they suck and that they're not marriage material. Or that there's someone out there who's 25, super keen to get married but has all these crippling doubts about whether they can pull it off. A voice in their head telling them they'll be alone forever. That's pretty funny to me. That person should probably just stop being a such a dick bag. Maybe they need a new hobby or something? In many ways marriage seems like a dark joke because the divorce rate is so high. It seems so ingenuine to tell someone you'll stay with them forever and ever no matter what when statistically it's really likely you won't. That seems to cheapen a relationship to me, making such a grand statement that statistically isn't super likely to hold up. You can laugh or cry at the dark things in the world I guess, and I'm more into laughing.
The Eversons' sentiments and thoughts on “Auckland”?
We've just moved up to Auckland a couple of months ago. We were living in New Zealand's small capital Wellington, but with 300k people we wanted to try somewhere a little bigger. Auckland has more like a million and it's New Zealand's biggest city. I love living up here and so do all the guys. We all have better jobs, we picked up a way better drummer, there are more venues and bands to play with. In terms of our song, you hear plenty of stories of US bands moving to New York or LA to 'make it', in search of a better life. I've read interviews with some bands where they're real genuine and will come out with shit like, 'Yeah we just knew we had to really go all in and push for our big break'. That whole mentality is unusual in New Zealand and is ridiculed pretty heavily. New Zealand's most respected bands like The Clean, The Bats, Chris Knox, those guys didn't have that attitude, so it's not really part of the music culture here. And the idea that you'd move to Auckland to make it big is hilarious, Auckland is a super isolated city in the middle of nowhere. So here we are in the biggest city in the country making it big! Haha.
What's happening lately in the scene over in Wellington, New Zealand?
When we left Wellington it had been reasonably dead for a while in terms of music that really appeals to me. I'm talking about bands putting out a series of consistent, well written and well recorded albums that show a cool evolution over their career. You know, in a style that I like. And then backing it up live by being a strong band of great players. And people tend to leave Wellington because it's a small place so that doesn't help. I'm sure there's heaps of stuff going on I'm not aware of in Wellington, but in terms of current New Zealand bands that I'm really passionate about, most of them tend to be living up in Auckland.
The Eversons' album Summer Feeling is available now from Lil Chief Records with the single available for free download here.
