Echo Bloom’s founder and frontman Kyle Evans creates rigorous, detailed and well-thought out music. With the creation of Echo Bloom, Evans took their freshman album Jamboree and honed specific songs to create Blue, Red, and now, their latest album, Green. Accompanied by vocalist/keyboardist Aviva Jaye, Alex Minier playing bass and Cody Rahn on drums, Evans has created a collection of music that covers a variety of soundscapes and genres. Echo Bloom has been based in a variety of places, recently in New York City, and the multitude of locations mirrors the multitude of sounds they put out. Keep an eye out for Echo Bloom’s Green, out March 9th.
We were able to catch up with Echo Bloom recently — here’s what they had to say:
Echo Bloom is an evocative name. How did it come about?
The Baby Boom generation were folks born post WWII, so ~1946-1964. I heard once the phrase “Echo Boom” talking about the generation of kids that the baby boom generation had. My family always gardened a lot – we had this great big vegetable garden in our backyard – so “Echo Boom” became “Echo Bloom”.
Favorite live show played to date?
Breminale, in Bremen, Germany, in 2016. We performed under this beautiful circus tent, and it was our bass player Alex’s birthday, so we got about 500 folks to sing to him on stage before we started. It was about 400 degrees out and there a ton of lights, so everyone was *covered* in sweat by the time the show was done. But we got two encores, and ended the night at kind of this hub of Bremen called “Heartbreak Hotel” singing and toasting and laughing. It was the 8th or 9th show of a 60 date tour, and set the tone really nicely.
Recording: disciplined and rigorous or laid back jam sesh style?
More on the disciplined and rigorous side. We went into the recording of a record we put out a few years ago with a note-by-note score of everything, so the actual recording was more a documentation effort. We’ve gotten a little more away from that – we work more as a band to collaboratively arrange everything. But once we get in the studio, we usually have a very good idea of how everything is going to turn out.
Biggest influences for Green?
Ah, that’s tough. Musically – Big Star, Brian Eno, Neutral Milk Hotel, Debussy, and Pink Floyd. Lyrically -Georges Seurat, John Steinbeck, and Carl Sandburg.
Best part of touring?
The family. I am constantly amazed and humbled by the generosity and spirit of giving that we experience on the road. There is an amazing community of people that support art and go to shows – and being on tour allows you to experience that directly.
How did you come up with the idea for the album processes evolving from and following Jamboree?
It was pretty intentional. I finished Jamboree and took stock of what we’d come up with – there were a lot of good songs on there, but stylistically it was too diverse to make for any kind of consistent listening experience. We had a reggae song, a metal song, a country song, a weird French-sounding song. It was a *ton* of fun to make, but listening back to it – I mean, maybe we’re not a metal band? Maybe we’re not a reggae band? So I did an audit, and tried to figure out what the best songs were on the album. I took the three best songs, and wrote albums around each of them. The first was Blue (off of the song ‘The Prostitute’), then last year’s Red (off of the song ‘The Businessman’), and now Green (off of the song ‘The English Teacher’).
If you had one word to describe Echo Bloom to someone who had never heard of you, what would it be?
Handmade.
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