| Kevin Mitchell | |
|---|---|
Kevin Mitchell performing at WOMADelaide in Adelaide, March 2008. |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Kevin Edward Mitchell |
| Also known as | Bob Evans |
| Born | 1 October 1976 Bull Creek, Western Australia Australia |
| Origin | Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia |
| Genres | Alternative rock Folk pop |
| Years active | 2003 – present |
| Labels | Redline Records (2003 - 2005) Capitol Records (2006 – Present) |
| Website | Official Bob Evans Website |
Kevin Edward Mitchell (born 1 October 1976), is an Australian musician, known for his role as the vocalist and guitarist of the alternative rock band Jebediah and also his solo work under the stage name of Bob Evans.
Mitchell grew up in the Perth suburb of Bull Creek, Western Australia, forming the band Jebediah in 1994. With Mitchell as the frontman, the band released four studio albums from 1997—2004, the first three of which entered the top ten of the ARIA Albums Chart.[1] The band went on hiatus as Mitchell undertook solo work with the pseudonym of Bob Evans and regrouped in 2010, releasing their fifth studio album Kosciuszko in 2011.
Mitchell adopted the stage name of Bob Evans in 1999, so that he could pursue a solo career of acoustic songs, without attracting Jebediah fans who might expect and demand performances of acoustic Jebediah songs. He released a rather unrecognized album in 2003, Suburban Kid. Capital Records signed Mitchell and released the album, Suburban Songbook, in 2006. It debuted at number 15 on the ARIA Albums Chart and featured the successful single, "Don't You Think It's Time". In 2009, he announced a third album, Goodnight, Bull Creek!, named after his hometown. The album peaked at number 22 on the ARIA Albums Chart.[2]
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Kevin Edward Mitchell was born and raised from age five to eighteen in suburban Bull Creek, on the edge of the Western Australian capital city of Perth, in 1977.[3] Mitchell said of his hometown, "It's a very ordinary, plain little suburb with a primary school and a shopping centre and a BMX track," while speaking about the title of his Goodnight, Bull Creek! album in 2009.[4] Mitchell attended Bull Creek Primary and Leeming Senior High School, dropping out of university to sign a record deal with Jebediah. His older brother Brett is also a member of Jebediah.
In 2009, Mitchell revealed that he had suffered from depression for a short amount of time at the age of 16, an illness which he revisited at the age of 30, in 2007. "It sort of crept up on me [in 2007]," he said. "The strangest thing was that the only time I had suffered from depression was a brief period when I was about 16, when I was at high school. I got a little bit of counseling and it didn't last very long. It never happened again, so as a 30-year-old it was the last thing I expected. It frightened the hell out of me when I started having these feelings."
Kevin Mitchell formed Jebediah in Perth, Western Australia in 1995. He undertook vocal and guitar duties, as the band played cover songs by bands such as Green Day and The Smashing Pumpkins. As the popularity of the band grew, they competed in the Australian National Campus Band Competition, winning the national final in Lismore, New South Wales.[5] This led to an opening slot on the 1996 Australian music festival, run by renowned promoter Steve Pavlovic, Summersault, where they performed before groups such as the Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters and Sonic Youth.[5]
Jebediah signed with Murmur, a part of Sony Music, in 1996, with the band also winning its first WAMi award for Best Stage Presence, a credit to Mitchell's on-stage energy. The band's first single, "Jerks of Attention", earned the band a WAMi award in 1997 for Most Popular Song, with the band also taking out Most Popular Band. High profile work on Homebake and the Big Day Out, as well as support slots for Soundgarden, Everclear, The Presidents of the United States of America, Silverchair, and You Am I, further raised the band's profile.
In 1997, the band recorded and released its first album, Slightly Odway. The album peaked at number 7 on the ARIA Albums Chart, spending 54 weeks in the chart,[1] with it being certified double platinum in 1998, by ARIA.[6] They recorded Of Someday Shambles in 1999, with the first single, "Animal", peaking at number 16 on the ARIA Singles Chart.[1] The album peaked at number two,[1] earning a platinum certification from ARIA.[7]
Jebediah released the single "Fall Down", in 2001. The song peaked at number 24 on the ARIA Singles Chart. It was followed by the self-titled album, Jebediah (2002), which reached number eight on the ARIA Albums Chart.[1] The band released their fourth album in 2004, titled Braxton Hicks. Following the album, Jebediah went on hiatus, with Mitchell moving onto his own solo work, until 2011 when they released their fifth studio album Kosciuszko.
Kevin Mitchell performs his solo work under the pseudonym of Bob Evans.[8] He created the name in 1999, coming up with it to play incognito solo shows in Perth.[4] Mitchell has said he chose Bob Evans, "because it was written on a T-shirt I was wearing".[9] Evans' first solo effort, Suburban Kid, (2003) on Redline Records, was a relatively indistinguishable album,[4] and has been described as "an album of youthful introspection, love and loss".[10] All songs were written by Kevin Mitchell, however, he shares writing credit on one song, "The Hermit", with Luke Steele from The Sleepy Jackson. Katy Steele from Little Birdy also performed backup vocals on the album.
Evans' next studio album, Suburban Songbook, was released in 2006. Originally a collection of demos he recorded as Kevin Mitchell, and not intended for public release, they were nonetheless discovered while recording his sophomore effort with Capitol Records, who integrated the songs into the new album, and set him on the road to commercial success.[4] Mitchell sent out the demos to his favorite record producers around the world and was surprised by the immediate response by American producer, Brad Jones (Josh Rouse, Yo La Tengo, Sheryl Crow).
Normally when you send a demo to a producer overseas you are lucky to even hear back. Within a month of him hearing the demos I was on a plane to Nashville to begin recording. The whole process seemed blessed.[11]—Kevin Mitchell
Jones took Mitchell’s wide-eyed-and-gritty vision for the album and suggested a more refined, listener-friendly approach.[12] Suburban Songbook was released on 10 June 2006 and debuted at #15 on the ARIA album charts.[13] Suburban Songbook won the 2006 ARIA Music Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album and earned Mitchell's alter ego Evans a nomination for Best Male Artist.[14] The album was also nominated for the 2006 Australian Music Prize and the 2006 J Award.
Mitchell supported Evermore on their "Welcome to the Real Life" tour of Australia and New Zealand under the Bob Evans pseudonym, and also performed on the 2007 Big Day Out tour, Homebake, West Coast Blues & Roots Festival and The Great Escape.
At the 2007 WAMi awards, he was nominated for two awards, Most Popular Album and Best Commercial Pop Act. Mitchell was voted Best Male Artist in the 2007 Rolling Stone annual readers poll. He also played showcases in London, New York and Johannesburg before undertaking a national tour with Machine Translations and South African band Farryl Purkiss.
I think Bob Evans is more me than Kevin Mitchell from Jebediah is! In that way it’s like a reverse alter-ego. It just allows me to push things a bit. Bob’s been enough under the radar to give me, creatively, a lot more freedom than I might otherwise have.— Kevin Mitchell [15]
When later asked what 'reverse alter-ego' means to Kevin, he said “I've no idea, that's one of those quotes that I've been haunted by.”[16]
Mitchell has recorded some new songs for his third album, Goodnight, Bull Creek!, in Nashville, with producer Brad Jones (Sheryl Crowe, Josh Rouse). According to Mitchell the album will be the final piece in his suburban musical trilogy.[17]
The title is referring to me saying farewells, as I said with the last record that I would only do one more suburban record as part of the trilogy. Ironically, this record isn't very suburban at all though; not nearly as much as the last one. But it is the end of the chapter.—Kevin Mitchell[17]
Goodnight, Bull Creek! was released on 3 April 2009 and debuted at #22 on the ARIA album charts.[18] In April 2009 Mitchell undertook a national tour to promote the release of the album and was joined by Malcolm Clark (Sleepy Jackson), Hugh Jennings (End of Fashion), Ben Witt (The Chemist), Louis Macklin (67 Special) and Steve Poltz (The Rugburns) from the United States. In July he played the Splendour in the Grass festival in Byron Bay, following which he was the support act for Eskimo Joe on their Inshalla national tour.
With the original intention of Mitchell's Bob Evans persona to record a trilogy of suburban themed solo albums now complete he admits that this era of his life is coming to an end.
I'll run Bob into the ground on this record and do as much work as I can, and do as many tours and as many festivals as i can into next year. Then I'm going to give him a break and do another Jebediah record and do some collaborative stuff with other people. Then after doing a few different things, I'll come back and see what I do next. I do like the idea of it just being a three album journey. I don't have any sort of fear of just starting all over again under a different name, or in a different... whatever.—Kevin Mitchell[19]
In March 2010 Mitchell expanded his media career as a guest presenter on Australian Radio's Triple J morning show, in Zan Rowe's absence.
Mitchell married girlfriend Kristen in November 2006[20] and in December 2008 they moved from Perth to Seddon, Victoria, an inner west suburb of Melbourne.[3]
| Releases | ||
|---|---|---|
| ↙Studio albums | 3 | |
| ↙Singles | 7 | |
| Year | Album details | Peak chart positions |
|---|---|---|
| AUS [2] |
||
| 2003 | Suburban Kid | — |
| 2006 | Suburban Songbook
|
15 |
| 2009 | Goodnight, Bull Creek!
|
22 |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart. | ||
| Year | Song | Peak chart positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUS [2] |
|||
| 2003 | "Friday Come Five" | — | Suburban Kid |
| "Turn" | — | ||
| 2006 | "Don't You Think It's Time" | 22 | Suburban Songbook |
| "Nowhere Without You" | — | ||
| 2007 | "Friend" | — | |
| "Sadness and Whiskey" | — | ||
| 2009 | "Someone So Much" | — | Goodnight, Bull Creek! |
| "Pasha Bulker" | — | ||
| "Hand Me Downs" | — | ||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart. | |||
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