When you decide you want to do something on your own, sometimes the best thing you can do is take a leap of faith and just put yourself out there and do it. This is what Grant Evans, a songwriter, musician, and singer from Washington, has decided to do. So far, it seems to be working out very nicely for this talented and inspired man. In the last couple of months Grant has already released an EP called Overcome, a single after that called “It’ll Be Alright”, the instrumental version of his EP, and, most recently, a “stripped” version of “It’ll Be Alright”. The name for Grant’s solo project? Simply – “GE”. It doesn’t look like anything will be stopping him anytime soon. Grant was kind enough to share his insights with me about his music and what he is hoping to accomplish with his endeavors.
A lot of people will know Grant from his most recent role as a guitarist and backing vocalist with well-known hard rock band Sleep Signals for the last few years. But his music career began way before Sleep Signals. First, however, I’ll share a little background on Grant. He is a Washington guy. He was born in Vancouver. He grew up in a tiny, 600-square foot log cabin in Amboy, about an hour north of Vancouver. While living in Vancouver for about 10 years, he built his music career as the front man of the band Within Sight from 2013 to 2020. He and his fiancée, Emily, bought a house in Longview in 2022.
Grant has a long history in music. When he was 11, he started a band with his older brother, in which he played guitar and sang and his brother played drums. Grant told me the band was called Lima Bean, admitting that it was definitely a funny sort of name. They thought the name was “edgy” because at the time Red Hot Chili Peppers were huge. The band played some festivals like Harvest Days in Battle Ground, Washington and Downpour Festival in Great Falls, Montana. Lima Bean actually recorded a full-length album before the band broke up in 2007 after Grant started high school. While in high school, Grant was in three or four different bands before starting his own, Within Sight, after he graduated. It was at that time he started taking music seriously as a career plan.
Regarding putting together his solo EP, Overcome, Grant thanks Anthony Corso and Aaron Corso for their help completing it. Anthony played lead guitar in Within Sight and has been a great friend to Grant for many years. While Grant recorded all of his demos for the EP and the ideas for how the songs would sound were all his, Anthony was his engineer and producer. He also played the guitar solos on “In Your Hands”, “Heaven”, and “Overcome”. Grant admits that he wasn’t super confident as a “lead guitarist” until recently, so he felt Anthony’s skills would provide some added “flavor” to the songs. Aaron learned the drum parts for the EP, which were written by Grant, in a week. Grant calls him “a stud”. He let him add some of his own flair to the “fills” and added “ghost notes”.
I was very interested in how one person creates music that sounds like a full band project. Grant gave me some awesome insight about this. He told me that as the music industry has evolved, it’s become more accessible to create high quality recordings from your own home studio with minimal overhead cost. Expensive items have to be purchased, such as a laptop, monitor speakers, mixing headphones, microphones, digital “plug-ins”, and so much more. But if you’re willing to give your time to learn how to record yourself and mix yourself, it’s not that hard. Grant says it’s a huge investment in yourself. You can pay someone to record you, or you can pay yourself by learning how to do it on your own.
Grant shares that it also creates an opportunity to be creative any time you have a spare minute. You just open up the laptop and write some music! “I had a blast writing music with Within Sight and Sleep Signals, but I felt like my ideas were suppressed or changed to the point where the original sound wasn’t ‘me’ anymore,” Grant says.
Grant set several goals with his solo EP:
1. He wanted to learn how to record, engineer, and produce himself.
2. He wanted to push himself to write songs as fast as possible. “This is how I see it: we can’t be afraid to write a ‘bad song’ because then we are restricting the flow of art coming from our brains.” Grant was able to write and record each song within 20 hours. Do the math – that’s one song per week writing and recording at the pace of four hours per day five days per week. And he said he’s getting even faster.
3. Grant wanted to find “his sound”. He didn’t want his ideas to be changed by another band member, or even a producer. Lyrically, Grant has been wanting to share more of his story and talk about God more because he believes God gave him these talents and he wants to glorify Him in everything he does. Other bands he has been in didn’t want him to share these thoughts and feelings through music. Grant’s solo project is his way of not being censored, so others can enjoy his music at its full potential.
I’d like to describe Grant’s process for writing and recording his own music, and I think the best way to do that is actually to include word-for-word his description of it that he was kind enough to share with me.
“For the process of writing and recording my own music it goes like this. I came up with the guitar parts first. I’ll record some ‘scratch’ guitar parts, that is just an idea. I’ll write drums next, then record the bass and add some lead guitar. At this point if I am inspired by this small section I’ve created then I build more of the song, starting the process over again with ‘scratch’ guitar parts. Sometimes I get ideas, record sections and never touch them again because I’m not inspired by when I created them. But that’s fine! It’s just part of the process! Because we have to fail in order to succeed. Every time I write something I end up not liking, I’m that much closer to the NEXT idea that I WILL like! After the song is complete and demoed out, I’ll go back and edit the instruments or re-record them so they are perfect and more studio-quality rather than just an ‘idea’. Basically, I just need to tighten up my playing on the instruments. Then, vocals come next. The music needs to inspire me in order for me to cme up with lyrics for it. I’ll usually write and practice vocal lines while I drive. I like the solitude in my truck where I can sing and come up with hooks without anyone hearing me. Once I get a good lyric, I’ll jot it down in my notes section in my phone. Once I have all my ideas, I’ll record them. At this point I’ve been singing the parts so much while I drive that my first or second take on the mic is usually the one that makes it on the song! It’s all about how much you practice and voicing your emotion how you want it to sound.”
I came up with some of my own thoughts on the individual songs on the Overcome EP and shared them with Grant. He gave me his own insight, also.
“In Your Hands” is a song about overcoming demons and past mistakes. The lyrics “I trust you in the end” and “Hold my life, in your hands” are references to God. Grant adds, “This song was inspired by the Sleep Signals bus crash of 2021. I truly believe God was holding me when the bus rolled over. I was not critically injured and was able to help others who were.”
“Weather The Storm” is about being strong despite adversity and changing your life so you can accomplish what you were put on Earth to do. Grant shares, “The first verse and chorus of the song literally spell it out. If you read the lyrics without any context of the song, you can tell the song is about a person who doesn’t have it figured out and they make mistakes but they will ‘weather the storm’ to accomplish their goals. I love the lyric ‘board the windows and doors’, too, because sometimes we need to protect ourselves from the storm outside. Protecting your home from a storm is a reference to protecting your heart from others who may hurt you emotionally.”
“Heaven” is a sad kind of song about losing someone you love, but knowing you’ll see them again when you get to Heaven. Grant admits that he almost didn’t release this beautiful and moving song because he didn’t like how his voice sounded on it. He says he was very sick when he recorded it, but he was several hours from home at the studio and didn’t want to cancel. Ultimately, he decided that it was okay because it just added to the story of how the songs for the EP came together. Grant says, “I wrote this song about my grandfather who passed away recently. He was so strong and always supported my dreams. The song is written from a perspective anyone can relate to if they have lost a loved one. There is a lyric in the song that is a direct quote from my grandfather, ‘life is a journey.’ Just before he passed from old age, he said ‘my journey isn’t over, it’s just beginning.’ He was strong in Christ and I know I will see him again in Heaven.”
I interpreted that “Overcome” is based on the events of 2020 as well as the 2021 bus crash with Grant’s former band, Sleep Signals. It’s about overcoming struggles and making changes to live your life to the fullest. Grant says I’m correct in my ideas about the song, but he shares that there are some other details that I wouldn’t know unless I knew him prior to his sobriety in 2020. “The song was inspired by MANY things that I’ve had to overcome. Yes, the bus crash; yes, we all had hard times during the ‘shut down’ of 2020. But this song goes deeper. My time in Within Sight was a stepping stone and a road block at the same time. I had a huge drinking problem for many years, 2010 to 2020. I eventually felt a nudge from the Lord that I needed to clean up my life. In 2020 I lost my job of seven years, I left my wife of seven years, I left my band of eight years, Within Sight, and I got sober. In this moment where I felt like things couldn’t get any worse, I fell in love with my beautiful now-fiancée Emily Cavagna. She was also recently sober and we leaned on each other for support. It was true love from the beginning. We have enjoyed our sobriety ever since and we will never turn back.”
Since the EP dropped, Grant has released another single, “It’ll Be Alright”, November 1st. This man is not messing around or wasting any time bringing new music to his fans! This song was written, engineered, and produced by Grant. He even took it a step further and did the artwork for the single, also. Along with honing his craft recording his own music, he also wants to work on photography and artwork, too, so he can be totally self-sufficient. He plans on doing photography for bands in the future. Grant is very excited about “It’ll Be Alright”. He says he “turned it up a notch”, and the quality and vibe of the track just “hit different”. “It’ll Be Alright” is a spectacular mix of Grant’s passionate vocals combined with heavy and powerful music. It’s a story of believing that no matter how bad things get, you can overcome them with God’s help.
Grant recently got done touring with Late Night Savior and he had a blast. He says it made him remember what he loved about touring. He definitely plans on performing with this band again in the future. Grant actually wrote some of the riffs for the band’s next single. He hopes to contribute more to the writing of their future songs.
It is clear that Grant is intent on continuing to share his music and creativity with his fans in various forms. In November he released the instrumental tracks from the Overcome EP. He says, “I feel it’s very important for people to understand the emotions that went into those songs, so I tried something different and added some monolog voice over edits before each track, explaining why I wrote each song and the inspiration behind them. I think you’ll be surprised by the story behind each song ‘instrumentally’. There is a story to be told musically that brings a deeper meaning to each song, completely separate and unrelated to the lyrical content.” I absolutely love the instrumental EP! You can really hear the work that went into the songs musically. It’s so intricate and detailed – absolutely phenomenal!
Most recently, Grant released a “It’ll Be Alright (Stripped)”. It’s a beautiful acoustic version of his harder metalcore song, and it showcases Grant’s varied music and vocal talents that he is continuing to develop. I was absolutely mesmerized by this new track when I heard it and listened to it on repeat for quite a while.
I’m so excited for what’s to come for Grant Evans. He’s doing music his own way and it’s a beautiful thing to witness. His journey is just beginning and I can’t wait to see where it takes him!
You can find Grant Evans on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
PHOTO CREDITS
Studio/EP photo:
Marina Boichuk
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marina.boichuk
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marinaboichuk/
Live action photos:
Kaila Turck
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaila.turck
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kailarachael/
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