SPIll Your Guts: A Ska Punk International Fest interview with Eevie Echoes

Ska Punk International‘s SPI Fest will return for another weekend of ska and ska-punk in 2024. This year’s event taking place on 17 May and 18 May, has relocated to a new, all-ages venue known as 25 Central Street in Windsor, CT. Tickets can be purchased here. The annual festival will feature Catbite, Mutiny, Stop The Presses, PWRUP, Call Me Malcolm and our SPIll Your Guts interview guest, Eevie Echoes. Check out what Eevie has to say below.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! You are gearing up for SPI Fest in the coming months, what does the festival circuit mean to individual artists like yourselves?

Thanks so much for having me! It’s really exciting and I’m really glad that my band gets to be part of the festival lineup. It means a lot because Chris has built such a beautiful community of musicians online and I think we’re all pretty tight in the internet sphere. I’m really excited to meet a lot of these people for the first time in person and get to see them live.

I’m going to swoon a bit here, but The Cons Of Being A Wallflower really blew me away. I truly enjoyed the way there are so many styles blended seamlessly. Was there a conscious choice to show off such a wide range in style? What were you listening to during the writing and recording process?

Thank you so much! It was a very long process to write and record those songs. At points, it was pretty stressful but ultimately it all panned out really well in the end. There wasn’t really a conscious choice to include a bunch of styles. I am just kind of an eclectic songwriter in the sense that I just let the song take me where it wants to take me. I have a firm belief that every song has a soul and while some of the songs on Wallflower took maybe 5 to 10 minutes to finish. The song was like “Odd Man Out” took at least a year to feel fully complete so in a lot of ways the songs changed and morphed with time. Also, I played the songs on Wallflower live with the band for a long time before recording so that also influenced how genre diverse the songs are because we each imparted a little bit of our own style on the songs as time went on. I made a playlist of some songs that was listening to while writing and songs that just matched the vibe I was going for. Sonically I think you can hear some Against Me, Pixies, Green Day, Paramore, MCR, Bowling For Soup, Sir Chloe, Nirvana, The Selecter, and some Daisy and The Scouts in there.

What does Eevie Echoes have planned for us beyond SPI Fest?

No spoilers!! But I’m always writing new songs and planning new releases. We’re in the process of recording some new stuff and arranging full band versions of a couple b side tracks as well as rerecording some old stuff with the full band. So there’s definitely new music from me and the Locations in the works. We also have a pretty exciting opportunity coming up that revolves around an indie film but I’m not at liberty to talk about that yet.

What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences within the scene so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?

There have definitely been some pretty memorable moments. I think one of the most recent ones was when we played Higher Ground in Vermont. I actually saw someone in the front row singing along to Apathy when we played it live and that was a pretty surreal experience. We don’t travel much outside New York so to see someone from a completely different state singing along to a song that I wrote was a really powerful moment for me. I think one really fun one was when we accidentally created a wall of death at the album release show. We were in this dope underground venue and I told the crowd to circle up and they just split down the middle instead so when we started playing both sides of the crowd ran full speed into each other and started shoving each other around. That was pretty wild.

Speaking of live shows, what are you most excited to bring to the SPI Fest audience? What do you want those in attendance to take away from your set?

I really want the folks at SPI Fest to get that sense of love that we try to bring to every show. I just really hope that our energy really makes an impact on them. I talk a lot during the shows about how we have to love and take care of each other, especially in a world that can be really cruel and evil sometimes, so I really hope that message radiates with someone in the crowd. We have to be a team and we have to show up for each other and care for each other when necessary. Otherwise, what’s the point in a community?

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

I think probably some advice that I wish I had known when I first started gigging is to “know your worth” and “manage your energy”. I don’t know if I’d say I regret it because it led me to where I am now, but I know for a fact that earlier in my music career I had taken plenty of gigs that didn’t pay anything at all or I failed to advocate for myself and my band and work out a deal with the promoters beforehand, so we ended up getting kinda fucked over post-show. Some advice that I wish I had taken earlier was to manage my energy because last year in particular I was really focused on growing and I didn’t take the advice of one promoter I knew who told me to play fewer shows and play bigger shows to increase demand. I think I let the anxiety get a hold of me because I felt the pressure to stay relevant and didn’t think about how much we had accomplished. I could have made more of an effort to be smarter about booking shows instead of saying yes to basically everything.

We know you are more on the punk side of Ska Punk International but there’s definitely some influence from ska that shines through. The ska scene gets a lot of flack from every genre of music (including ska itself) but is also almost always at the forefront of inclusion and diversity within the music scenes.  What is it about the scene that attracts such a welcoming fanbase?  What is it about ska that leaves itself so vulnerable to mockery in the music world?

I think that there’s some power in being the laughingstock. Ska definitely gets a lot of hate but I think that because of that and because of its simplicity, it becomes an accessible way for people to share their stories. By nature, it becomes very inclusive because much like punk, it’s an underestimated genre and there’s a low threshold for trying your hand at ska. Ska is the music of revolution and it has been since its inception. I think in some ways people forget ska’s roots in political discourse because of the Americanization and commercialization of third wave ska, but if you really think about it, ska kind of dominates the music world in a way people don’t realize. Most of your favorite early 2000s cartoon theme songs are ska. I also think that as a genre, artists and fanbases don’t take themselves too seriously. I think the embrace of that silliness and that easygoing vibe makes people underestimate ska but they don’t realize that under that easy listening beat is a hard-hitting message.

We are living in a “just deal with COVID” world and everything about this timeline is some level of completely fucked, and the upcoming election sure as shit isn’t cooling any temperatures.  What impact, if any, does the current cultural and political landscape have on the band and the scene in general?

You’re absolutely right. The political landscape is pretty impactful for us as a predominantly queer and trans band and especially so to me as an afro-Latina artist. Locally, a lot of our friends in the scene are really big on using their music as activism, for example, PMFD and Ok Cuddle have used merch sales to buy esims for Palestinians who are currently fighting for their lives against their occupiers. I’ve seen many bands wear or display their keffiyeh on mic stands during their gigs in solidarity with the Palestinians. I’ve produced local shows and done merch raffles to send some money to queer clinics in Florida at the height of the gender-affirming care bans there. We do our best to make a tangible impact when we can, but I also like to use music to spread a message. Before our song “I Just Wanna Pee” I take a moment to speak on some of the political things happening that are causes for concern. I’ve called out Ron DeSantis for being a disgusting fascist, I’ve called for justice for trans folks who have been killed in hate crimes, but I always try to empower the people at every show and remind them that we have the power and that we do not have to take this bullshit from anyone, especially not our government. It’s a scary fuckin world out there, especially for trans folks. It feels like every day I wake up the walls are closing in just a little bit more. I’m one day closer to losing my rights and not being able to access my life-saving medication as a trans woman in America. That fear and rage make its way into my songwriting, especially with some of the newer songs I’ve been writing.

How important is the representation you are providing for other young people finding their truth and preparing to live it?  What impact does your journey have on your songwriting and your live performance?

Representation is huge for me. It’s a big part of why I keep the band as queer as possible and it’s a big part of why I write the songs I write. It’s important for people to see three young, socially conscious, trans women at the forefront of a punk band that’s making waves in the scene. When I first came to the realization that I was trans, I had all of these fears and internalized transphobia, and rigid gender norms that were stuck in my head that hindered me. I was afraid that I had to get rid of parts of myself to fit this idea of “being a woman”. It took seeing out and proud trans women in punk rock like Laura Jane Grace and Reade Wolcott to make me feel empowered to be exactly who I am. It’s my ultimate goal that my band can be that for another transfemme finding herself for the first time. It’s important for me to bring comfort to her and let her know that it’s going to be okay and that it won’t be easy but she’ll come out the other side stronger for it. I have a song that I wrote recently called “Big Big World” that I think really embodies this message, there’s a lyric that says “There’s a big big world and I know that they’ll accept you, just get out of your own damn way” and I think that it’s really meaningful to hear that it’s going to be okay from someone who knows what it’s like to live through the trials and tribulations of being out and proud.

This is your first record with the band behind you. Was there something that sparked the change? How did the songwriting process change?

This record needed to have the band behind me. The songs on Wallflower have been played live and mulled over for so long that it would have felt wrong to not have my bandmates with me for these songs. We’d been playing together for about 3 years before we started recording the record and I think we’ve developed a chemistry that just makes sense. I have full faith in my band members abilities and the truth is that I admire their musical prowess. The record just wouldn’t have felt right without them. The process changed because I had to build that level of trust to know that letting them make these songs their own was going to be difficult for my control freak brain but I think the band really brought the songs to life in a way that I probably couldn’t have done alone.

There’s a karaoke machine at the SPI afterparty, what song are you singing?

It’s got to be “Misery Business” for sure, I’ve got to embrace my inner Haley Williams.

SPI Fest is a smorgasbord of fantastic acts. Which bands are you most excited to see?

I am beyond excited to see Catbite, Mutiny, PWRUP, The Best Of The Worst, Bondbreakr, Plastic Presidents, and Take Today. They’re all bands that I deeply admire and whose songs I love. It is also going to be my first time seeing them live which is incredibly exciting.

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?

I think this was very thorough. Thank you for your time! I want to tell the readers to get involved in their local scene. Support small bands because so many of us are out here busting our asses and making magical moments with every show. Local music is cool and you should see a local show!! Aside from that make sure you use your platform to spread awareness and call your local politicians and hold them accountable if they’re doing some bullshit behind the scenes. The power is in our hands to organize and we can enact change if we unify.