Evaride consists of Sean Michael Murray on vocals and Hayden Maringer on  guitar. Both members have had very successful individual stories in the music  industry. Each of their stellar accolades ultimately led them to one another. 

You might recognize Hayden from FOX’s “Glee,” or from the multitude of performances on national television programs including the “American Country Music Awards,” “Billboard Music Awards,” “Ellen,” and “American Idol,” just to name a few. Sean Michael Murray, started his pop/rock roots from Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day discovering him and putting him in the starring role of Johnny in his hit Broadway show “American Idiot”. He also won VH1’s reality  show “Make a Band Famous.” landing his first record deal with Republic  Records. 

The Duo most recently landed a feature placement with their latest single “Warrior” for the upcomming 2021 NBC’s coverage of the Tokyo Olympics, which will be airing nationwide. The band will be doing a radio campaign around the song and gearing up for their debut album release! 

With the perfect combination of talent, drive, soaring vocals and rhythmic guitar riffs, it’s natural that Evaride has already garnered attention from some of the music industry’s top press and producers including (Gregg Wattenberg, Captain Cuts and Colin Brittain.) Working alongside these producers, there is no doubt their debut Album will be landing on the charts and garnering world wide attention for years to come! 

What’s the genesis of Evaride?

The Genesis of this project has been a wild ride to say the least. I guess it’s very fitting for our bands name Evaride! We originally started back in early 2018 as a three piece. The band at the conception consisted of myself Sean Michael Murray (vocals) Hayden Maringer (guitars) and Josh Devine on (drums) Josh eventually decided to mutually part ways with the band, but ultimately Hayden and I decided to continue to pursue the band and bring a different sonic feel to it! There have been a lot of ups and downs which is to be expected, however after a solid 2019 of building momentum everything came to a halt at the beginning of 2020 with the Pandemic, which no one could have expected or planned for. We’ve actually taken the time to hone our sound and create some new music that we are really excited to share in the near future! Hayden and I are both very proactive when it comes to the business side of the band which you have to be as an independent artist. We’ve been very grateful to some key players who have taken a chance on us including Allison Hagendorf at Spotify landing us on a couple big playlists and some NBC music supervisors such as Ryan Sommer and Carrie Hughes who helped land us some pretty big sync opportunities! 

What is the favorite song you wrote and why?

Hayden – Being the guitarist in the band my favorite song we have written was actually one of our more ballad type songs. A track called “Skin and Bones” off our debut EP. Writing that song was not only a very personal track to both Sean and I but it also was a very organic acoustic guitar riff I created in 7/4 time signature. It’s a hard thing to make a pop ballad in odd time and I think we pulled it off! The riff screams Jimmy Page to me and I am a huge Zeppelin fan. 

Who are your all time musical icons?

Some of our musical icons/inspirations include Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (Aerosmith)  Eddie Van Halen, Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) Imagine Dragons, The Killers, Ryan Tedder and most recently, Twenty One Pilots. 

What are some things to do to keep your inspiration alive?

Inspiration is a very hard thing to come by these days. With so much content and information being pushed at us at all moments it’s very hard to stay inspired. We find writing music together and playing live brings us the most inspiration. To write songs that we get to hear sung back to us from an audience!

Who are you binge listening to these days?

Lately we’ve Been binge listening to a ton of up and coming bands. We like to stay current and on the pulse and see where sonically the sound of today is heading and evolving. We love this new band called Inhaler, The Score, Adam Jensen and The Band Camino. 

Favorite movie or TV show?

We love weird sci-fi tv shows and movies like Star Wars, etc. Movies and Tv with epic story lines and great writing. The ones that inspire you or motivate you to think differently and never give up!

Tell us about your latest release and how it came about

Although it’s not our latest release, the song that we are focusing on due to the nature of the song finally getting its legs and being one of the Theme songs for NBC’s Tokyo Summer Olympics coverage, is our song “Warrior”. The song actually was the second song we ever wrote as a band when we took our first trip to NYC from LA. We actually were there to promote our debut single “Heartless” however we met this incredible producer on the trip named “Gregg Wattenberg” and 2 days after our first session with him the song “Warrior” was written and recorded. 

Do you have any peculiar pre or post show rituals?

The future for us is to finally release all these songs we recorded over the past two years. We have so much amazing music that needs to be released! We want to keep releasing music and hopefully get back to playing shows when things start opening back up again!

What is your style like these days?

Our style as a band and aesthetics vary. I, Sean- personally love this Clothing brand called “Cult of Individuality” shout out Ron Poisson. I love their punk ripped slim jeans and I have their Trucker/snapback hats in almost every color. I also love Nike Airmax’s shoes and or a slip on Vans. Hayden’s style is a bit more wild but I would say we are constantly trying to be cohesive and keep it somewhat simple. 

What is the achievement or moment in your career you are the most proud of and why?

Sean and I – Hayden – both have numerous personal proud moments as musicians but together as a band we definitely share many proud moments. A proud one for us would be having this opportunity with The Summer Olympics and playing a sold out show at The Troubadour. All steps toward our goal of just continuing to release music and hope people dig it!

What do you think is the best way to make it as an artist nowadays? 

Can’t lie, it is super tough to make it today as an artist. I think the number one thing to help you “make it” is to stay true to yourself and authentic. However I also think you got to be different and can’t sound like anyone else, but most importantly you got to have the drive and passion for it no matter the highs and lows.  The hardest part, but also most exciting part of the music business today is that anyone can release a song and it can be heard around the world. With apps such as Tik-Tok your song could literally blow up over night and become a worldwide hit! Shout out Tai-Verdes “A-O-K”

What would you change in the music and entertainment industry especially after this past year?

The biggest thing I’d change in the music business especially after this past year is how little artists get paid by streaming platforms. Taking the hit we did,  with not being able to perform live or to have to resort to live-streams or solely what we make off streaming; the only artists able to get by without desperately struggling were the A level artists and Label backed artists. You can still buy a song on ITunes from the artist for 1 dollar or 1.29$ however if you stream the song on a platform such as Apple Music or Spotify the artist gets less than a penny. Some platforms such as Spotify it’s like .004 per stream that we get. It’s simply not fair and feels like robbery when without the artist and the music we create, they wouldn’t exist. It’s a fundamental issue that needs to be fixed.