Evoken, a very dark soul searching, depressive, trance induced, doom/death metal band from New Jersey, was formed in April of 1992 under the name Funereus. It was then changed to Asmodeus then finally Evoken. The name Evoken was taken from a song by a doom band in Finland called Thergothon. Nick had given Vince a ring one-day and asked him what he thought of changing the name to Evoken and the rest is history. Nick was in contact with Thergothon for quite awhile and when they found out that Evoken based the name of the band on one of their songs, they were flattered. Evoken got started by Nick originally. Nick being a friend at the time, asked Vince to join the band. Their vocalist/guitarist John joined in 1994, and their keyboard player, D.J joined in 1996 and then finally Steve, the bassist joined a few months later. The band as a whole have been together for 3 and half years.
Each member of Evoken has their own influences be it metal, ambient and so on. As a whole they are all influenced by bands such as Disembowelment, Winter, Portishead, Monumentum, Dead Can Dance and many more. The band doesn’t idolize these bands at all, but they are a big influence in their music. Evoken started the band cause of the love of pounding along with heavy music, and making hand puppets at Caldors. When Vince first came to hear the band he was impressed with the heaviness mostly, but to hear something this slow in America was an eye catcher for him as well. So that in a nutshell is what captured his fancy in joining the band.
Evoken has 2 demos “96 and “97. Previously, they did a mcd on Adipocere records in France entitled “Shades of Night Descending” which was done in 93/94 but, most of those songs (SoND) were written in 92. The music of Evoken is written pretty much by everyone, they all contribute. The music itself is written mostly by Nick and D.J. while Vince writes a majority of the lyrics. They try to incorporate everyone’s output into the band because everyone has a different influence so, that keeps things from getting stale.
The band tries to bring to a live scenario what we do on the album just a lot louder. Of course they have their problem sound wise at times do to shitty sound men. They use candles at every show and when they can, a fog machine. They have a thousand other ideas running around in their heads, but do to stage room limitations and money limitations they’re stuck with what they have at this point. Evoken has played with some favorites, one of them being My Dying Bride in upstate New York a little more than a year ago. That show was fucking great!! They had the sound they wanted and got to see My Dying Bride live for the first time, and hang out with them for a little while. It was on Vince’s Birthday as well, so that made it even more special. That was one of the best days he’s ever had in a long time. If Evoken was able to play with any band they would want to play with Disembowelment from Australia (if they reformed)… My Dying Bride, maybe just to wake them up and convince them to go back to the music of old… and of course Black Sabbath.
The future for Evoken at this point, who knows??? Hopefully a tour in Europe, but they seriously doubt it. They will just continue to write the heaviest doom ever and see what happens as they go along. So as for any type of touring plans there are none, although Vince said it would be in the summer sometime and the label(who they are no longer with) is somewhat lazy in the field of booking shows. Most the shows they play now they get through contacts and their somewhat manager Tomas Pasqual. So Evoken will just have to wait and see what happens.
In 20 years from now Evoken would love for them to be able to make some sort of money from doing what they love to do and that’s play. But, this is more of a dream then reality. I don’t think this genre of music has a huge following, more like a cult following. Evoken will continue to write the most dismal music we can with no boundaries. Evoken just signed with Avantgarde Music in Italy for a two album deal. And they are really happy about that so keep your eyes out and ears open.
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/evokenhell
https://www.reverbnation.com/evokendoom
