Exclusive Interview: Musician Evan Lowenstein (Evan & Jaron)

Evan and Jaron made it onto mainstream radio with their hits “Crazy For This Girl” and “The Distance.”  Since, the duo has continued making music and ventured into other areas of the entertainment industry, including hosting the USA Network’s “Character Roadtrip.”

One part of the duo, Evan, talks about music, being a twin and future ventures.

Scott: Being an identical twin myself, I’m allowed to ask you the same annoying questions you always receive. What was the best and worst part of having someone in this world that looks exactly like you?

Evan: Best is always having someone around. Worst is always having someone around.

Scott: In 1996, while your career was still building, you performed at the 1996 Olympic Games. What was that experience like?

Evan: It was such a cool time.  At the time, we were one of the biggest regional bands and with Atlanta being our home, it put us in a good position to get a lot of gigs—we ended up playing 17 total (often 2 in a day). With so many people visiting from all over the world, it proved to be an amazing opportunity for us to plant our music in the hands of people to take back to their respective cities.

Scott: Jimmy Buffett took notice to your music and signed you to his Island Record label. That had to be a huge honor considering what a classic star Buffett is.

Evan: Jimmy Buffett has been like a father and a brother to us. When he yells at us and tells us what to do, we know it’s out of “fatherly love”. When he kicks back and hangs out with us he’s our brother. He actually brought us to Island Records and was invested in the deal, but Island Records is not his record label.

We can’t say enough about what Jimmy did and continues to do for us. We can certainly never repay him, but we have made many attempts in our career to “pay it forward” and help out younger artists—too bad for them, we’re NO Jimmy Buffetts!

Scott: In 2000, you released the album “Evan and Jaron,” which was very successful. Many songs off the LP, including “Crazy For This Girl” and “The Distance” were plastered all over mainstream radio, what were going through your heads when things began to look so good?

Evan: I wish I could say we jumped on our hotel room beds and had a pillow fight, but the truth is we were too busy “working it” to give it the attention it really deserved.

Furthermore, having worked so hard and long for our success, we’d had our share of “sure things” fall through in the past, as well as friends who hadn’t made it, so we tried to approach our success (and still do) with a sense of humility.

Scott: While songs sometimes fade out over time on stations that play Top 40, they live on satellite radio. What has XM and Sirius been like, especially now that your songs are heard on many of the 90’s and Now stations.

Evan: I’m a fan of any service that truly caters to the customer, and it appears XM and Sirius have done a great job of offering the “customer” a wide variety of options. And I’m of course thankful that we continue to get airplay on both terrestrial radio as well as satellite.

Scott: The two of you appear each week on the USA Networks, “Character Road Trip.” For those who don’t tune in, what can they expect each week?

Evan: As I’ve mentioned several times via blogs on our myspace page (myspace.com/evanandjaron), this is a show that we said NO to when it was initially offered to us by USA Network. I remember that we were in Atlanta at the time visiting our folks. Saying no to a TV show was par for the course for us, as we had NEVER done anything other than music at the point in an effort to maintain credibility (whatever that means). Anyhow, after saying “thanks, but no thanks” I said to Jaron “you know, we always so no, how about for once we say yes?” He said “bro, it will kill our career”. I said “what career?” Five minutes later we were signed on to host the show and it has been the most fun we’ve had since high school. Oh, and that career? We’re very fortunate to be enjoying the best year we’ve ever had! (so much for humility!)

Anyhow, to answer your question about what people can expect, it’s a show with no rules. We basically meet random people throughout the country who typically have random talents that we can engage in with them (for example a guy who paints while running on a treadmill). It’s quite silly and entertaining. You can see past episodes at http://www.characterroadtrip.com

Scott: I gotta ask. What was appearing on “American Inventors” like? Did you figure you’d get some recognition because of who you were already?

Evan: You can file us going on this show under the same title as us agreeing to do Character Road Trip—“Can Everyone Just Ruhlax?” (or “what career?”). The story goes like this: Jaron and I had Executive Produced a TV show for FOX alongside a woman who would become the EP for “American Inventor”. During the time we had spent together she had heard us talk about our many inventions. When she eventually got the “AI” gig, she called me and begged me to come on the show. The taping was on a Sunday and I decided to take a couple of my buddies (Jaron, Elon Gold, Scott Weinger, and Jeremy Garelick—all googleable) to come down and help me sell my product. While we did it solely in the name of good fun, we do happen to have several inventions in the works. One of which is a new modification of a cowboy hat that we recently licensed to Stetson. But that aside, it was clear that we did not fit on the show when we realized that every other inventor had put more than just a “Sunday morning” into his or her invention. Not surprisingly, ABC came to the same conclusion and asked me not to come back despite having already been sent to the next round.

Scott: I heard your recording a new album this winter in Nashville. Are you going for the country route on this one?

Evan: I feel like our music has always been on the country line. I’ve been writing songs in Nashville (and spending a lot of time there) since 1995. Our first studio album had fiddle, mandolin, steel guitar, etc… So are we “goin’ country”? Yes and No. We definitely would like to make ourselves more known to the country music fans, but no, we will not be changing our music.

Scott: What new projects are you working on for the future?

Evan: In the past few years, Jaron and I have found our groove in producing TV shows. The combination of having a bunch of ideas, knowing people, and knowing how to execute has really helped us a lot.

We are currently in production on our first TV show with MTV (we’re behind the camera) and hope to have a few others on the way shortly.

Scott: Final question, what are the top three web sites you visit on a daily basis?

1. myspace.com/evanandjaron – got to add those friends and reply to those messages!

2. my.yahoo.com – I check news, sports, entertainment news, tech news, nytimes editorials, etc, and most importantly, odd news—I get more ideas for TV shows and movies from odd news than just about anything else.

3. Google.com – I’m constantly searching for stuff.