Tennessee-based progressive rock revelation EVERSHIP is premiering their first ever official video clip with us today. You can watch “The Serious Room” below.
“The Serious Room” is the first cut on EVERSHIP’s newest release Evership II, which we reviewed here. The video was filmed in February 2018 at a unique castle location in Knoxville, Tennessee. The song has an interesting background. In 2003, Shane Atkinson began thinking about pursuing music again, after a long hiatus. Just a vague yearning, he bought a single keyboard (an Alesis QS-8) and a very small drum kit (Sonar Jungle Kit) and an all-in-one Roland studio recorder, just to start tinkering again. Shane remembers, “The song just kind of fell out of the air. I started laying down some drums, just fiddling really. Music followed, simply as something to lay over the drum tracks, using the presets in the QS-8.” That production largely survives into the released song, as it became enshrined as one of the only pieces of recorded music Shane would make for another nine-plus years and became a favorite among family and friends. It also accounts for the song’s somewhat unique sound amongst other EVERSHIP material.”
Shane says that it wasn’t intended to be an EVERSHIP song at all, but something for a future solo album. But when RosFest 2017 came along, EVERSHIP needed more material to fit the ninety-minute set, but they only had an hours worth. “I didn’t want to do thirty minutes of covers.”, he says. “Beau [West, the band’s singer] suggested “The Serious Room”, and I reluctantly included it in the set, which automatically made it a necessity on the next record.”
“Lyrically, I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan at the time. Donald Fagen has such a way of creating characters through his lyrics. Hence, “The Serious Room” lyrics where mostly me creating a character; this post-victorian servant who yearned for the life of his master.” It was award-winning screen writer Micah Atkinson, the director (and Shane’s son who had grown up with the original song), who whipped up the subterfuge narrative rooted in the lyrics of the song, that together created what we now have as EVERSHIP ’s first original music video.
EVERSHIP is the conceptualization of composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer/engineer Shane Atkinson. Many of the EVERSHIP songs were written long before the project started. Some were five to ten years old even then, and there is purportedly enough material for four or more albums. “I’ve got other material, but I wanted to do this first. Musically-speaking, Prog is where my heart is.” He said while growing up, listening to bands like Led Zeppelin, Rush, Yes, Queen, Kansas and Jimmy Hotz, he had no idea it was progressive music. He just liked it. Amongst his other influences were classical composers, particularly Bach, Rachmaninov and Ravel. He has a sizable Opera collection and is a Puccini fan. Fusion music also played a role in the early years; Chick Corea, Al DiMeola, Mahavishnu Orchestra, anything that challenged him musically. “Even what I’m writing now is not intentionally Prog. It’s just what comes out. These songs are life-stories, I can’t tell them in three-and-a-half minutes. I was a music and literature major in school. So my lyrics tend to be classically driven as well, lending to a longer format.”
EVERSHIP’s self-titled debut was critically acclaimed upon its release in 2016, and the sophomore effort, simply entitled Evership II picked up where the first one left off. For additional information and merchandise, check out the band’s website.
