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Photo Credit: Nicholas Cantu

Not sure if our fantasy fuel has expired, but we were feeling a huge deficit of imagination... and then Evann McIntosh graced us with their presence to discuss their latest album! Having loved Evann since they revisited Prince-like vibes on their first album, MOJO, we were excited for what the next chapter were be, and the wait was most definitely worth it. On Fantasy Fuel, Evann decorates your ears with sonic accoutrement from a multitude of eras, but the throughline is melody, a piercing thread of pitches and chords that sew the whole project into cozy pop magnificence. Wanting as always to know more about what they have been up to, what their fantasy fuel is, and how to top up ours, we sat with Evann for all this fun to happen:

OnesToWatch: I've been a very big fan of you for a very long time, or what feels like for me a long time. Does it feel like you've been doing this a while? 


Evann McIntosh: No. In the span of my life, I've been doing this since I was 13 and now I'm 21. That’s a third of my life, which should feel like a long time, but it doesn't to me. I feel like people have been doing this for way longer. 

That is very true. To me, you have a style that feels like you're very aware of the generations prior – you bring a lot that feels like a reinvention of something. Is that true? Is that purposeful? 

That's super nice. I don't think it's intentional, but if it comes across, that's nice. I was talking about this earlier today, but I feel like with these songs that are coming out now – songwriting wise – the less intentional that I am, the better the work is. 

That's so interesting. What is the most intentional thing about your songwriting process? 

The most intentional thing I do is try to capture a feeling. I don't know if that makes sense. But, like, everything else I try to leave up to whether or not it feels good. Because if I think too much about it, then it's garbage. 

Would you say your writing style is more reactive? As in you need to feel something and then that becomes the conduit for everything? 

Absolutely. Especially when I go through writing drafts, I try to pick themes just to give myself feelings to write out on paper. Sometimes it ends up being robotic and cold and just an exploration of a feeling, but if I’m really passionate about the topic, I really feel lit. And when I really feel it, I know others will, too. 

I’m always curious about this phenomenon with artists. Do you need to go through trauma to be a great writer? 


No. I think you just have to be someone who feels, who can empathize. You have to be able to feel pain. 

In your eight years of writing, what has changed for you, if anything? 

Influences. What I'm taking in and absorbing. 

What's new for you in terms of influences? 

I've been listening to a lot of folk, and I've been reading a lot. The more words I can put into my brain, the better the words come out. The more books, movies, albums I put in there, the better my art is. I just have more to draw from. 

What’s the emotional context of your recent releases? 

The big goal was to feel elevated: elevate the music and elevate the writing, elevate everything. But, I feel that was always going to happen naturally if I was already taking in more art and growing. I thought too much about trying to grow when it was just what was going to happen. 


You let it happen. 

Yeah. 

How does that growth translate to your process in the studio? 

With this project – because most of my stuff in the past was all digital and done remotely – I knew that I wanted to be in the studio and have most everything on there be analog and musicians playing the instrument. So I feel that's how that translated into the studio.


For you, are you just producing in the studio? Do you share the writing process with anyone? 

I don't like to share the writing process. I like to do that myself. It's so vulnerable and intimate. I'd rather just bring the written song into the studio to produce. I like having a starting point. 

Right. You have the script. With this new writing process being more intentional, do you have new goals or do you hope to seek a newer audience or something different? 

I think it's just an evolution of me as a writer and artist. The big goal is to write things that sound more like what I’m listening to and expand my audience. Also, to write music that’s more thoughtful. I knew that I wanted to work with musicians who put thought into things that I don't know, like theory and things like that. People that really know their craft. 

What's interesting to me is that as an outsider, I always felt that your music was intentional and well thought out. 

There was so much time between MOJO and Character Development, and then writing and making new stuff now and I definitely went into it with a very negative perspective at that point. I really didn’t like my old stuff anymore and wanted to make very new, different music. But, I've gotten better at appreciating that stuff because it is where I came from. If I look at how old I was, it is pretty crazy that I was able to communicate what I was communicating, and I don't think I could appreciate it. 

Artists of their own worst critics. What were you listening to that inspired this more thoughtful, concise, compositionally excellent perspective? 


I wanted to go through musical pop world school. David Bowie and I was already a huge Prince fan. A lot of Laurel Canyon. Bob Dylan, Steely Dan. A bunch of Steely Dan. That is what I was trying to pour into everything. 

These are some very high bars. Do you have any idea what your next record will be like? 

I've been thinking about it. It’ll be similar to this record, Fantasy Fuel. This record is chiller than expected, but it has its moments. It's pretty introspective sometimes and then other times it's very just like I'm having fun and I'm writing a song and having fun. Very groovy though. 

If you close your eyes and travel five years from now, let’s say you're wherever you want to be. Do you know where that is? Do you know what you're doing, how you're feeling? 

No idea. I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow. Hopefully I will have released another project by then. This one took a very long time. And I guess I’d like to be anywhere where I'm still learning and growing, hopefully anywhere further than where I'm at now.

What do you do when you lack inspiration or have writer's block? 

As long as I'm finding joy in whatever I'm absorbing, I’m inspired. I was trying so hard to like things that I thought I should like, but I was not ready for them. That just doesn't work. If you don't like what you're listening to, even if it's so great, it's just not going to move you the same way. You're not going to take away what you're supposed to take away from it. So as much as learning and putting a bunch of stuff in your brain is so important, it's also so important to enjoy it. 

What are you reading right now? 

I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon right now. I just finished reading The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. A lot of World War II books. That's what I'm on. 

How did you stumble into historical fiction like that? 

I knew that I wanted to read that Mysterious Flame book, and then I did it and I don't think I knew what it was going to be about, and then it ended up being about World War II. And then I guess I wanted to read more about World War II. 


When you need to relax, what do you do?

I'll take a nap. I'm a big, big napper. I usually put on something I've seen before. There's something weird and harmonically satisfying with that, it just puts me to sleep. 

If you were forced to cook Thanksgiving dinner, what would you be able to put together? 


It'd be a terrible Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not very good at cooking. I can make eggs.
I can make tea. Toast.

You can make breakfast. 


I can make breakfast for Thanksgiving dinner. 

If you could be anywhere with your girlfriend, do you have an ideal vacation spot, some place you dream about?

Probably like Europe. Anywhere in Europe, I'd be just glad to go. 

Have you not been? 

I've been. I lived there for five years. My dad was in the military stationed in Germany and I was from when I was 9 to 13.

Do you remember Germany? 


I remember traveling to lots of places while we were there, and I don't think I was old enough to absorb it. But my girlfriend and I were talking about Italy earlier, that would be awesome. Or if I could go to Japan or China. 

Sounds like you need a world tour. Last couple of questions. Number one is, I would love a non-music recommendation. An experience, a workout, a book to read, whatever you want, can be anything, just not music. 

I love movies. I could watch again and again and again, Killers of the Flower Moon. I remember when it was in theaters and I saw it twice. Abe Rounds, who produced Fantasy Fuel played drums on that soundtrack.

That's a nice little connection. 

I just watched this movie with Julia Louis-Dreyfus called Tuesday. Where she plays a mother and her daughter is sick and she's and there's death in the form of a bird. 


These are awesome. We'd also love some music recommendations.

Sea Change by Beck. Clues by Robert Palmer.

Lastly, here’s some time to say anything you want. 


Mashed potatoes make or break Thanksgiving. 


Thank you so much.