Chris Evans of AudioGust: Why It’s Time to Start, Ship, and Repeat

TEASER CLIP

Chris Evans: About three years ago, we had a nice conversation with, our finance guys and we said, well, when could I retire? And they said, you can do it today. And we said, oh, and that changes things when you realize this isn't some future potential thing. You could do this today. I built this space, which is in my garage, but it's a soundproof studio, and by the time I was done with software, I had a space and I could do full productions of songs. And for the last, several years now, it's, what I do all day, pretty much every day. It's been a delight.

WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

Becky Boyland: Welcome to Second Verse, the podcast for indie artists finding their second act in music and the courage it takes to start. Again. I'm your host, Becky Boyland, singer-songwriter, StoryBrand certified brand messaging expert, and the founder of Attitude Creativity, where I help artists clarify their message and build a digital home for their music.

Today's guest brings a fascinating balance of logic and heart. Chris Evans, not that Chris Evans, is an alt, indie rock artist, songwriter and producer who started out in '80s rock bands, spent decades building a successful software career, and is now fully immersed in music under his artist name, AudioGust.

Chris has released over three dozen songs, collaborates across continents, and approaches songwriting with a refreshing blend of precision and play. His perspective on creative joy, finishing what you start and releasing without perfectionism is exactly what many of us need to hear. Let's get into it.

MUSIC IN CHRIS'S EARLY LIFE

Becky Boyland: Welcome, Chris. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Chris Evans: Thank you for having me.

Becky Boyland: I'd like to start with what's your origin story? When did you first fall in love with music, and what was your early life as a musician like?

Chris Evans: I mean, I've been a music fan since as long as I could remember. My first concert my parents took me to was Elton John. I was six, and it was a great show. It was really a long time ago, very early in Elton's career, and he was really good then. obviously remembering that now I'm a little older than six, is a good indication that it was a really good show. but I started, you know, I was always in choirs and things like that. around age 13 or so. I think I saw The Kids Are Alright by the Who, which is sort of a, you know, their history and I saw Pete Townshend playing guitar and thought, wow, that looks amazing. I wanna do that.So I, up a guitar and started playing it, and learned that, and started a band. And we were terrible, but we loved it. we, wrote songs and got better.

By the time that I was through high school, we were a pretty good band.

COLLEGE YEARS AND EARLY CAREER

Chris Evans: Then I went off to college, at the University of Michigan. While I was there, it was the strangest thing. The dorm that I was in had a student run recording studio

Becky Boyland: Wow.

TRANSITION TO SOFTWARE

Chris Evans: And at that point I thought, you know, this recording studio thing, this music thing, maybe now isn't the time, but this technology thing I like as well. Because I'd taken some programming classes and things like that at university, and I was already always playing around with computers. So, even when I was at Domino's, I was doing SQL database development just for them. I was like, well, what if we did the software thing?

So my wife and I moved to Boston and, worked at a router company doing tech support. While I was there, I learned C++ and worked at another company doing, you know, applications and database, things like that. and really enjoyed it, you know, writing code and building applications and products for people. We shipped the first Java development environment on the Macintosh back in the day, weird thing about it was that the company who made Java hadn't shipped on the Mac yet. So we actually beat them on that, which was kind of fun.

Becky Boyland: Wow.

Chris Evans: Apple and Microsoft and those folks all like who, who are these guys? They both came calling and I ended up at Microsoft, working on internet explorers on the Mac. And browsers in general, but then lots of other things over a period of the next 20 some odd years. And, during that time there were points where music would come back. I'd be in a band and we, recorded an album and released an album on mp3.com. And, you know, it was, fun to do that. And then I would, every once in a while I would sort of back in with what was going on in recording. Because even back when I was, in Ann Arbor before we went to Boston, I was writing songs and recording them, you know, using one of these four track cassette recorders which I used SMPTE on so I could sync it up so that I could have midi going through my computer and with these, you know, really weird complex system for something as sort of simple as, it could be back then.

I wrote a lot of instrumental type songs then, and it was a lot of fun. But then, you know, during the software years, it was occasionally playing guitar, being in a band for a year or two, but then not. And then coming back again and checking on what was going on in recording.

And, you know, I got a copy of Logic Pro back when it was a separate boxed product and you had to buy the whole thing. Every few years I would write a song or two, and maybe go back and tweak some of the earlier ones, but not a lot.

RETIREMENT AND RETURN TO MUSIC

Chris Evans: And then, about three years ago, we had a nice conversation with, our finance guys and we said, well, when, when could I retire? And they said, you can do it today. And we said, oh, and that changes things when you realize this isn't some future potential thing. You could do this today. One of the things I had to think about was, okay, well what do I wanna do when I retire from software? Because, I got hopefully a lot of time left, knock wood. So I built, in the year or so before then, I, I built this space, which is in my garage, but it's a soundproof studio, so that I could be loud, which is one of the things that sort of kept me from doing a lot of recording previously is I didn't have a place where I could go and be loud. And I'm sure, you know,

Becky Boyland: Yes.

Chris Evans: One of the things about recording and writing songs is that if you're not the person doing it, going back over and over and over and over and over again at the same part of the song as you're tuning it and tweaking it is really annoying to everybody else. doing it over headphones never quite worked for me either.

So, that was a challenge. But once I could build this space where I could be as loud as I needed to be, I don't need to be that loud, but louder than the rest of my family might want. or my neighbors. and I could also block out all of their noise, that was the game changer.

And so, started setting up the space and by the time I was done with software, or at least corporate software, I had a space and I could do full productions of songs.

SONGWRITING AND PRODUCTION

Chris Evans: And that was the key moment. And so I told everybody I was retiring to become a songwriter. They're like, really? And I was also like, really? Well, it sounds good. But then I did, and for the last, several years now, it's, what I do all day, pretty much every day. it's been a delight.

Becky Boyland: That's incredible. And I love throughout your story how even though you had these different interests, you still kept coming back to recording and music while making a really great career in software. And I think that a lot of people might think that that's so strange that there can be so much of a crossover between developers and software writers and songwriters and musicians.

It's not so strange to me because obviously that's my life too.

Chris Evans: Yeah.

Becky Boyland: it just really does come together. And I think especially when you have the producer writer, because it just all makes sense. We wanna play with all the toys and we wanna build things with these little bits and assemble them into something great and amazing.

I.

Chris Evans: You know the funny thing about software and music is that they're really similar, right? In both cases, you're creating something that you can't touch, right? You can't touch an application. You can touch a floppy disk or something like that, but that's not applications. I said floppy disk. That aged me right there. You know, you can touch, a CD arguably, but that's also not really what the music is. Again, I aged. Wow. Anyway, um,

Becky Boyland: I'm right there with you.

Chris Evans: so creating music and creating software, you know, you're creating something that's, a concept and you're creating it in your mind and then, in both cases you use your Mac, at least in my case, to create them.

And actually in both cases, the funny thing is that I upload them to Apple in order to sell them. Because both the apps that I've built, on the Apple platforms as well as, the music stuff that goes through, actually funny thing, the same kind of tools in the backend. I wrote an app and had an app in the app store the day that it opened. The tools they told us to use in order to upload the app was called iTunes Connect. So it was the exact same software on the backend at Apple that developers use to upload their apps was the same stuff that the labels and the distributors use to upload their music into iTunes. So even at Apple, it's the same thing,

it's a set of digital bits. But from the creation standpoint, I think it's a lot of the same skills as well, right? It's being able to sort of think about something that you're interested in that's, fully creative and being able to sort of take that and iterate on it a lot, and get it to a point where it sort of meets what you want it to be.

And in both cases there is never actually an end, right? I mean, we ship music or software because we hit a point where it's like, okay, I want to get this so they can enjoy it. But there's always more that you could do in an app. There's always more you could do in a song. And sort of knowing where the, okay, this is the right point, is important. and as you build those skills, a lot of them are the same. You know, I know an awful lot of musicians through my time, software, and I think it's because they, have that same feel, that same skillset. One really sort of does help with the other one.

Becky Boyland: I see it almost as tangible, even though it is very intangible until it's done, and then you do have this way to interact with it. You can either listen to it or you have an interface when it comes to software. For me, it's almost a tangible thing in contrast to the intangibility of some of the other work I have done.

It almost feels like a thing I've built as if it were with my own two hands. It is fascinating that so many of us weave in and out of these, industries and, it makes perfect sense. it sounds far away until you realize how close it is. It's fascinating.

And so now you have your recording studio and you're working under AudioGust, which is your artist name, your producer name. What kinds of projects are you doing and are you doing primarily for your own artistry or are you also doing other projects for folks?

Chris Evans: A lot of both. So on the AudioGust front, first, I'm using the name AudioGust for those who may be joined into this podcast, thinking a different Chris Evans might be here, because there are an awful lot of us, Chris Evans's. Obviously there's the big Captain America actor, a radio guy in the UK. We're members of a little golf club up the street here on Whidbey Island, and there's another Chris Evans there, and when I first joined the Internet Explorer team for the Mac at Microsoft, which was like 30 people, there was another Chris Evans there. So, I had to come up with a name that I could use for the artist stuff that was, not used by somebody else. That's where, the need for AudioGust for both my music and production. and so last year I had a goal to release at least one song every month, as a way of just doing it, right? In software, we talk about shipping regularly, and this is the same idea of getting good at, writing quickly, but also producing completely. I play all the instruments on all of my stuff and, sing. And there's, I had some songs with some other folks sing them, but, as well, but I do all the different parts. And so it was, it was a great year to sortget good at shipping and figuring out how do we ship it and how do we, or release it, and how do you track that and how do you market it and all those things.

So that was a big chunk of last year, but the other half of last year was doing a lot more co-writing and producing with other people. I work with a lot of people, in the US and outside of the us, a lot of folks in the UK and in Europe, writing and recording songs with them. I've mixed some albums for some local folks here as well. But the thing that I really love is the songwriting and producing. All of the songs that I released as AudioGust, I kind of view them as almost business cards for what I do and can do as a songwriter and a producer. Here are the different types of things that I do naturally. Here's some work with some other people that that sort of shows other skills in, different genre directions, be it dream pop synth songs that I do with, a woman named Carmel who's in Poland, who's amazing and we have her second song coming out soon.

We've got a couple more of them almost done. I work with, some folks up in Canada writing a whole bunch of country type songs and, a bunch of folks in the UK. it's been, great learning with them 'cause we're all in the same boat figuring this out and the things you can pick up by doing collaborative work, you know, really help me grow and help me learn some different things and figure out, what it's like to work with other people, in all elements of production as well as in writing. And it's, you know, it's fun to see how each one's a little bit different.

Becky Boyland: Working with other people, you get the benefit of the experiences that they've had as well as their genre tastes and interests. It really does start to stretch things. And then of course there's that community that is built around that. There are so many amazing artists out there that are doing, like we're doing at this point in our lives, trying to just do something new and fresh and there's also plenty of audience for all that we have out there.

We just need to find them and help them find us.

FINDING AN AUDIENCE

Chris Evans: Yep. That is the trick, isn't it? Is finding your audience. and the thing that's I think was really useful for me to figure out is that, no matter what you do, no matter what style of music you create, if it's something that you actually love when you create it, that audience is out there. It could be the weirdest thing in the world. And it might be hard to find that audience. 'Cause you know, they may not be huge, but they're out there. If you really love the music you created, then other people who have a similar, music experience developed through a lifetime of hearing music at every, you know, good and bad moment in your life, All of that sort of builds up this ID in each person's head of, of what it is they love and why they love it. And, the odds that any particular person likes a given song are actually really low. If you think about how many different styles of music there are and how many different cultures, the vast majority of the music I know is very western focused, so US, and Canada and UK and Australia and things like that. But there's so much French music Russian music, Chinese music and you know, every different culture has their entire history as well as their popular music. And so the odds of them liking anybody in the world in particular liking what I do, are arguably small because they have interests that I've never even heard of or thought about, but they're there in probably all of those places.

And just looking at my numbers on Spotify, which I do every single day, is fascinating. Why is that song popular in Portugal?

Becky Boyland: Yeah, I know right.

Chris Evans: It's neat to know those things, right? or you see, some radio station in, Argentina is playing some of my songs and then I start seeing Shazams from Argentina and I'm like, that's the coolest thing in the world.

I get a email every week from Apple Music and, and it tells me how many Shazams there are and usually the numbers pretty dang small. But every time you I get one, it sort of tells me also where, where were the cities that people, Shazamed me and it also tells me like, where was my radio airplay that week? And you can see this great correlation of like, if you're getting some play in some city, people start Shazaming it as well. But just to me, that moment of someone Shazamed it is like that's like this huge, step, right, of a person not only heard the music, but then decided, wait, what is this?

I'm interested in this enough actually take their phone outta their pocket and push a button and hold it up, which isn't hard, but it's like, that's, a level of interest.

Becky Boyland: Something that I did provoked, a physical action by somebody to be curious about it. And that's huge.

You know, they're self qualifying and saying, I wanna know more, I wanna hear this again. Maybe I wanna find out what else they have available that I can listen to.

And I think the really huge step for us as artists is to go past the point where we think that the song is our product and the reality is we are the product. They want to get to know us, build that community with us, and also then be kind of led by us towards something that they're passionate about.

Once we sort of cross over to that point of, no, I am offering something that is beyond just sonic — and that obviously is a huge part of it; there needs to bea coalescing around that art — but beyond that, they want to know more and we have more to offer. that's the part where the artist can find community and begin to brand and market themselves in a way that isn't just about numbers, but about outcomes and doesn't feel unnatural because it really is community building at its core.

Chris Evans: Yeah. And a lot of the community, you rarely actually know who the people are. You don't get their stories. it's sort of a one way street in an awful lot of the cases. So gets a little lonely, writing songs.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Chris Evans: And, that to me gets back to you've gotta write things that you love, like trying to write music that somebody else will love but it's not the thing that you love, how do you write something that someone else will love if it's not something that you love? How would you know? I was talking before about how you, how do you know when you're done with the song if it's something you, have a personal connection to, then you can tell when you're hitting that emotional or message or groove or whatever it is you're going for

You can tell me you do that if you're writing to satisfy your own, love of that song. If you're trying to write something to somebody else's, likes be it, to a sync brief for, you know, the charts or I'm trying to write for some artists who I don't actually know and they're not part of the process, it's very difficult, impossible, I would argue. But the problem is that you can't tell when you're done. You can't tell when you get it right or get it wrong if you're not judging by, do you love it? But if you're writing something to really satisfy your own, you know, I want this song, I wanna listen to this song a lot. then you can do that, right? and then it's a different problem of finding your audience rather than writing something that someone will love.

But you know that if you find that audience, because you, if you truly do love it, they probably will too. And then it becomes, I think, a process of doing it a lot. the music industry is very much a numbers game. I mean, there's not a single record, even of all the ones that have been streamed billions of times, that that was enough.

It's, great. And it's wonderful when you have that moment, then even for those folks, it's, what's your next one? If you can get to the point where you, keep doing it, not because someone's yelling at you saying you need your next song, but because you're like, this is just what I do. I love the creative process. I love those moments when a song comes to you and you're like, where did this come from? And I also love though it's a little more challenging the times when that doesn't happen and you're like, just, you know, banging your head over this last line of the chorus that it's just not working yet.

But when you're there, you're like, okay, it's there.

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LOVING, AND FINISHING, SONGS

Becky Boyland: I think that's a really great insight about finishing and not being able to know when it actually is doing the thing that it's supposed to do. If you don't love it, andif you don't love what you're doing when it comes to music, this is gonna be a very, very hard business to be in.

You do it because you love it, not because it promises any kind of immediate, fame or even the ability to support yourself. While it can do those things, the pathway to get there has to be for the love of the music. when I finally realized that not everybody loves music the way that I do, it was both a surprising aha moment because it should have been obvious. But I was like, what do you mean not everybody wants to do this? But it also made me realize why not everybody does do it, and why I can't stay away from it because of the love of it. There is so much authenticity that comes from just loving what you have created, and then that continues to pass its way down to each new song and makes it even better and a greater part of your story.

And while at the same time letting you let go of it a little bit. Each one is not so, important unto itself that you can't just let it go out into the world, which is, a great part about releasing regularly so that you're always moving forward, always building your catalog and never overly precious about each song as much as you love them.

Chris Evans: Yeah, that's a really important point too. I mean, there's so many people that I've heard about or talked to that are like, oh, I'm working on this song I just wanna get this song perfect. Why don't you write some more songs? No, I wanna finish this one.

I'm like, no. Then do the next one and then do the next one. No, song is worth getting stuck on. If you are stuck on one, that's the perfect reason to go do another one. maybe in doing the second one, the thing will come to you. You need to it down and go do some more.

But it's like exercising in a way, right? You get better at, figuring out melodies. You get better at writing lyrics the more you do it. I heard someone say that if you're ever really in a,a writer's block and you can't write anything. They said write 10 bad songs,

Becky Boyland: Yeah.

Chris Evans: Your goal is not to write 10 great songs. Your goal is to write 10 really bad songs. Once you write seven or eight bad songs, your next one is going to be not bad. It's just gonna come out because you're gonna have done all this stuff and then suddenly be like, oops, I can't even write 10 bad songs. But then a good one comes out. It's the doing it that is, what makes it better. It's how you get better at it. as long as there's joy in it, then it's all good. It's all upside. I really feel for the folks who become incredibly successful early on, because they probably very early on have, very important people coming at them and putting the pressure on them of go, now you have to go write a great song.

Don't write a bad song. You have to write a great song. And you can't write the great songs without writing the bad songs or the medium songs. Right. And it's, probably not that many bad songs. 'cause you get to a certain point, it's like, oh, this song's just bad you, you don't finish it 'cause it's like, oh, this one's just dumb. I do that a lot. Then you get to the medium songs, right, that have something good in them, and you like them. and I'm like, finish those. That's great. Because you learn something from every one of those. If you really love, good chunks of it, it may not become a super smash hit, but if you love it, someone else is gonna love it too.

Becky Boyland: Yeah.

RELEASING MUSIC AND GROWTH

Becky Boyland: And when you first start, there's that feeling of, oh, I've only got, two, three songs or whatever it is. But when you continue in this process, there comes a point when you look back at the catalog and realize, oh wow, I have a lot more music than I thought I had.

You do have more to offer those opportunities, but you also have markers in your growth and development and the things you've learned along the way so that each new one has this benefit of what's come before it. And I'm absolutely seeing that in my productions as well. It's fun sometimes to sit back and say, oh, this is why I didn't do this over here 'cause I didn't know that yet. But now that I do, it's making a dramatic difference in my production.

Chris Evans: I love going back and listening to old stuff. some of the songs I'm like, I still love this song. Now, if I was mixing it today, I would make some changes. When I started working with The Songwriting Academy in the UK, I had just finished my first album.

So I was like, oh, I could hold onto this and see all the things I learned and make these songs better, or, and this is what I did, release it and say, okay, that album is the end point, the marker of the end of that era, right,of me, just all by myself with nobody else around. Then I know that, now with the folks that I met there and the mentors and songwriters I was going to grow in some direction. Rather than try to keep working on those songs, they were complete, I would put that out and that would be, that moment and the next chunk would show some growth. I go back and listen to that first album now. None of those songs have hit big numbers on Spotify, but a few of 'em like this song jams. and I've got one song that's, I'm trying very hard to sort of do this pop song thing and it's like, that's not who I was at the time or particularly am at the moment. I was sort of trying to do a thing and I liked some of the things in there, but it doesn't quite fit. I'm still glad that I did that and I learned what some elements of some pop songs aren't in doing that process. And then, I look at the things I've released since then, there's a number of songs that I did with folks that I still see as

that was an inflection point for me, right? I wrote this, I did it this way, or I collaborated with this person. And, you know, it may not measure up to what I would do today, but all of them are things that I liked enough to do the effort of releasing them and finishing them and, getting 'em out there.

And so, every one of these things is a step along the way. in fact, I'm just finishing up my second album now, and one of the songs actually I started with an idea, over two years ago, and recorded sort of their very first part of the track then I didn't know what the lyrics were yet, but I just had this idea about a band thatstarts off being in a garage and not being a good band yet, but just, having fun and it follows them through growth stages in their career from being in the garage to playing bars, to playing big locations. The idea was the production of the song would follow them through those different things and shift during that one song from one spot to another. And when I started doing that, I don't think that I had the skills yet to be able to do that, but the idea was there and parts of it, you know, were, were good and parts of it were like, um, that song is on my new album, because I figured out what I wanted to say in that song and the additional parts I needed and production skills of, of how to sort of make that happen.

Becky Boyland: That is such a cool idea. I really love that. Can't wait to hear that one because I love when you can build on stories like that and the way that you've processed through how you're going to do that, I can see the picture of it even from you sharing what it's about. So that's so exciting.

I love that.

Chris Evans: One of the funny things about that song is that I had to wait for an album to release it. I couldn't release it as a single because it starts out noisy.

They start playing the song and they screw it up and they stop. They're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I gotta start over again. Every time I hear it cracks me up. I think it's hilarious. But on Spotify, you know, if you're gonna skip in 15 seconds, you're gonna skip this song,

Becky Boyland: it's gonna end up on Fallon's "do not listen" list.

Chris Evans: If you're listening through an album, You're committed to the same person for a while and seeing what they have to offer in this context. And it, it's part of the overall story arc of this album. And that's an important element of what the story arc is. But, you need patience to get past that.

It's not long, honestly. We get to the hook pretty quickly. the hook is, I'm singing this song, with my whole heart to the lawnmower is the first chorus. second chorus is to the bartender, and the third one is to the whole world.

if you were on some miscellaneous playlist on Spotify, it would probably skipped a lot.

Becky Boyland: Right, becausean album really is a different kind of relationship and you've earned the trust that they'll stick with you to hear through what you're trying to say before they critique it. by that point, they're invested enough that you can get through that whole story.

So yeah, that's why the album and the single are still both really important parts of the whole process. I have all these memories of listening through certain albums over and over, and the ones that you really are committed to. And they always will have this very strange, deep cut that sometimes is the best song on the album, but would never make it as a release.

Chris Evans: Right. And some songs, yeah. It takes listening to it four or five times and I don't write party songs. I don't write, Ooh, Ooh, on the dance floor, kind of things like that. Right. I, I like to say something. usually multiple things, and to be able to sort of have that sort of, you know, you can listen to it the first time and go, okay, I see what this is about.

And then you listen to it the fourth, the fifth time, you're like, no, wait. I think it's about something different. And sometimes that's intentional, that I start out with. And sometimes the song comes out that way. I don't know, it's about the other thing until a little bit later as well, which, when that happens is actually kind of delightful.

it's, sometimes surprising too. I mean, I wrote a song that's out now called, Pick Me Up. The hook is, I came in for a little, pick me up and I just can't put you down. And I thought, oh, here's the person, you know, down on their luck, going to a bar, needs a drink in there, whatever. and I wrote the whole thing and was playing it for my wife and she said, you know, the Italian word for pick me up is tiramisu. That's what that means. And I was like, oh, okay. Because it's the coffee flavor in there that, you know, sort of the pick me up. And then I looked at the song and I said, oh my God, this song is a love song to coffee, actually. And it was like a couple, one or two little lines. I'm like, okay, that one isn't, but if I change the line in this way, it still has potentiallythat meaning of, oh, you came in and liked the server or somebody in this restaurant, But you could also then go, no, wait. it is the coffee that this person actually is. I really like it when a lyric can have both of those be true. You know, like the song Closing Time, that arguably is about a bar closing and everybody should go home right now.

But it's also about having a kid. And those are two very different. But it is literally about both of those things. I really like it when someone can create something that does both of those things. sometimes when I was, getting feedback on songs, people were like, this song is, unclear what this thing is about. And I'm like, it's about this. They're like, people have to know that immediately. And I'm like, I don't agree with that. But in certain genres, in certain cases that's probably true. I just don't buy it, personally. So I will always sort of try to make sure that when I'm saying things there is more to it.

I really like it when songs have more for you later as well, right? It's not just you listen to, once you've gotten everything that you're gonna get from the song,

By the way, there's nothing at all wrong with songs that do that. I just don't like writing them as much. When I'm trying to, write lyrics, it's often something along those lines of, how could I say this in a way that means this, but ultimately could also be this other thing.

And sometimes I get myself in trouble with that too, where I just like in a corner where in the end the song is almost about nothing. Okay. That, that's, those are the ones that don't quite right. People give me that feedback too, and I go and sort of, you know, try to clean those things up.

That's, the interesting thing of, how do you say something and how much are you going to count on people coming back in order to get the rest of it?

I really agree with you too on, you don't always have to give away every last little detail when you are writing a song and explain everything so much, because I think the most important part is if you're creating an image and a path for the listener and they can fill in the rest. Not to say that sometimes they can't be very specific, especially if it's truly a cohesive story, but I do tend to write more that way.

Becky Boyland: but one of my most recent singles, I intentionally made it ambiguous and it can be very clearly seen in two totally different stories. The fact that they're not clarified enough means this really could be any story.

People seem to love that about it. I also did a collaborative write last year where only the three of us who wrote this particular song know the story. Because the story, if you don't know the story and if you weren't there, you will never, ever figure the story out from the song.

And the song is great. At least we think so,

Chris Evans: Yeah. I love

Becky Boyland: Yeah, and it's so, and it's so fun because you can figure out the story on your own and, fill in the blanks, but there's still a very clear path that something is happening. And then you can interpret it according to whatever you need to feel in the moment.

And I think that that's a really great service that we can give as songwriters to listeners because they're looking for a framework for their feelings especially if we do write very emotive types of music. So it just gives them a, an opportunity to create the picture and fill in the blanks so that it becomes very personal to them.

And I think that's totally great. But at the same time, I also know that there are songs that I grew up with that I love, probably 'cause it's, got a melody or a rhythm that I really love. The lyrics have nothing to do with my life. But I'll sing at the top of my lungs because it has become embedded in my story. And so it can be both ways. the song doesn't have to have anything to do with me, or it can be something that I can craft as a listener, almost like a collaborator with that artist. And likewise, that's what I can offer them.

Chris Evans: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

STORYTELLING IN SONGS

Chris Evans: And so much of song is storytelling. We only have a few minutes so we can either tell a very tiny story completely in that time, or we can tell part of a larger story or we can tell, it's like you're getting a peek into a story. I like listening. You know, there the number of artists that listening to their songs is almost like you're sort of overhearing part of a conversation as you go by them and you're like, what were they talking about? What was the rest of that story?

And you'll never know, right? They literally were, talking through an open car window, in the next car over when the light changed and you had to go. And it's like, I'm never gonna know who they are, what was that they just said? And by the way, whenever you hear those things, you write them down because they may be useful at some point.

Becky Boyland: I think what you just said is, in my head I'm like, oh, that's a song.

Chris Evans: Yeah. but you know, being able to give those little moments, they're our songs until we put them out there. And at that point we experienced them like everybody else, right. We just we're, we're fans of the things that we put out once they're out there. Because you can't do anything more about it. You're not the creator anymore. You're the listener again and they're in the same boat. Once it's out there, it doesn't matter what you intended. It's how it lands with the folks who listen to it. part of the reason I like being able to have more flexibility in the interpretation is that it lets people put some more of their own life in there that I don't know.

So I can't write it in a way that's gonna fit in with what their life is when I have no idea who they are or what their story is. But I can write it in a way that leaves space for additional interpretation. And there's enough mood or,enough of the story that's there that puts you in the right place, at least for the person who does need it.

And for the people who don't, it's just not for them. And that's okay.

EMPATHY IN SONGWRITING

Chris Evans: I mean, I love a good emo song. I also love a really good angry woman song. Both of those are just, oh, I love writing with people on those, and I love just listening to them. And a lot of songs that I write are sort of from that emo perspective. That's not actually my lived life, right? A couple songs in the new album, they're like, that's not actually me. But putting myself in those shoes, empathizing and trying to get myself into, well, if this was them, how would they feel about that? And what would they say and why might they, leave a person who's trying to just help them? It's because the pain they feel is the only thing they know. And so if you're trying to solve that, you know, I've got this song called I Like Falling Down, which is on the new album, It's that person, right? They're leaving a person behind who is literally just trying to help them. They're just trying to be nice about how they dump them because it's like, I know what you're trying to do, but this is all I know. To fix this would be to sort of, the line says, kill the only me I've ever known.

Becky Boyland: Mm.

Chris Evans: it's not that they like the pain, but it is their life. for a person who's trying to tell them they can't do that anymore, or it's not okay, or they're not allowed to do that, it's like, I don't know anything else.

You can't take this from me.

Becky Boyland: Yeah.

Chris Evans: Even though it makes me miserable and would make you miserable it's my life. It's what I know and it's everything I've done. it's really nice to be able to put yourself into that position and sort of become that person in a way without having to always be that person, but it's, it's just, it's so ripe for, emotional connection and then I'm sure there are people out there who they're gonna be like, how did you know my story?

Becky Boyland: Are you listening in on my thoughts?

Chris Evans: I did work on internet web browsers. it's a great way of telling stories, and of trying to say things that people haven't already said.

Becky Boyland: And you have a really cool one-liner to describe your music:

Chris Evans: Hooky Anthems for Disenchanted Optimists.

Yes.

Becky Boyland: Well, it was funny because it made me think about what mine would be and mine would be Cinematic Anthems for Realistic Dreamers.

Chris Evans: Okay. Yeah. It's just the, other side of the person's, brain,

Becky Boyland: Exactly. Yeah. 'cause I still want people to dream, but at the same time, the dose of realism is very helpful and very on brand.

Chris Evans: Yeah. And I've always been very optimistic, but in a way that's, it's okay, we can fix this, right? It's a software thing, it's a music thing, it's a life thing. That's okay, we'll fix this.

Folks in my songs never give up. They don't always get there, but there's always a, maybe if I change this,what am I doing a little bit differently about it? I just love that element, right? That things aren't great. but they're also not over. So what do you do then? That's almost a formula for, for an AudioGust song in a way. This sucks. This hurts. Some big moment about that. And then a bridge of, but maybe if I, and then a chorus that shifts just ever so slightly: wait, this thing you said before, now it means this other thing that's now slightly optimistic. How'd that happen? There's my formula for an awful lot of the stuff that I've done. but I love that idea, My daughter on my 50th birthday wrote a little description for me. It was very sweet. And I think she used a phrase a relentless optimist. Like even when it gets worse, it's like, keep going. There's plenty of things going on these days in the world that I'm like, I don't know how this gets better, but it's probably got to, so what are we gonna do about it? or what are we gonna say about it? And if you can't give up,

Becky Boyland: Yeah.

Chris Evans: until there's nothing left.

Becky Boyland: Yeah. And really, as I heard you describe all that, I realized that my realistic dreamer really is the disenchanted optimist. It does come back around because you have to face what's actually happening so that you can then take that action and go forward.

That's just a great life lesson. it's definitely a lesson for artists because we're always having to figure out how to take the way that we operate and, make that happen in the world and make it work. There is not the option to just not do it and still be a complete person, still be a happy and whole person.

Also it's denying other people the opportunity to participate in what we're doing and to receive what we have to offer. So that's just a non-starter.

Chris Evans: Yeah.

TRANSITIONING CAREERS

Chris Evans: Well, and you know, this sort of gets back to the second verse, I guess.

Becky Boyland: When I talk to people who are still, in corporate software and are thinking about retiring, the thing I say is, what are you gonna do? what do you want to do when you do that? For some people the answer might be, I'm gonna sit around and play video games. I'm gonna go golf, But for me not waiting until I was, full retirement age there's lots of time. I can't just sit around and play video games.

Chris Evans: I want to have something to do. It's kind of funny. it's a very western thing. Maybe it's even a very American thing of the, you know, when you meet a person it's like, hi, what's your name? And then the second question is what do you do?

Becky Boyland: Mm-hmm.

Chris Evans: Likethat defines really who they are, their name and what they do? What's their job? I know a lot of very wonderful people who are like, I do not accept that as those two questions, which is totally fair. And I try to balance that, myself. but it is sort of the way that we have created some value around people. I think it's not healthy, but it's what we do.

And so it's being able to understand what do you want your, time to be spent on? Volunteer work or walking my dog or, going on hikes or riding my bike or any of those are perfectly good answers. They're fantastic answers. my wife does volunteer work for the Red Cross for disaster relief, which is amazing work.

But, if you're going to stop doing something, you know, finishing a first verse, or even a seventh verse and you're going for your eighth, Knowing what's next really helps with that transition. It's one of the places where the layoffs in software and things like that are so rough is that you're pushed into this now you need to go figure out what's next this second. You don't have time to think about it. Now you gotta do it. You gotta figure it out. I was very fortunate, you know, being able to keep working for months after I knew that I was going to do this and create a transition so that I could ease out of what I was doing and ease into this.

And when the day came, that was my last day there, I was ready I already knew what this was. I had this set up and I could just keep going 'cause I was already doing it some. it was a really nice transition having it forced on you is rough. But even in those cases, it's, always sort of having in your head, it's like, okay, if I wasn't doing this, what would I do? There were times before I thought about software, it's like, what would I do if I left the company? Oh man, maybe I just go write apps. That's retiring, that's just quitting. Doing the same thing, you haven't stopped doing anything. now to be fair, I do still write some apps. I have an app that I wrote for songwriters that helps track all the songs and recordings we have and all the little bits of data we need to have around them for the ISRC codes and the ISWC numbers and the co-writers and what's the current state of the split agreements and all those different things that I just need to do.

I like having this stuff in one place. So I wrote an app that does it and...

Becky Boyland: And you can plug that app.

Chris Evans: Well, I haven't shipped it yet and the reason I haven't shipped it is the moment I ship it, I'm in software again and I have to support it. Right now it's a thing that I use and, a few friends use.

I've been doing this on the side for a couple years now, and it does a lot. And it's fun and it's, you know, it syns all the data back and forth from Mac and iOS and, you know, I can have all those things, all the different places, but the reason I do it is because I actually need it,

whenever I go to release a song, I have to go to a bunch of different places. I need to register with my PRO, I need to go to CD Baby. When I go and upload it, they're gonna ask these set of questions and then, you know, this other thing's gonna ask this other set of questions.

And if I have to keep jumping around to, oh, there's a spreadsheet there and there's a doc there, and then there's, you know, oh, Logic has this stuff. It takes me forever to find this stuff.

Becky Boyland: Yeah.

Chris Evans: But if I have one place right, where it always is, then I can do that. I guess you don't stop being what you've been, when you shift that. but it's about what the focus is.

THE JOY OF CREATING MUSIC

Chris Evans: And it's weird that software project is the hobby now and the music is the day job. And I love that. I mean, that is just, so delightful every day that I come over to this room and sit down here and go, okay, what's today? Some days it's, I'm doing a co-write and we're meeting at 9:00 AM here because 9:00 AM here is 5:00 PM in the UK.

And so everybody who was working all day at their day job, they get home and they're like, okay, I'm ready to write and do some music, and I'm up and just had my coffee and I'm ready to do some music too. And it's actually an amazingly useful thing to work with folks in Europe just because of the way the time schedule works when they're home from their day job and ready to do this, I am ready to go as well. Then they go to bed and I keep going for a little while longer. When they get up, I've got a new mix or a new frack or a new whatever, and then we just sort of, you know, can repeat it when they get home again. And that works really well. I have not a ton of people in the US time zone that I work with in the same way, and I wanna work on that too. But it might be harder if they're like, because I don't do this as well in the middle of the night, or, you know, I'd meet up, start meeting bunch of people at 8:00 PM to do this stuff,I'd probably be like, what? But it works great with all the folks in Europe and the uk and I really like doing that. So it's just a great way to, have each day going. And then any day where I don't have those things scheduled, I've got my own stuff to work on or, work on some other mixes or other songs or other tracks or whatever, and I can play guitar part or a keyword part, or go add drums to it or bass sing backing vocals and do all the production parts.

There's just so much variety in all of it. you finish the song, and you're onto the next one and off you go. Then I, create a new record in my little app and all my metadata.

Becky Boyland: Oh, yes, yes. The metadata. by the way, I wanna test that app. That would be incredibly helpful.

ADVICE FOR ASPIRING SONGWRITERS

Becky Boyland: For those who have listened to of these wonderful stories, What is your advice if they're wanting to dip their toe in and maybe not sure if they should do that?

Chris Evans: I would say start doing it. the doing it is where the joy is. There is always so much to learn one of the things I thought as I was finishing software is if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be recording myself mixing myself mastering myself, producing myself and playing guitar drums bass singing and keyboards and things like that.

Now, I'm not great at all of those things, but each one of those things is a lifetime opportunity of learning and growing. I have a lot of them, which means there's no waiting to start. Every moment that you're playing an instrument or trying something in Logic or any other tool, you're doing it. It's not a matter of, oh, I would love to, you know, eventually be able to go and do this. It's like, start doing it. And then, an opportunity may come, which may be when you choose, which is wonderful. Maybe when you don't choose. But if you've already started, it's, the next step, right? and that to me is always easier than that first step. the first step in music can be easy if you don't think of it as a first step, right? It's just, I like playing guitar, or I wanna learn to play ukulele, or I want to sing more, or whatever.

Then start doing that. It's amazing how great all of the technology and the instruments are these days at even the lowest price points. I have a Squier guitar that I bought as an office guitar just to have one in my office during long builds or something like that. And I was like, it's $200, actually maybe $150. And took it in thinking if someone steals this guitar from my office, No one ever did. When I was done with that job, I changed the pickups and changed the strings on it so they're Nashville tuning and now it is a fantastic guitar for that. And so now, you know what is still a less than $200 guitar plays great. I mean, it's great. I wouldn't throw away some of my other guitars for it necessarily, but I don't have to. all of that time when I was, sitting at my desk and waiting for builds to happen or whatever, I could just sort of play guitar. and nobody else had to hear me. All of that was potentially the moment where you figure out some chord progression. You're like, oh wait, this is a song. Ooh, what is this, um, you never know when those little moments of inspiration are gonna happen.

And so it's just, doing it. Start, and then look for those moments of inspiration, because they'll start happening.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INSPIRATION

Chris Evans: The funny thing I've sort of figured out, or I think I figured out, about inspiration is that when it comes, you need to be open to it, right? You need to be ready to listen, and you need to do something about it, because if you don't, it'll stop coming. And that's actually the theme of my second album. half the songs in the album are about that, and the other half are songs related to what the first songs were about. For me it's 3:00 AM when some idea pops into my head and I'm like, oh, that's, that's actually a pretty good idea. Okay. And then you sort of, I keep sort of processing in my head and at some point I'm like, okay, I need to write this down. My phone is next to the bed, and if I've got some line or a, you know, phrase or a verse or whatever, I can pretty easily go over, it's in, dark mode.

I can go type the thing in and then go back to bed because I did something about that. And the next day I can go, okay, was that any good or was that terrible? but those moments, come at the point when you're not thinking about it. They come at some moment where you've got something else in your head.

So it might be, for me it's three in the morning, but for someone who's, working in software, it might be in the middle of some meeting where they're talking about whether we're gonna ship this thing or not. Or in some design review where, because your brain is focusing on this very different thing, that moment about that song or that lyric has a chance to go, oh, by the way, this, like, that part of the brain that processes when it's not being focused on, which is what inspiration actually is. It's little bits of your brain that you're waking up. If you start, you're basically just developing those elements and they will start talking to you. If you wait for the perfect moment for that to happen, you're losing that time on developing it. So, the big thing is. Start doing it. And I think the second thing is make sure you keep enjoying it. Don't make it the part of the thing that you hate, where it becomes a job that's just miserable. For all of us, there's something we're like, I don't like doing that part of it, but, know, there needs to be enough of the fun part. I did write an article once called "'Oh, Cool' Moments." It was for software. But I think the same thing applies to music, The thing that actually drives software engineers isn't paychecks. I mean they're nice, but it's, it's not enough. It's not team things. It's not some big challenge. It's those little moments when you're writing something and it works for the first time and you're like, oh, cool. That worked. Neat. And that little bit of joy should power you through to the next one of those little bits of joy. Real burnout happens when the time between all those oh cool moments is too long. So if some process is broken and it just takes forever to get to the point where you can have that next little win, right? Just a little, little moment of, hey, that thing I thought might work, did work. And then you go to the next thing, it's like, that's broken. That's broken, that's not working. And that crashed that, Ugh, why is this thing now? Where is this bug? And then you find, you're like, ah, it is. And that little moment of joy, it's like, okay, phew, something good. And I get those now, I realize. I thought it was a software thing. if you do get those moments, you will, find a way to keep going, right? It's that little bit of optimism that there is that next one. In music there totally is that.

There's plenty of times I'm, you know, either there's some weird sound I'm trying to get rid of or I'm trying to figure out what is the solo here or what is this melody or what does that lyric need to be? And a lot of the times it's like, not there yet, but when it comes it is that same sort of, oh, cool moment.

And it does just sort of keep you going. And the thing I love about music is they happen more often, and when they happen, they're just absolutely fantastic. Look for those Oh, cool moments and set yourself up to, to be able to get 'em more often.

Becky Boyland: I love that advice so much and I really do see that because I do have those Oh, cool moments in technology. But yeah, there's a lot more of them in the studio because there's a lot less phone calls and emails and text messages about this thing's broken. It can happen in the studio, but it usually isn't remotely the same

Chris Evans: Yeah. If you start doing, a lot of collaborative stuff with a lot of people it's different if you are a professional, recording engineer or a mixer where you will have a lot of people coming back and saying things like, what we used to call rock fetching exercises?

And that's where someone says, get me a rock. You go get them a rock. You bring it to them and they, no, not that. It's like, oh, what rock? And they're like, no, a different rock. You've not given me enough information to be able to do anything with this. and you know, there's an awful lot of creative folks who, they're like, I don't know what the answer is. I'm pretty sure that's not it. So go, give me another answer. And that's, those are tough because, you know, they're just, they're just saying no, but they're not giving you a hint to yes. So, you know, that certainly happens in music, in a lot of places.

But the thing that's great about being, your own songwriter, your own producer, your own guitar player, your own whatever, is that it's just you that you need to answer to.

And that's why it's so important to love what you're creating, you only need to satisfy yourself. If you love it, then you're there. if other people don't love it, you can hear their feedback it may be useful and you make it better. I'll go and try that. And sometimes you're like, I do it, and I'm like. Nope. Didn't make it better. And sometimes it's like, oh yeah, that definitely made it. but that was my choice, right? To, to go and give that a shot. and it was my sort of opportunity to answer, is that better or not? and that, that I think is one of the, sort of the keys happiness in this, or probably any business is that a little bit of empowerment to be able to say like, what are we doing today? And as you're doing it, is this right? Or, or do I think I can do better? So with that, even when you're not doing well, you know it, and you don't know what the answer is yet, but you know the answer's out there somewhere. And it gets a little frustrating, but now, I sort of sit back and go, wait a minute.

Look at what you're doing. You're writing a song and it's just me. Look what I get to do. and it's great. And so I love that element of it. So even when it's hard, at least it's hard doing this. And, I sort of sit back and go, look what I get to do.

It's really nice.

Becky Boyland: Exactly.

Chris Evans: And there's no, I don't have, I'm in a great place right now where I don't have record labels coming, yelling at me, waiting, looking for my next big hit. I'll probably never get there, which is fine, but, I've got some set of monthly listeners who like what I do and so they come back and listen to it and I get to keep doing this.

And so this is the sort of great moment where, it's all up to me. And there may be some point where that stops being the case. Maybe things will be different then, but right now it's here. And I just love, enjoying this. And I think for people who want to take that leap, then start doing it because enjoy these moments and you may not need anything more than that.

Becky Boyland: That's such powerful perspective

Chris Evans: Yeah.

Becky Boyland: that's a great way to wrap up what we're doing.

WHERE TO FOLLOW AUDIOGUST

Becky Boyland: So where can everybody follow you online and keep up with what you're doing and be ready for your next album.

Chris Evans: My next album, and a couple more singles before then too. So AudioGust, A-U-D-I-O-G-U-S-T. Think of singing as a gust of audio. So AudioGust.com is my website. I am on all the streaming services as AudioGust. I am @AudioGustMusic on Instagram, and Threads. you can meet me at any of those places. yeah, and there's, you know, I've got BandCamp and all the different things, but I think AudioGust.com is sort of the center point from which you can find where the newest songs are and what's coming next.

Becky Boyland: And we will have everything in the show notes so that everybody can keep up to date. Thank you so much, Chris. This was so great to talk.

Chris Evans: This is great. I love what you're doing with this show. I think it's just a a useful thing. And so, you know, such a empowering thing for folks to think about, oh wait, I can do this. It's all within us to go and do it. And you know, it's, if you don't need to make it something is when it becomes something.

Becky Boyland: That's awesome. Thank you so much.

Chris Evans: Thank you.

THE CODA

Becky Boyland: There is so much wisdom packed into this conversation with Chris, from building a second career around joy, to making space for inspiration, to remembering that done is better than perfect.

I especially loved how he described "hooky anthems for disenchanted optimists," because doesn't that describe so many of us in our second verse? Still hopeful... but grounded. Still dreaming... but doing the work.

And as a web developer and music producer, the connection between technology and music and those who work in both fields is very striking to me. I wonder what other jobs and industries you may have found connected well with music. Maybe you have a great story you can share at secondversepod.com/shareyourstory. You can even leave an audio message and you might just hear your own voice on a future episode.

Now your artist action step for this week: Don't chase perfection. Chase progress. Whether you're sitting on half finished demos, unsure if your work is good enough, or still defining your sound, keep moving, keep writing, keep shipping.

And if you're stuck on how to present yourself online or make your music findable and professional, I'd love to help at attitudecreativity.com.

Please subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with someone who's ready to write their next chapter. And now stick around to have a listen to "Here We Go Again" by AudioGust.

FEATURED SONG: "HERE WE GO AGAIN" BY AUDIOGUST