Put A Stop To The "Weird Cycle"

Life is a busy one for Kevin Mitchell. The 39-year-old is about to hit the road in support of his latest release Car Boot Sale, under the guise of his much-loved alter ego Bob Evans, so it's a good thing he got in a quick trip to Thailand a few weeks before the curtain goes up on his first show. Still, back home in Melbourne, it ain't all satay sticks and daiquiris by the poolside when he phones in.

"I'm in my garage and this massive storm has just gone through," he laughs. "I've been out of the country the last few weeks in more tropical climes, sipping cocktails, so I've been lucky to have a leave pass lately from the weather."

From the carefree days of touring with his band Jebediah during Australia's musical glory days of the late 1990s, to forming and recording with Basement Birds alongside Kav Temperley (Eskimo Joe), Steve Parkin (Vinyl) and Josh Pyke, while chalking up his fifth Bob Evans release, it's been a lengthy journey for Mitchell. Part of one of the forerunners of Perth's burgeoning music scene in an instantly lauded alt/grunge band, to offering acoustic singalongs as part of his solo project, the career progression is one Mitchell says hasn't stopped.

"I think I'm probably just as critical of myself now as I ever was in the beginning," he admits. "I think I probably hold myself to higher standards now. I'm still learning so much about writing songs and records. One of the things about starting off really shit is having the room to grow."

Part of that growing process in regards to his music has also been reflected in his personal life. In between his musical projects, Mitchell, to all appearances, lives a relatively quiet, domesticated life with his wife and two little girls on the Bellarine Peninsula. But far from living like a recluse, the world around him and the crazy things it increasingly throws into the arena has seeped into some of the commentary running through Car Boot Sale. On the subject of Australian politics, the quiet life of Mitchell is punctuated by some harsh truths.

"I'm just like a lot of people, my social media feed is full of whatever fucking bullshit is going on in the world at the time," he argues. "I try not to get too deeply engaged with whatever this week's outrage is. But I think that we're all witnessing some weird cycle that just becomes a reality after a while. But as far as what's going on in Australian politics, the last few years have been incredibly awful.

"A lot of people don't want hear about politics in their music any more than at the dinner table. But look, I think maybe with age you realise that a lot of things are really fucked up. There are a lot of things going on in Australia recently, and the world of course, that should not be happening. And the only reason they are happening is because we're letting them happen."

Despite the many political ills that has Mitchell fired up, they weren't the soul inspiration behind Car Boot Sale. After heading off into a new territory on previous album Familiar Stranger in 2013, Mitchell came back to his trusty acoustic guitar for his latest.

"Car Boot Sale started germinating pretty soon after the last record," he explains. "I'm always writing but when I first start writing I guess I'm not really writing with a purpose. It's only after that the songs start to gather up that I see a pattern starting to emerge, and I start thinking okay, well maybe this is the beginning of the record.

"So with this record it was really all about coming back to the acoustic guitar and finding new ways of putting songs together on it. I've played it for a long, long time and it can be difficult to find different ways of doing things, you know. In a way I think I'm returning a little bit to the style of my earlier albums."

We're lucky there's even a new Bob Evans album to be toured at all; during our chat Mitchell admits that he had come close to retiring the name. Thankfully, there's still music to be made under Bob's name yet. After releasing music for about two decades under various monikers, has he ever asked himself what a Kevin Mitchell album might sound like?

"That's a good question," he laughs. "I think what's happened over time is that Bob Evans has become a Kevin Mitchell record. If I was to ditch Bob and do a record under my own name, the only reason I could think of doing it is if I was going to do something really different. I thought about retiring the Bob Evans name after the third album. After that I did a record with Basement Birds, Jebediah got back together and made a record. I ended up coming back to Bob Evans I think because I don't think I was ready to let go of it. But who knows, maybe by the time I make different music I'll be able to let go of the name."