Taste Test: Jon Hume

FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY… I believe it was Blur's self-titled album, so just Blur.  We grew up on '60s and '70s music mostly, but then the stuff that grabbed us when we first started out as musicians was Britpop, bands like Blur and Oasis. There's Song 2, and a whole lot of really good songs on that album that at that time in my life I found really fun. But it's a really good record, overall. I think we are a guitar-based songwriting type band, so we are pretty diverse in our influences, from Pink Floyd to The Beatles to Crowded House, U2, a bit of everything really. Blur has some great songs, and very clever musicians, quite creative with what they do.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW… I really like The Temper Trap's new album. For an Australian record that would be my favourite right now. To be honest I think I prefer their first album but they're both really good. The second one's different but they're both great records and I think we'll hear a lot of great music from them in the future as well. I recently got into a thing called Mog, which is a bit like Spotify. Wherever you are you can stream music, so it's really increased my consumption of music again, which is really cool. It's a bit risky if you don't know much about it to buy a whole album on iTunes, it's hard to pay without knowing what it's like, but when you can just stream it and check it out it opens you up to more stuff. It's definitely the future.

MY FAVOURITE FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM… It's not completely upbeat the whole time but it's got some of the funkier songs and that would be Innervisions by Stevie Wonder. It's got songs like Living For The City and Higher Ground, it's my favourite period of his. We had it on vinyl when we were kids and we absolutely loved it. So we actually had some reasonable quality music taste, even when we were young, which is nice to know. We actually picked it up second-hand, I can't remember where. I think I bought it, I didn't even know what it was, I just stumbled upon it. You go back to some things you liked when you were young and you're like, wow, what did I see in that? But then other things you're like, that's cool, that's still good, that's nice to know.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM… Probably Neil Young, After The Gold Rush. Very mournful and incredible songwriting. And that sad, melancholic tone of voice that he nails. And great songs.

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED… Some of the first ones we went to were ones we were playing at because we started the band so young. So when I was 17 we were opening for Jimmy Barnes. But I think the first proper gig I actually went to was Neil Finn. He played this tour where he would get up a different band in each town and do a few songs with local people in New Zealand. And he let me get up and play guitar on one song, Private Universe. I don't know if it was any good but he was very encouraging. 

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE I'VE HAD… We actually played in Ray White Real Estate two days ago at the Gold Coast. A listener won a competition to have Evermore play at your work place so we just literally rocked up with guitars and keyboards and stuff in the office. We had to unplug photocopiers so we could plug our gear in. It felt like a scene out of the office, very strange. But quite fun actually, we quite enjoyed it. There were like 30 staff there and they were loving it, they were getting right into it. Probably the most exciting thing that's happened to the office.

BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES… I think the Bible is probably a pretty big influence on me, even language-wise and storytelling-wise. I don't like to be labelled too much but I do have a belief in God and a faith. I definitely didn't always subscribe to it, but it's something I've come to myself. And my dad was an influence in terms of just believing in us no matter what, even completely against the odds. When I think about how we were just a bunch of kids from a small town in New Zealand, somehow thinking that we had what it takes to make it as a musician and doing something so risky as that, and willing to believe in us and see us invest a lot of our time in that instead of something safe. He's just one of those relentlessly optimistic people to the point of sometimes it's just crazy but then some of the things he's said have actually happened. Every now and then he'll hit the nail on the head, and here we still are, 15 years later, still musicians and still loving what we do, which is great. I don't think you can just believe in something, obviously you need action to back it up. But I think without it being spoken there's just no way to even start it. So dad definitely spoke things out and that was a big influence to believe that we were able to do something so seemingly far fetched and far away.

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET… The coolest person I've ever met would have to be my wife. We got married about a year ago. She's very cool. The first time I met her she had quite a lot of attitude going on and I found that intriguing. And she still does. I love it.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH I'VE EVER HAD… I think it would have been Scarlett Johansson back in the day, in the first couple of movies. But I guess I saw a couple of movies with her I hated and it wore off. The bubble was burst at some point, I can't explain it.

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY… I think definitely, in a musical sense, the late-'60s and early-'70s would be my favourite time to be a musician, so I'll go with that. I think that would have been a cool time in history as well. Either that or America in the '50s because I love the whole '50s American vibe. Just the cars and the futuristic fashion and furniture design and architecture. American future retro looks pretty fun, I like that.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC I'D BE… I would say maybe architecture. I see architecture as a little bit like music in terms of it's an art but it's also a craft that's very practical. And music is a bit like that, it's half art and half craft. You have to be able to play well, you have to be able to sing well, you have to be able to write songs but there's also art in it.

Evermore will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 17 April - Star Bar, Bendigo VIC
Thursday 18 April - Trak Live, Melbourne VIC
Friday 19 April - Mac's Hotel, Melton VIC
Saturday 20 April - Ferntree Gully Hotel, Ferntree Gully VIC
Sunday 21 April - Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury VIC
Wednesday 24 April - Karova Lounge, Ballarat VIC
Thursday 25 April - Yarra Hotel, Geelong VIC
Friday 26 April - SSA Club, Albury VIC
Saturday 27 April - Mulwala Waterski Club, Mulwala NSW
Thursday 2 May - Harvey Road Tavern, Gladstone QLD
Friday 3 May - Magnums Hotel, Airlie Beach QLD
Saturday 4 May - The Dalrymple, Townsville QLD
Sunday 5 May - The Jack, Cairns QLD
Wednesday 8 May - Noosa Surf Club, Noosa QLD
Thursday 9 May - Hamilton Hotel, Hamilton QLD
Friday 10 May - Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta QLD
Saturday 11 May - Spring Lakes Hotel, Brisbane QLD
Wednesday 15 May - The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide SA
Thursday 16 May - Newport Hotel, Fremantle WA
Friday 17 May - Players Bar, Mandurah WA
Saturday 18 May - The Charles, North Perth WA
Thursday 23 May - The Basement, Sydney NSW
Friday 24 May - Workers Club, Revesby NSW
Saturday 25 May - Rooty Hill RSL, Rooty Hill NSW
Sunday 26 May - Hornsby RSL, Hornsby NSW
Wednesday 29 May - ANU Bar, Canberra ACT
Thursday 30 May - Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW
Friday 31 May - Entrance Leagues, Central Coast NSW
Saturday 1 June - Waves, Wollongong NSW