In Tempe, I met up with the guys Eve 6 as the came out of hibernation for Innings Festival, 2026. This one gig stood alone in a blank calendar from October to April, and although rehearsal time came at a premium, the band sounded as good as ever. Entering year 31 of the bands storied careers, Eve 6 continue to impress anyone with ears. Max Collins (bass), Jon Siebels (guitar), and Ben Hilzinger (drums) took some time after their slot to discuss their early days playing gigs at small cafes all the way to a racetrack.
Logan Melia: This is my first time seeing you guys it was an absolute blast you’ve been on my list for a while This set, this environment, a little baseball combination, is this a unique environment? Have you played anything similar to like this guy before?
Max Collins: I’m trying to think if we’ve ever played anything baseball.
Jon Siebels: I don’t know. We did something. We did some NASCAR thing years ago.
Max: We played in Rochester in that baseball field.
Jon: Oh, yeah. But I think that was just in the field though. I don’t know if that was like a theme.
Ben Hilzinger: That’s true. Oh, so this is a theme?
Max: Yeah, this is a theme. This is the kickoff of spring training.
Logan: Well, for Friday, Sox Cubs. Sox be from like 11 to 1, I think. So we’re off to a good start here. Did some research, on you guys and you played some really cool gigs way back in the day. Cobalt Cafe and Coo’s Cafe. Does that sound familiar? Back in LA, do you remember anything from those days?
Jon: I remember Coo’s Cafe.
Max: Yeah, I remember when that Jason guy pepper sprayed our friends.
Logan: What happened there?
Max: We were like in high school and people started moshing and he got like afraid, I think.
Jon: For us, like for the band?
Max: I don’t know. And yeah, he pepper sprayed.
Logan: Do you have any venues that you’ve loved playing since any any standouts in your mind?
Ben: I actually like the Middle East, the downstairs. It’s the downstairs, the bigger club of two venues in Boston. And it’s almost like there’s a ramp next to the stage and some people are kind of… It smells like poo. Yeah, it smells very bad. They have good, what is it?
Jon: Indian food.
Max: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really good food. But it smells like this, but it’s always like a very punk venue. It’s cool.
Logan: Nice. Are you guys big foodies on tour? Are you checking out local spots in the city as you go?
Jon: It sort of depends I guess uh we don’t do a lot of like long tours now we’re doing really like stuff like like this like one-off stuff yeah so we just stay by the hotel yeah you know and just eat like the airport yeah.
Logan: That’s what life’s all about right there is eating junk food and sitting in a hotel. When you’re sitting in a hotel what’s on the TV are we are we talking Pawn Stars, Cash Cab, Family Guy?
Ben: No TV ever in a hotel yeah I never really watch TV in a hotel TV always is turned off
Jon: Yeah if anything I’ll watch it like a show on on my iPad or something. yeah I never actually turn on a hotel room TV really well
Ben: I definitely doom scroll and focus on my phone I love the Forensic Files is is definitely on HLN Network absolutely it’s just like an old school like half an hour who done it stuff.
Logan: If you’re in and out, you get the answer within a half hour, which I don’t like those long docuseries that are four two hour things. I want to know who did it now. When you guys are on the road, are you writing at all or are you just like there to do the show? Or does inspiration strike?
Max: I mean, the way that we do things now, when we’re doing shows, we’re there to do the show and writing is a different thing that we do when we’re back in our respective homes. ‘Sweet Pea’ starts with… Jon, ‘Sweet Pea’, makes like tracks and beginnings of songs, basically, and then we get together and lyrics and stuff, and then plays all of them. But yeah, so that’s all happening when we’re not traveling.
Ben: I guess we’ve always sort of been that way.
Logan: Really? It’s two very separate things.
Jon: Sometimes like if you have like a new song or whatever, like sometimes we’ll play something at soundcheck or whatever, but we’re not really working on it.
Logan: What is the first thing you guys play when you pick up your instruments? Either alone, as a group, what’s the first thing?
Max: I mean, for me, if I’m picking up a guitar before a show, I’m playing, what’s it called?
Jon: Little Red Light.
Max: Little Red Light by Fountains of Wayne. That’s been my warmup song for probably, I don’t even know how many years now.
Logan: Really? What about some good warmup for you? Is it just getting the wheels turned?
Max: It’s a really nice place. It’s in E. It’s, yeah, it’s just, it’s a great song. I don’t know, it gets my, it moves, and it moves my voice from kind of a low range to kind of a higher range. It’s a good warm-ups.
Jon: Oh yeah, what about the rest of you guys? I think Tom Petty riffs just always naturally come out when I pick up a guitar.
Ben: Yeah, I guess for me it depends on if I’m doing a… show like this, I’m just trying to figure out that kit because usually we fly with no kit, so I have to learn the kit. So I’m doing just like six stroke rolls to kind of see where I’m at with everything. But if it’s like an actual, like my kit, probably Fool in the Rain by Led Zeppelin, that kind of shuffle. Because you can dictate, I know where I’m at. If my shuffle feels good, then it’s going to be a good day.
Logan: What do you do if it’s a bad day? What do you feel off and you got to show that night? Do you do anything to correct yourself?
Max: Red Bull. Two to three Red Bulls. And large ones, not like the baby ones.
Logan: Tallboy Red Bulls.
Max: Well, I want to keep it a buck here. If it’s a large Red Bull, I’m going to do, if it’s like the really big one, I’m going to do like maybe one and a half. But if it’s a small Red Bull, I’m doing three. But today I only did one Red Bull before the show.
Jon: Because the freeze dried espresso.
Max: But we also had freeze dried espresso right before that. So I was going to say, I had a good show on one Red Bull, and so maybe I don’t need three anymore, but I didn’t weigh. You don’t freeze dried. I didn’t weigh the conclusions.
Jon: Let’s not be rash. Yeah, it could be a one off.
Ben: This is actually like some baseball player stuff. Like, yeah, like if they like, you know, pitcher like wins a game, he won’t like change his hat or like won’t shave or whatever.
Jon: “He thinks flies are lucky”
Logan: We’re talking numbers real here, real quick here. I saw in an old interview, you said, ‘we were too young to be calculated’, in referring to your very early years. Do you guys feel as though you have a calculation for these shows now, or do you still fly by the seat of your pants a little bit? Do you think there’s a bit of an equation now?
Max: No, I think when we’re like making music, together, it’s just very much about that moment, moving ourselves in that moment and not, I don’t know, I guess when I think of the word calculated as it relates to like making music, I think of, oh, we want to try to make this to have this outcome or something like that. Like we know what the outcome is going to be.
Jon: And I think for shows, it’s like we’ve been playing some of these songs for so long that there’s just little things that naturally evolve, but we don’t ever sit down and be like ‘hey, you should say this at the point of the set, or anything like that’. It’s just sort of evolved over the years.
Logan: How does the rehearsal process look like going up for one-off here?
Max: A what?
Logan: A rehearsal process? You got me, you got me. Do you guys get together beforehand, or do you guys just say, Hey, we’ve been playing these songs for a good long time?
Jon: No, not much.
Max: We don’t rehearse. We don’t need to rehearse. I mean, there’s on occasion, Ben is a working drummer, he plays with other artists sometimes, so if we need to bring in, if he’s on a tour, we need to bring in someone we’ll do a rehearsal but I mean we’ve all been playing these songs for a long time now they’re it’s just
Jon: Yeah we did yeah we did like a anniversary tour uh in 2018 so like we were playing the full record so a lot of songs that we’ve like basically never played yeah so we rehearsed like for two days for that.
Logan: Two long days.
Jon: A skinny 2 days. Yeah, it was forty-eight whole hours.
Max: Yeah, that’s the thing. I’m using the word conspiracy incorrectly. But it’s um okay I don’t think I don’t think bands need to rehearse really I mean especially if you have a soundcheck yeah you want to run a new song or something like that run it a soundcheck why would you need to go and the thing is too is if you show up knowing your own personal material it just takes one little run through and we’re like cool a lot of people show up and just assuming rehearsals just like where you learn the song yeah and then it’s apparently that’s the British way you heard that no I forget who was telling me that like yeah that in in the UK when you go in no one’s expecting you to have learned the songs you like learn all the shit in rehearsal.
Ben: Interesting I mean I do like that way better because right now in America I have there’s so many days of learning songs that are not paid for yeah sometimes people tell you like a like a few days worth of day that’s a good point that’s probably why yeah yeah it’s like I’m not on the clock learning these songs but now I do it just because it’s so a good gig so scarce so I’ll say yes to whatever you all yeah I’ll work for a week for free just learning songs yeah absolutely yeah it’s the industry
Eve 6 were alive at Innings Festival, hitting five tracks from their self titled record. The crowd was loving this 3-piece outfit as they threw everything they had at the wall for this one-off gig. The California rockers will be hitting the south with Fastball this April for a handful of gigs, you can find tickets here. Their latest record “Dream Fist” is out now and you can follow Eve 6 for future updates.
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