Renegade Bus interview: St. Vincent’s Evan Smith

by Peter Simek of Renegade Bus

Oak Cliff native Evan Smith grew up playing music in Dallas, but he never connected with St. Vincent’s Annie Clark until after the two were living in Brooklyn. This summer, Clark asked Smith and his sax to join the band on their U.S. and European tours. We caught up with Smith on the road, and asked him what it is like watching the Dallas-born band take the music world by storm.

Renegade Bus: I was wondering if you could take us back to the beginning of your playing with Annie Clark. You are both from Dallas. How did this all come together?

Smith: We’re both from Dallas, but actually never knew each other growing up. We’ve really only been playing together since February or so, though we’ve known each other for longer than that. William Flynn, who has played bass in St. Vincent for years, is a good friend of mine and recommended me for the “Actor” tour.

Renegade Bus: What’s it like playing with Annie? She’s the face of the band – you’ve known her for some time. What is it like to watch her become a darling of the indie music world?

Smith: Annie is a terrific person and an amazingly gifted musician. She is a very hard worker, and watching her gain more notoriety for what she does is very exciting. There’s the hometown-pride thing too, I guess. If there is to be a darling of the indie music world, better that she be a Dallasite.

Renegade Bus: You’ve just returned from Europe. How was the reception on that side of the Atlantic?

Smith: The reception abroad has been great. It’s funny to see a similar type of crowd show up for our shows in Europe as does in the states. It’s always a nice, receptive bunch. No mosh pits or flaming 2×4’s in the crowd. Except for that one Hell's Angels initiation party we played... Really though, we’ve had great turnouts across Europe which helps make each show a tool for recharging our batteries. Touring is hard work and can physically and mentally drain you, so when the music you make is well received it makes it all worth it.

Renegade Bus: Do you find your music being affected by the tour – the locations you are playing?

Smith: In terms of how we might approach our set from night to night I’d say yes, absolutely. We’ll instinctively play a different style of set at a sit-down theatre than we will at a huge outdoor festival, for example. The rigors of touring don’t find their way into the music though, and like I said even if we are actually drained by the crazy schedule, when it comes time to play that all melts away.

Renegade Bus: Is there any writing being done on the road?

Smith: The road is more of a gathering time than a construction time, I think. Since there’s really not much time alone, it’s hard to work on new material/ ideas in the way we’d all like to. So what happens is more along the lines of checking out new influences than hashing out new tunes. We’ve all been talking about how excited we are to get writing and recording again on our time off, though.

Renegade Bus: I’m going to keep fishing: Any nightmare stories? Lost gear? Fan attacks? Empty venues? Unpaid gigs? Drug overdoses?

Smith: Well we had some little things go wrong I guess. We still had gear at JFK when we arrived in Copenhagen, which was mildly unnerving. It got delivered the next day so it was fine. We got our van stuck in the mud at the Oxegen festival in Dublin, which turned out to be pretty fun when a couple of locals came and helped us for a bit. We have more wacky stories than nightmare stories though, like the time we went to Starbucks in the middle of Nebraska and ran into Miss Nebraska 2008 and all of the 2009 hopefuls who were there for a photo-op. We ended up giving an a capella performance of “The Party” and getting autographs from everyone.

Renegade Bus: What bands have you been playing with? Turn us on to some of the bands you’ve been able to check out over there.

Smith: We played a few shows in the UK with a band from Leeds called Blue Roses that was really great. At the Latitude festival we got to hang with Marnie Stern’s band, which was a hilarious time. They played right before us and are explosively good. We opened for Nick Cave in Torino, which was amazing. At Latitude I got to see Grace Jones for the first time! Oh man… YES.

Evan Smith also composes his own music and plays in the band The Prigs. You can check out his MySpace page here, and The Prigs page here.

Bonus: Here's video of St. Vincent performing on the Late Show with David Letterman Check at the moment around minute 1:11 when Annie’s characteristic wide-eyed, sullen-checked stage personae cracks into a brief smile as she realizes she is so rocking the expletive out of the David Letterman show: