WHEN Josh Pyke first met Kevin Mitchell (Bob Evans), he was a little bit star struck.
“The first time I met Kev was at a Jebediah in store appearance,” Pyke said.
“I went in to get my record signed, and he wouldn’t remember this, but he actually signed my Converse.
“That was the first time I met him, but the first time I properly met him was in 2003 – he was playing a gig down in Cronulla as Bob Evans and I supported him.”
Pyke said after that, the duo just hit it off.
“A few years later the Josh and Bob tour got decided on and that’s when we properly hung out a lot and kind of cemented what is now a legendary Australian music friendship,” he laughed.
Ten years on and the duo are about to embark on the same tour with a slightly different name and a slightly more mature (Mitchell would beg to differ) outlook on life.
Another Evening with Josh Pyke and Bob Evans will see the Aussie musicians travel around Australia – stopping off at Clancys FishPub on November 26 – to perform tunes from their repertoires.
“I think there will be something from everything we have done, both individually and together over the years,” Pyke said. “Hopefully it will be a crowd-pleasing kind of set list.”
Now family men, the two aren’t afraid to admit they lead pretty awesome double lives.
“We both have kids and we spend a lot of time with our families doing a lot of domestic stuff,” Pyke said.
“You have the balance of having the beautiful domestic life, and then you get to go out and hang out with your mates and be a goose on stage for a couple of hours and drink and hang out and listen to stupid podcasts in the car as you’re driving – it’s kind of like being a superhero where you take off your domestic clothes and put on your rock’n’roll clothes and hit the road.”
Mitchell agreed, having spent a good part of the past 12 months playing gigs with his fellow Jebediah band members.
“In the past 12 months I’ve probably played more Jebediah shows than I have Bob Evans shows,” the West Australian-born artist said. “We don’t really go too long without playing these days, we are playing all the time and we are having as much fun as we have ever had.
“We sort of navigated through so many different kinds of ups and downs and periods and decades – we’re into our third decade – so over the past few years something quite wonderful has happened where a lot of people who have been fans of the band and probably haven’t been going out to see us play a lot over the past few years have started to come out to see us again.”
Tickets to Another Evening with Josh Pyke and Bob Evans are $49 and can be purchased from joshpyke.com and bobevans.com.au.
Every ticket purchased will receive a free download of the exclusively recorded tracks, What The Future Holds and Desperate, performed by Josh Pyke and Bob Evans.