To build up your career in the music industry requires patience. So back in the day, when your parents were annoyingly reiterating this statement, they were only giving you guidance to achieve fame. If you didn’t listen up then, it is time for you to soak in the wise words now. Most singers, songwriters and musicians can agree that it takes a great deal of persistence to earn that fame. So if you expect to have chart-topping success over night, we don’t think this career path is meant for you.
That disappointing statement does not apply to the NYC rock band, Eve to Adam. The group, which consists of lead vocalist and guitarist, Taki Sassaris, drummer and backing vocalist, Alex Sassaris, guitarist and backing vocalist, Gaurav Bali, and bassist, Eric Bergmann, have been around for over a decade. The group released “Auburn Slip” in 2001 via 3to5 Entertainment group and “Queens To Eden” in 2007 via Melrose Music Group. Over the course of their career, Eve to Adam has performed sold-out tours with Daughtry and Motley Crue as well as over 112 performance dates with Saliva, POD, Three Doors Down, The Exies, 12 Stones, Crossfade and more.
In between all this excitement, Eve to Adam has experienced some setbacks, but have not let these disappointments stop them from playing and making music. The NYC based band is counting down the days till the release of their newest album, “Banquet For A Starving Dog”, which drops September 13th via Universal Music Group. With the album’s single “Run Your Mouth” out now, Eve to Adam is sounding better than ever. The rock n’ roll quartet seems to be having a good time with this single based on the “Run Your Mouth” video, which includes appearances by Vincent Pastore of ‘The Sopranos’, Dann Florek of ‘Law & Order: SVU’ and Chuck Zito of ‘Oz’.
Amidst all the “Banquet For A Starving Dog” news, Eve to Adam has been out on the road this summer with Saving Abel on the ‘Candlelight Red’ tour. We got the latest scoop about the tour from Taki Sassaris, as well as information on the band’s upcoming album. Check out our interview below with the front man and take some notes on what it means to never back down in this industry.
Eve to Adam, we definitely think the ball is finally in your court with “Banquet For A Starving Dog”.
How has the Candlelight Red tour with Saving Abel been going?
It’s going fantastic. It is kicking ass all the way right now. We are criss crossing the whole country. The guys in both those bands are awesome dudes. We are having a great time. The shows have been really well attended. The energy from all the bands is really a great mix. I feel real blessed that we got the opportunity to do this because it was the perfect vehicle for us to promote the upcoming release of “Banquet For A Starving Dog” on September 13th. So, it pretty much set things up really nice. We are getting to that point now where we have a few weeks left and everybody has become really good friends. We are going to have to part ways soon. It is a little bit of an early somber feeling coming through now. I wish this could just continue for another couple of months. It has been a lot of fun and it’s really productive.
How has the crowd been responding to your newest single, “Run Your Mouth”?
Excellent, overwhelmingly excellent. We are starting to come into places, where they know the lyrics and it’s a nice feeling to have people singing it back to you and being really enthusiastic about the track itself and the energy of the song. So, if that’s any indication of how the rest of the album is going to be received, I think we are in pretty good shape. It’s the best feeling in the world to be able to create something form nothing and have it be well received and have people come up to me and be like, ‘I can totally identify with your sentiments in that song. There have been places in my life, where I had the same kind of retribution.’ So, it’s cool.
Are you playing other new tracks off the album on tour or just the lead single?
No, we are playing quite a few actually. We’ve been limited to a 30 minute set, sometimes 45. So we are playing about four songs off the previous album, “Queens To Eden” and we have been doing five or six off the new one. The actual title track for the album, “Banquet For A Starving Dog” has been going over really great live. There’s another song, “Reach”, which is potentially the second single and has been going fantastic too. It’s a real challenge as a musician and as a band to go out and play material to a crowd that A., maybe be unfamiliar with it to begin with and B., definitely don’t know the new material, if they know anything, they know the old. So, to put it out there and have people comeback in live setting having actually got the choruses for the first time, that’s a good indicator and makes us feel good that we are doing the right thing.
Definitely. Do you have a favorite city so far that you’ve toured in this summer?
Madison, Wisconsin. We are on our way back there for the second time this summer in another festival. We did Band Camp there WJJO and we’re going back from ‘Taste of Madison’, which is a beer festival. The people up there really know how to throw down. They come out to really get into the music and participate. It’s a great energy and great attitude up there. Madison has been great. The Carolinas have been great. We really enjoyed Asheville. The Orange Peel is one of my favorite venues in the whole country. Ya, those two I think would be the big stand outs for this tour.
Cool! Can you tell me the story behind the album title, “Banquet For A Starving Dog”?
“Banquet For A Starving Dog” has a duality to it as far as the meaning goes. Part of it represents where we have been in our career for so long. You know, we have been around for ten years. We struggled for most of our career, coming up against the decline of the music business. We had to do a lot of things on our own. We’ve been fighting for a long time. So I guess metaphorically you can say, ‘we’ve been starving.’ And this new opportunity that kind of came at the 11th hour, pretty much when we were about to throw in the towel. The two individuals came to the table on management on our record side and basically made it so that we got the best opportunity of our career. Getting to restart and giving it to us with everything we wanted; the support and the time to record a proper album and the patience to restart this thing the right way. So, I guess that would be the ‘banquet’ part. We’ve had some of our fans actually saying that, they have felt like the starving dogs because they have waited for new music for so long. They also have been very bored with how stagnant rock n’ roll and modern rock has become. That’s how it works. It works from a fans point of view and also the artist point of view.
Did you guys always know that you wanted that track to be the album’s title?
We waited to come up with the album title. In fact, that’s the last thing we wanted because it is an album track title. We circumvented it as long as we could. We tried other options and other potential titles. Nothing really stuck and they all seemed really cliche. They all seemed really done before. Ya, it’s an unorthodox, different title for sure. It’s not your normal thing, but it’s not a normal album for us. We tried some different things on this. I think thematically, it works. It definitely brings together some imagery. It makes you wonder what it is and what’s going on. So, I think you can, at least, try and discover what it is. I think that that is half the battle right there. We have seen a lot of different bands that are coming up with images that have been done before. Everything is a rehashed version of another thing. I don’t feel like this album in anyway is that. I think it has a particular sound to it and a particular style. I think you can hear certain elements and certain influences in there, but they are not organized in a way to make it sound like a version of A, B, C or D bands that are more prominent or more known to us. It’s a unique combination and people have been reacting to that. We are hopeful that this is an album that at least gets us back in the game, so we can make another album and keep moving forward. At this point, that’s the reality of what we are looking at. Right now, we are just happy to be working again. We are on the road, pushing our sound and building our fan base. We have positive expectations.
The track, “Run Your Mouth” is very relatable. What influenced that tune?
It’s a combination of different situations that I have experienced in my life with a couple of characters that kind of just did me wrong, talk and spread sh*t around that wasn’t true. I basically made a record of that life. Going through a situation like that, you start to take a look at the world around you and there’s a lot of that going on with the modern, social media and networking. A lot of people have the ability to say stuff about others that isn’t true and it spreads so quickly today. It is hard to find the line between truth and lies. So ya, the inspiration of the song came from personal experience, but also I think it is relatable because you can say pretty much anything you want today and you don’t have to back it up. Nobody really backs anything up anymore. So, I think it is a song of the times and the way I was raised and where I came from, you better be able to back the check that you wrote. If you say sh*t about people, it could come back to haunt you and you may not be able to deal with what’s coming.
Why was “Run Your Mouth” chosen as the lead track?
Well, we wanted to be re-introduced to rock radio again. We thought that it was a good combination. It had a good drive and groove to it. It had a lot of rock elements to it. I think it has a really strong hook. There were other choices, but I think this one is a good introduction to people about the heart of the band and it also gives you an inside view into the melodic angle and the groove angle of the band. It has a lot of different elements that encompass the band’s sound, so it was a good introductory vehicle for people who don’t know the group. For people that did know the group, it’s a good continuation from where we left off with the last album.
How was it making the video for “Run Your Mouth”?
It’s fun. It’s a lot of hard work. It was hard work coming up with the concept. We had other concepts that just seemed really cliche. I actually came up with the treatment for that video, very last minute. It was the last week right before we were coming together to shoot and I called my manage. I was like, you know what, I think I’ve got it. I think we should do a mafia style theme. It should be a hit man, retribution thing. Maybe a snitch who is ratting on the family and the cops are dirt. My manager loved the mafia stereotype thing and was like this is awesome. We made a couple of phone calls and in about 72 hours, we had Chuck Zito and Vincent Pastore confirmed and we were friends with Dann Florek from ‘Law and Order’. He said he was a fan of the band and always wanted to be in a video. It was all about scheduling really. He was shooting for the new season of ‘SVU: Law and Order’, so it just worked out. We were lucky. You can have the greatest plan in this business, but if you don’t have a little bit of luck and timing, it’s just not going to happen.
Do you guys know what the next single off the album will be?
There has been some talk. We haven’t actually confirmed what the next single is. I think the front-runner is a song called “Reach”, which is track number 11 off the album. It’s an inspirational song about never giving up on your dreams and even when your backs up against the wall, if you get that one opportunity, what would you do with it? If you were giving one more chance, would you walk through that door and give everything that you have one more time, live or die? I think that song, more so than any other song the album, really capitalizes on the sentiments of the group, where we are at in our lives and in our careers as musicians and as performers. If they do choose that one as the next single, it could be late fall or it could be early next year because “Run Your Mouth” is doing pretty well right now. It is steadily climbing up the rock charts, number 50 on Active and number 30 on Mainstream. It’s moving up, but it’s going to take time because there are a lot of bands in front of us that are very well known and had a lot of success, sold a lot of records. It’s going to take time because we are not known. So we got to late in line. Prove that we deserve to be there; prove that we deserve the opportunity. We have to prove that we have the right to be there and we still have a lot to prove, but we are really confident with what we have to offer.
Any plans for when the album drops on September 13th?
We will be in Denver, Colorado, which we haven’t been back there since 2007 on the Daughtry tour. We will be ripping a great killer set in Denver and the record will be coming out. I am sure we are going to be pretty sh*tfaced drunk after. It’s been a long set up. We started record this a year ago then we went in to promotional preparation starting February/March of this year. That countdown for that release has just been…that anticipation for it has seemed like forever. The interesting thing is that it is been awhile, but we are just starting. This is all just the beginning. The album comes out and then people get influenced by the material and a whole new chapter opens. One door closes and another one opens. There are a lot of gigs to be played and a lot of people to win over and that’s where we are at.
by Lonnie Nemiroff
