The husband-and-wife duo Evenlee has officially returned to music after a ten-year absence, releasing their highly anticipated new single “Narrow.” Jonathan and Evelyn, who first emerged on the scene in their early twenties, have spent the intervening decade navigating marriage, parenthood, and full-time careers while quietly developing what would become their most personal work to date.

The new release marks a significant departure from their debut effort, incorporating a broader range of musical influences accumulated over their extended break. Recorded entirely in their home basement studio, upcoming album “I Almost Did This Alone” reflects a more mature perspective shaped by real-world experiences including near-divorce and professional challenges outside the music industry. In an exclusive interview, the duo opens up about their creative process, the meaning behind their comeback single’s title, and how their relationship dynamics have evolved as both musical partners and life partners. They discuss the deliberate choice to prioritize authenticity over commercial production values, and reveal how their different vocal backgrounds contribute to their distinctive sound. The conversation provides rare insight into the realities of maintaining artistic partnerships through major life transitions, and explores how extended time away from the spotlight can ultimately serve an artist’s creative development.

photo by Faith Raines

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Listening to your new singles ‘Narrow’ and ‘The Voice of the Lord’, I immediately noticed how much your sound has evolved compared to the 2015 release ‘There Life Is Growing in Silence’. Over these nearly ten years you have gone through many life changes, and it can be heard in every note. In your view, what specific moment or event over these years became the turning point in shaping the sound we now hear in these two new songs?

It’s always difficult to pinpoint a single moment in one’s life that leads to drastic change, but certainly one of the most intense moments that pushed us to where we are now was almost getting a divorce. I think it’s one of those things that a lot of people go through but doesn’t get talked about nearly enough, whether because of shame or not wanting to dwell on the past. Certainly it has made this album somewhat darker and more complicated than our first, but also more hopeful and mature as we are now loving the life we’re in and celebrating all the highs and lows we’ve worked through together. Something that reflects more of the realities of life. We have also been exposed to and worked with a bunch of other musicians, that have certainly influenced the way we write and produce. The album is a reflection of the growth we experience in the wide variety and reality of life, which is why it is such a mixture of styles, genres and lyrics accumulated over the past ten years.

I find it very intriguing that the entire new album ‘I Almost Did This Alone’ was recorded at home, within your “four walls,” as you call it. And honestly, the result sounds incredibly organic and sincere, something quite rare in today’s music industry. Was this a conscious artistic choice from the very beginning, or did recording at home start as a necessity that eventually turned into an advantage?

I (Jonathan) actually wrote most of these songs commuting to and from a friend’s studio – I would spend four hours in the bus/train writing and another four at the studio working out the ideas. As the album was forming I decided that it wasn’t necessary to use fancy studio equipment, analog gear, etc. to develop the sound we wanted. Between raising children and working a full time job we needed something convenient that I could go to for a couple hours here and there to work on the album, which for us ended up being our basement. We just made it work and also felt like it was an authentic representation of where we were at in life.  

Let us address the elephant in the room—why such a long break? Ten years is a vast stretch of time in music, especially nowadays when artists release new material every one and a half to two years. During this period the music industry has transformed completely, with new platforms, new ways of consuming music, and new genre trends. Yet instead of chasing trends, it seems you were digging deeper into yourselves. What was happening during these ten silent years, and do you think the album would have been just as powerful had you released it, say, five years ago?

Well, it was really just ten years of a lot of life. We were 20 and 22 when we released the first album , got married one month later and basically went straight into studying after we released it – although we did tour for a few months – and then got busy with other things: jobs, family, kids, church, even other musical projects. The last ten years have been a seriously wild ride that has led both of us to a place of much more maturity and health, and we wouldn’t have even been in the place to be able to write this music five years ago, let alone release it.

‘Narrow’ is a very interesting choice for the lead single’s title. In the context of the album ‘I Almost Did This Alone’ the word carries a particularly profound meaning. On one hand it may imply limitation or confinement, on the other—focus and determination. And given that it is the first track representing the entire album, the title becomes even more symbolic. Tell us about the philosophy behind this choice—what does the “narrow path” mean to you in the context of your musical and personal journey?

The album’s name has so many different facets – almost getting a divorce, Jonathan almost producing and releasing the music as a solo album, as well as nearly separating from a community that we have been a part of for years. Narrow really means staying on the path that was set out for you, even if it’s incredibly hard and painful. As far as this theme is concerned musically, we always try to stay very true to what we love in music, which is a very wide range of styles that really shows in our upcoming album.

What does music mean to you now, in 2024–2025—is it still primarily a form of self-expression, or more of a meditative practice, a commercial activity, or something else entirely?

We’ve always wanted people to be touched by our music in whatever situation they find themselves. We see our role in music and even our place in the world as givers, as creators for the purpose of giving people hope, letting them know someone out there understands them.

photo by Faith Raines

You have known each other for nearly fifteen years, perhaps even more, and throughout all this time you have been connected through music. This is a truly rare thing in the industry, where collaborations are often temporary and commercial. Your relationship has gone through many stages—both as people and as musicians. And this is reflected in the music, especially in how naturally your voices, harmonies and ideas intertwine. How has your creative dynamic changed over these years, and are there moments when this fifteen-year history of working together helps, and when it perhaps complicates the creative process?

Bringing two people together in any context makes things more complicated than if someone would do it by themselves, but that’s the beauty of humanity – what we do alone is awfully stale, but when we accept the complexity of relationship and interpersonal dynamics, it can produce something truly beautiful. Because we now have children and “normal” jobs, it has become more and more difficult to write songs together, but we are able to create together in a different way – mostly by sharing and talking through ideas, and pushing each other to think more deeply or see things from a different perspective. We are incredibly different in our personalities but deeply connected in our values and passions. That combination makes for wonderful chemistry, helping us to complement each other in our very different musical skills and what we bring to the table stylistically. We really see the opportunity to be able to do this together as a huge privilege and deep joy.

The album title ‘I Almost Did This Alone’ sounds almost like a paradox, considering you are a duo. What lies behind this title—is it about personal solitude within close relationships, or rather about how two people can become so united that they speak from the voice of a single “I”?

The origin of this name actually came from a picture a friend of ours had for Jonathan while he was weighing recording and releasing the album under his own name – that solitude in and of itself is a good thing and sometimes necessary for creativity, but if it’s left there it can easily turn into loneliness or pride. There were a lot of areas along the way that he could have done it alone, but the decision to do it together was one of the best we’ve made.

I must say, your vocal work is striking in its purity and effortlessness. Your voices sound incredibly natural, free of strain or force, yet with perfect intonation and control. Tell us about your vocal journeys—is this the result of formal training, a natural gift, or years of self-directed work? And how do you maintain such clarity and ease in your sound?

We have two very different vocal journeys. Evelyn has been singing basically since she could talk, and has all the benefits of a beautiful natural gift and an incredible amount of practice. She doesn’t really need to do anything to maintain clarity and ease, even on her worst day! I on the other hand have always been more of an instrumentalist and it has been very difficult to grow into the role of a singer. I’ve spent a lot of time investing into my voice in self-directed work with different singing programs, so I definitely need to work hard to sing well.

I would like to talk about your most recent single ‘The Voice of the Lord’, which followed ‘Narrow’. When I first heard it, it immediately brought to mind soundtracks for dramatic Netflix series—it carries a certain cinematic quality, an epic scope of sound that creates vivid images in the listener’s mind. Was this cinematic and commercially appealing quality of The Voice of the Lord a deliberate artistic choice?

‘The Voice of the Lord’ actually went through a number of different iterations before we landed on this instrumentation. There are so many ways this song could have been arranged, but we really wanted to be able to produce something more unique in its genre, something that especially the first verse is able to capture.

After a ten-year break, releasing new material always carries a risk. What are your expectations for the reception of this new work, and are you prepared for the possibility that this album may mark the beginning of a new, more active phase in your career?

I think it would be fair to say that someone who doesn’t prepare for the potential positive outcome of their work doesn’t have a ton of vision for it. That said, preparing for it and truly understanding what kinds of benefits and sacrifices success brings with it are two very different things. We have talked extensively about what it would mean for our music careers to take off, and if that’s the future for us then we will have done what we could to be ready for it. But as we have said before, our heart is to share something meaningful with others and to serve with our music, so rather than an expectation of how it will be received we have hope that it will be impactful for whoever listens to it. 

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