Hot Press meets Evora

Evora frontman Alan Rickard is excited. And with good reason. The band’s debut album, Hurry Up Before I Die, has just hit shops.

“I remember a great quote from the Edge – ‘U2 don’t finish albums, we release them’. We’re just happy that it’s out into the world.”
Good reviews were followed by a turn on the Late Late Show.
“I saw SOAK on it a couple of weeks ago. I went to a gig of hers on the back of that Late Late performance. There’s a reach of over a million people. The exposure is incredible. We thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Evora were joined by young Irish singer-songwriter Shannon. She also features on current single, ‘Tell Me Your Name.’ Rickard, it turns out, has a thing for male/female duets.
“I love that album, The Break Up with Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn,” he informs me. “I got in touch with Shannon, who at the time was too busy to do it. After a little persistence she agreed.”
You may have seen the beautiful, minimalist video for ‘Tell Me Your Name’ on the interweb. Behind the camera was Irish actor/filmmaker Eoin Macken, a life-long friend of the band. He’s working on a feature called Cold, starring Tom Hopper and man-of-the-moment
Jack Reynor.
“We’re doing the music for that, and we’ve also got a little cameo in a bar scene,” Alan enthuses. “We’ve been really fortunate to be involved with this and the people in it, most notably Jack.”
‘Tell Me Your Name’ also features Dublin cellist Vyvienne Long who has previous with Damien Rice.
“She’s unreal,” Alan declares. “She actually plays on three or four tracks. We were in the studio with her for a good while.”
Long became involved when engineer Michael Manning suggested some cello would flesh out the song.
“‘If you want I can ask Vyvienne’, Mick said to me,” recalls Alan. “I was like ‘Vyvienne who?’ When he said Vyvienne Long, my immediate response was ‘are you shitting me?’ So he sent her a couple of songs to see if she liked it. She loved them and said she’d like to come in.”