Photo credit: Nicholas Cantu
Evann McIntosh is a singer, songwriter and producer whose breakout EP MOJO has surpassed 60 million streams. Their second album Fantasy Fuel arrives after a period of stepping back from that rapid rise, and follows a relocation to Chicago, where they began writing from a different vantage point.
Written between Chicago and Los Angeles and produced with Abe Rounds, the record reflects that shift in both environment and approach. It moves beyond the insular world of their earlier work into something more collaborative, rhythm-forward and emotionally exposed, with contributions from artists including Meshell Ndegeocello and Madison Cunningham.
Across its ten tracks, Fantasy Fuel centres on desire, projection and miscommunication, tracing the tension between staying in emotional loops and choosing to move forward — a push and pull captured between “Mull It Over” and “Better”, their collaboration with Ndegeocello.
The release arrives alongside a run of live dates across the US, with shows scheduled through April, May and June, including stops in Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco.
After the momentum of MOJO, you took a step back before making this record. What did that distance give you creatively?
Perspective. In this industry it bodes well for artists to have a very “go go go” mindset and work ethic, and for some people that sort of grind is in their nature but I don’t think I operate that way. Especially in the context of my situation at the time I’d made MOJO, it went crazy in an unexpected way and I was 16. My life and my trajectory as a human being and the trajectory of my career as an artist are so intertwined and so separate.
I feel like the quality of my work is informed by the quality of me. MOJO brought me so many great opportunities and experiences, it brought me to where I am, but there were a lot of really important and necessary canon young person experiences I needed to have, I needed to figure out who I was outside of a social media personality and how I exist in the world. I was scared to try and fail in a lot of ways because of a perceived social standing, both in my creative work and outside of it. I thought if I messed up people would care, and I needed space to breathe and the freedom to figure it out, become a well rounded individual.
Few 16 year old people have the necessary boundaries and sense of self to be able to navigate that level of visibility. I think as things progressed with MOJO and the project following I became aware that I wanted to be more equipped for the world I was moving into, and that stability in what can feel like a really turbulent environment that’s subject to change from second to second has to come from within.
Artistically I also knew I wanted to progress, though I’m proud of everything I’ve ever made, I knew I wanted the next project to feel like growth and that just takes time. Also in the rapid fire nonstop endless stream of product (that is only speeding up), I did not see a future for myself.
Longevity and the future of anything worthwhile is in tuning all of that out and zooming all the way out to see where you’re at in the timeline of everyone who’s ever done what you’ve done before you. Let that motivate the decisions you make, not what’s happening on your phone. It’s not in the screen, it’s in tangible things like books and records and the community you’re living in. Those things are real and have real history and significance. Everything else feels like a distraction from that. That way of thinking informed the making of Fantasy Fuel.
The album touches on desire, projection, and identity. How do you approach writing about those themes in a way that still feels honest and grounded?
I try not to be so intentional about it, I was having a writing drought because I was overthinking my process and trying to be very exact about what was going to come out on the page. I can’t get anything genuine that way, I think it’s better to have fun and let whatever honesty is in the music sneak in how it wants to. The themes are subconscious and feel like something that’s none of my business lol. If you’re living a certain experience it’s going to bleed into anything you do.
What’s your favourite part of making music and what’s the part you enjoy the least?
My favorite part of making music is seeing the vision come together, and the high you get when you’re in the zone and pieces start to fall into place, even if you listen back the next day and it sounds nothing like it did when you were making it. The part I enjoy least is probably trying to promote it.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received so far when it comes to building a career in music?
I feel like I don’t get too much advice outside of the obvious “read those contracts!”. Very important. Or I get unwarranted advice from a lot of people that isn’t really productive, usually it’s dudes who like to hear themselves talk. But it seems like this industry is just as ambiguous to everybody else as it is to me. I’d say it has never benefited me in my career (or life) to shrink or try to conform. I’m inherently hip, this is nothing to worry about, I’ve just got to be myself.
The more certain you are of yourself the less easy it is for things to shake you or for you to be swayed into making decisions you don’t feel good about. Young women are both encouraged to be and discouraged from being unyielding and sometimes even by the same people. It’s a confusing world, a really confusing space, you can’t make everyone happy but you certainly can make yourself.
What’s your top networking tip for artists trying to find the right collaborators or community?
Who do you like? Whose work moves you? Follow that.
What are you listening to at the moment?
Recently this guy Bill Callahan. I was listening to a lot of Rufus Wainwright who I’m super stoked to get to open for. Attica Blues by Archie Shepp and English Settlement by XTC.
And outside of music, what’s been inspiring you lately?
I just finished reading Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon and I’m now on to Libra by Don Delillo.
Photo credit: Nicholas Cantu