Evans Blue, Dan Chandler: Singer Nearly Chose Baseball Over Music

Evans Blue singer Dan Chandler didn't start out with aspirations to be a rock star. Instead, he was a baseballer who played middle infield positions his whole life. He expected to pursue that professional path. But then he was bitten by the music bug after high school and has never looked back.

"I grew up playing baseball my whole life, and that's what I wanted to do," Chandler tells Noisecreep. "I played shortstop and second base."

Music interrupted those athletic dreams, since he went to a tech school where there was no baseball team.

"Right after high school, I picked up the guitar and began playing and writing songs," he says.

His father played, but he had no interest in following in dad's footsteps on that front while growing up.

"I had four sisters who could sing, but I thought I was an athlete," he says. "But as soon as I wrote a song, it was over for me."

Interestingly enough, his father was also a ball player, but he guided his son towards sports more than music, so Chandler was able to fall in love with music on his own, without being "forced." His gravitation towards music came naturally, and that's always a beautiful thing.

Evans Blue are preparing to release 'Graveyard of Empires' on April 17. Chandler says the recording process was hectic, since he was flying to Michigan all the time in order to get it done.

"We hit the studio individually," he says. "We hit the studio a lot. Someone would be leaving while I was showing up. I was flying to Michigan for like two months."

Despite that chaos, the band hunkered down and recorded and now have a finished product that the members are psyched about and proud of.

"I do think that our sound and our style is original, but familiar enough for people to latch on to it quickly," Chandler says of 'Graveyard of Empires.'

"We are saying something we mean," he adds.

That in and of itself lends a genuine vibe to the album and the songs.