The reflection of evangeline

The art that we create, when it seems that nobody is watching, can be truly poetic. A crowd gathers around a radio, as it sings a simple, conflicting tune.

“Now I’m thinking out loud. Do you really value me?”

The lyrics resonate through hundreds, across a single station, on a cold Friday afternoon in Australia. With a little help from a friend, she waves her wand, and soon, the whole world is watching. Her love line blossoms through the field, from the palm of her hand, and a weight is lifted off her shoulders. After pouring her heart out into her first major body of work, it’s finally come full circle.

Welcome to Azura Mitsuda. Today, we have the pleasure to sit down with Eva Butcher, also known as the force of nature, evangeline.

Introduce yourself.

Hi, I’m Eva, I’m evangeline when it comes to music. I’m sixteen, I’m transgender, and I am from Australia.

How would you describe yourself?

That’s a good question. In what way do you mean? Do I, like, have to give three quirky words or something?

Think of the pretentious paragraphs on the Starbucks walls.

Okay. I…like to sit in my bedroom, and play with sounds, until they sound like…better sounds. And then, I like to…bake! I don’t know. Yeah, that’s basically it, I just sit in my room and make music. It’s a big part of my life.

How would you describe your musical process?

A lot of music transpires through a lot of different ways; some things, some songs I just listen to and just go, holy shit, and like, just get a massive wave of inspiration from that. Sometimes I’ll just steal something from a song or a TV show or a soundtrack, or sometimes I’ll just be fucking around with random shit and just something amazing flourishes out of that. I think at this point my musical process is “fucking around and finding out,” haha.

And your EP was definitely a remarkable first step. How did Love Line take shape?

Love Line basically took shape by itself over the course of a little over a year, and wherever I went, it was kinda just a project that was moving around with me as I chipped away at it, but I never really made good progress on it until the last few months. I think it went over hundreds of iterations before I even completely stuck with the name, even when I was in this community as a different person.

Love Line just started as like, a little collection of, you know, me, and fucking around and finding out. Long story short, shit happened. Love Line kind of just grew alongside myself, and in that way it is more of a reflection of the person I am.

Is there a deeper meaning to the concept of Love Line?

The whole…thing of Love Line, the reason why it’s called Love Line is because in traditional palmistry, that sort of astrology type thing, the love line on your hand is the line that goes just under your knuckles, and across your hand. Depending on how long your love line is, it’s meant to be how much love you’re meant to find in different people.

It’s basically just like, people. Astrology is super cool and novel, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s dumb to judge people based on what star they were born under, or how long a certain crease on their hand is. I just think that you should be looking ahead in front of you, so that you don’t trip over something, so you know who and what you’re dealing with in life, instead of looking up at the stars and down at your hands.

Libra when spelt with an E, not an A means ‘free’, or something like that. But then in astrology, it’s the star sign I was born under, Libra. Though Love Line is a very personal, intimate thing, it’s also little bits of me putting on a character and being like, “let me see the love line on the palm of your hand, because I’m not interested in looking at you, and oh, I’m trying to avoid my problems,” because I’ve seen people try avoiding theirs, and I did for a bit, and it didn’t go well long-term.

With the amount of time that you spent on Love Line, it became a big part of the beginning of the evangeline project. How do you plan to shift from that sound?

Love Line was my first, like, step into the whole world of music as the person I am right now, and was the foundation of where that music would take me. It’s kind of a reminder now that I can do anything I put my mind to, if I wanted. That’s kind of what Love Line is as well.

I’m planning on transitioning into the next part of evangeline by simply just transitioning into it. I’m in a part of my life where I’m sitting in basically a personal liminal space, I’m in that uncomfortable A-to-B phase — I’m halfway through my teenage years, I’m in the middle of a social and physical transition, and I’m getting ready to start myself all over again in a different place with different people. So I’m just trusting that my music will follow me in that.

Love Line seems to be connected to your personal self. What do you do outside of music?

I fucking love baking. I don’t know, I feel like I just have an affinity for making things, haha.

How do you believe your musical identity will connect with your personal life in the future?

Myself and evangeline are synonymous, they’re basically the same person, and the way that I make music and I write it now, is that my music in the end practically is me. So for the meantime, I’m going to keep on being Evangeline, and Evangeline is going to keep on being me.

And how do you allow yourself to become vulnerable when it comes to your work?

I like to put on a face when I write, like a character, but while that character is on, there’s still bits of me that shine through. It might not directly be me, but it’s still myself in the purest form. That whole link in Love Line, especially, with the whole past experience thing, it kinda just flows out in the way that I write.

What is the most difficult challenge you have faced in life, and how have you overcome it?

Honestly, as weird as this may sound, my greatest challenge was myself. I struggled with gender dysphoria a lot, and my earlier time in this community was clouded with a lot of self loathing. Something harmful that I did, that if I could go back in time and choose to never have done it, was to constantly pit myself against others. I’d see some song and be all like, “Why isn’t that me? Why aren’t I as good as they are at what they do?” And I’ve been stepping back recently and realizing that it’s the worst shit you can do to yourself, because “getting good” at something is a process.

You might never think of yourself to be as good as someone else is, but that’s only because being “good” at something is entirely relative. You just have to be comfortable and happy and passionate about what you’re making or what you’re doing, otherwise it’ll have all been in vain anyway, and it fucking sucks to see something that you love doing become a chore because you only want to get good at it instead of have fun.

What would you say to someone starting out in music production or songwriting?

Don’t push yourself. I mean, push yourself, but only in the good ways. Does that make sense? I’ll elaborate.

Take yourself out of your comfort zone, but don’t make yourself uncomfortable. Music is supposed to be something you enjoy, and if you’re not enjoying it, just take a step back. That’s basically all I can say, because that was one of my major mistakes. I was trying so hard to get on the grind to the point where I didn’t find joy in making music for a very long time, and that shit sucked. That shit fucking sucked, because it’s a painful thing to hate the thing that you love the most.

My advice to anyone starting out is to like, do shit, but don’t make yourself uncomfortable.

So, you’ve come a very long way since I first met you. You’ve become a brand new person but with the same ambitions. Where do you think you’re headed?

To the grocery store…just kidding. I’m just planning on just doing my thing, because I enjoy where I’m at at the moment. My mental state’s been in a relatively good place, and for the moment, I want to keep it that way, because I like doing music, and it’s a very big part of my life at this point. I know that’s kind of a shit answer, and I’m rambling a lot, but that’s all I really got. I’ve got some really good stuff ahead of me, I’m moving cities next year.

What?

I’m moving to a new school, it’s going to be a fresh start for me. I’m excited to be leaving that part of my life behind where I wasn’t me, not feeling very happy. But, yeah, that’s where I’m headed next. I’m just gonna keep being me.

Yeah.

Listen to ‘Love Line’, the debut EP by evangeline, on streaming services everywhere.