The C2C Sit Down with Evan Bartels
On a lone stretch of highway that cuts across the Nebraskan prairie, there is a town called Tobias. This village of roughly 100 souls is where Evan Bartels was born and raised. It is a place that offers immeasurable freedom, while threatening a life of unanswered wanting. Here the sentiment behind his work was forged.
Bartels began touring in his teenage years in Nebraska before moving to Nashville. His 2017 debut album, The Devil, God, & Me, was followed by a 2019 EP, Promised Land. These self-produced, independent releases gained the attention of fans worldwide and led to four sync placements on the hit Netflix show, “The Ranch.” Comedian Theo Von and many others have featured songs on their podcasts, specifically referencing Bartels’ beautifully poignant writing. In 2021, Bartels’ independently released full-length project, Lonesome, captured fans worldwide and has led to international touring opportunities. The ethos of Bartels’ life and songwriting are one and the same: “To think, to feel, these are the things that make us human. To hone those thoughts, to share those emotions, to marry them with action, that’s when art is born."
After catching him at C2C: Country to Country in Berlin, we hung out with Evan to talk about London pubs, playing Hyde Park with Morgan Wallen and his new track “Lula”
Great to see you Evan, I’m glad we both made it here after all having to stay a little longer in Germany. We had a blast in Berlin though and hope you did too, we spent a lot of our time trying to find proper old school pub to drink in and we found a great one with Tyler Halverson on the Thursday night.
“I met Tyler in Berlin for the first time last week, which it's amazing that it took us that long to meet as we don't live from each other now and we have a lot of the same friends.”
Berlin was the first time that I met him too, my friend works as part of his management team and we all ended up in a proper dive bar full of football fans whilst there was a game on with one of the German teams playing so they were very confused to see a man in a cowboy hat stood at the end of the bar. We like old pubs though, none of these pretentious swanky wine bar type places, we’re basically trying to find The best “WORST PUB” in London but things here are very different to what they are over there. I like Berlin, it’s a different pace to things and as much as I've kind of tried to say that to people about here, it's like you sort of get off the tube, walk down and it’s like Holy shit!
“Everywhere in London is busy, I feel like people don't realise how big of a city it is, it’s huge. We're staying over in Canary Wharf and we were at this bar that's on the 38th floor of a hotel, looking over the city and you go, my God, this is big! Even Canary Wharf, just that area is almost as big as downtown Nashville, it’s huge. We went to a restaurant called The Gun and when we first got to London, we were staying right by Hyde Park, kind of between Kensington and Paddington where there's a spot called The Swann. So that's owned by the same people who own The Gun and apparently they've specialised in restoring these old road houses and things. The Gun was from, I think it opened first in 1805 or something, but Lord Horatio Nelson hung out there, it was incredible, the food, the drinks and it's right on the river.”
There are so many cool spots in East London, one place we really like, so Ian McKellen owns a pub called The Grapes in Limehouse which is actually really close to here. It dates back to like the 1700’s and it’s probably the oldest bar that I've ever been at any point, oh and they have Gandalf’s actual staff from Lord of the Rings behind the bar!
“Get out! Tell me exactly where this is, because I want to go there and when I do, they are not going to have it for much longer because that could end up in my suitcase.”
It’s called The Grapes and it’s a proper little old school place where the tables upstairs are old whiskey barrels but they do real pub food and it's right on the river as well, it’s probably pretty much opposite where we are right now.
“It’s probably close to where The Gun is then because where we were sitting at dinner last night, we could look over and see the arena directly across, very interesting.”
I’ll send you the details for there but it’s a cool spot if you to check want to check it out. I have a whole list of great boozers around town but, that’s not to everyone’s taste so talking some shop how’s your first time here at the festival going?
“It’s my first time at The 02, it's my third time in London playing. I started playing in the UK a year ago this march, almost to the day, it was my first time in Germany and Berlin, but in London, I came here last March with a guy called Shawn James, who's a good friend of mine that is a brilliant songwriter and performer. His music is interesting because it goes kind of between like what I would call murder folk to like borderline country rock to almost a straight up metal, all in the same set. I toured here starting with him last March and we played Jazz Cafe in Camden which was brilliant, it was sold out and I did a thirty minute set to open it which went great. At that show I met a guy called Lee Laborde, who said to me that was incredible, do you want to come back in July and play BST at Hyde Park with Morgan Wallen? I said yes so I came back then a few months later and I played in July on the Morgan Wallen Fourth of July show, America's Independence Day, where I spent it here in London with my wife and I played on the Birdcage Stage. I was the first act of that day and it was amazing because the festival had just opened up and then an hour later, I'm playing on the stage right by the gates and the merch, so I played to a couple of thousand people just right there. It was awesome and then after that, Lee said, I'd love to have you come to do C2C and now here we are so in a year I've been here three times to perform. It's crazy!”
It's a long way from a tiny little town in in Nebraska.
“Oh, yeah, because when I grew up in Tobias, this is a town that the population sign on the highway right now, I believe it says 106. When I lived there, it's said about 150, but people die and new people aren't born because my dad had to drive forty-five minutes to go to work, my mom was a teacher or a para-teacher as we call it in the States, like a teacher's assistant who works with special kids and she did that at the school that I went to. But even the school that I went to from first through eighth grade, it was me and three other boys in a three room schoolhouse, and so was super small, then the high school had ten different towns that came to it, so it's super rural. I always told myself, I was a big Harry Potter kid, you know, like The Chronicles of Narnia and all this so, London has always had this romantic quality about it that I though want to get there and now I've been here three times a year.”
Have you been to Kings Cross then and tried to pass through?
“Oh, yeah, I have run into the wall to see if anything would happen and it turns out I am as muggle as it gets. They do not rednecks into Hogwarts, I guess.”
Bartels began touring in his teenage years in Nebraska before moving to Nashville. His 2017 debut album, The Devil, God, & Me, was followed by a 2019 EP, Promised Land. These self-produced, independent releases gained the attention of fans worldwide and led to four sync placements on the hit Netflix show, “The Ranch.” Comedian Theo Von and many others have featured songs on their podcasts, specifically referencing Bartels’ beautifully poignant writing. In 2021, Bartels’ independently released full-length project, Lonesome, captured fans worldwide and has led to international touring opportunities. The ethos of Bartels’ life and songwriting are one and the same: “To think, to feel, these are the things that make us human. To hone those thoughts, to share those emotions, to marry them with action, that’s when art is born."
After catching him at C2C: Country to Country in Berlin, we hung out with Evan to talk about London pubs, playing Hyde Park with Morgan Wallen and his new track “Lula”
Great to see you Evan, I’m glad we both made it here after all having to stay a little longer in Germany. We had a blast in Berlin though and hope you did too, we spent a lot of our time trying to find proper old school pub to drink in and we found a great one with Tyler Halverson on the Thursday night.
“I met Tyler in Berlin for the first time last week, which it's amazing that it took us that long to meet as we don't live from each other now and we have a lot of the same friends.”
Berlin was the first time that I met him too, my friend works as part of his management team and we all ended up in a proper dive bar full of football fans whilst there was a game on with one of the German teams playing so they were very confused to see a man in a cowboy hat stood at the end of the bar. We like old pubs though, none of these pretentious swanky wine bar type places, we’re basically trying to find The best “WORST PUB” in London but things here are very different to what they are over there. I like Berlin, it’s a different pace to things and as much as I've kind of tried to say that to people about here, it's like you sort of get off the tube, walk down and it’s like Holy shit!
“Everywhere in London is busy, I feel like people don't realise how big of a city it is, it’s huge. We're staying over in Canary Wharf and we were at this bar that's on the 38th floor of a hotel, looking over the city and you go, my God, this is big! Even Canary Wharf, just that area is almost as big as downtown Nashville, it’s huge. We went to a restaurant called The Gun and when we first got to London, we were staying right by Hyde Park, kind of between Kensington and Paddington where there's a spot called The Swann. So that's owned by the same people who own The Gun and apparently they've specialised in restoring these old road houses and things. The Gun was from, I think it opened first in 1805 or something, but Lord Horatio Nelson hung out there, it was incredible, the food, the drinks and it's right on the river.”
There are so many cool spots in East London, one place we really like, so Ian McKellen owns a pub called The Grapes in Limehouse which is actually really close to here. It dates back to like the 1700’s and it’s probably the oldest bar that I've ever been at any point, oh and they have Gandalf’s actual staff from Lord of the Rings behind the bar!
“Get out! Tell me exactly where this is, because I want to go there and when I do, they are not going to have it for much longer because that could end up in my suitcase.”
It’s called The Grapes and it’s a proper little old school place where the tables upstairs are old whiskey barrels but they do real pub food and it's right on the river as well, it’s probably pretty much opposite where we are right now.
“It’s probably close to where The Gun is then because where we were sitting at dinner last night, we could look over and see the arena directly across, very interesting.”
I’ll send you the details for there but it’s a cool spot if you to check want to check it out. I have a whole list of great boozers around town but, that’s not to everyone’s taste so talking some shop how’s your first time here at the festival going?
“It’s my first time at The 02, it's my third time in London playing. I started playing in the UK a year ago this march, almost to the day, it was my first time in Germany and Berlin, but in London, I came here last March with a guy called Shawn James, who's a good friend of mine that is a brilliant songwriter and performer. His music is interesting because it goes kind of between like what I would call murder folk to like borderline country rock to almost a straight up metal, all in the same set. I toured here starting with him last March and we played Jazz Cafe in Camden which was brilliant, it was sold out and I did a thirty minute set to open it which went great. At that show I met a guy called Lee Laborde, who said to me that was incredible, do you want to come back in July and play BST at Hyde Park with Morgan Wallen? I said yes so I came back then a few months later and I played in July on the Morgan Wallen Fourth of July show, America's Independence Day, where I spent it here in London with my wife and I played on the Birdcage Stage. I was the first act of that day and it was amazing because the festival had just opened up and then an hour later, I'm playing on the stage right by the gates and the merch, so I played to a couple of thousand people just right there. It was awesome and then after that, Lee said, I'd love to have you come to do C2C and now here we are so in a year I've been here three times to perform. It's crazy!”
It's a long way from a tiny little town in in Nebraska.
“Oh, yeah, because when I grew up in Tobias, this is a town that the population sign on the highway right now, I believe it says 106. When I lived there, it's said about 150, but people die and new people aren't born because my dad had to drive forty-five minutes to go to work, my mom was a teacher or a para-teacher as we call it in the States, like a teacher's assistant who works with special kids and she did that at the school that I went to. But even the school that I went to from first through eighth grade, it was me and three other boys in a three room schoolhouse, and so was super small, then the high school had ten different towns that came to it, so it's super rural. I always told myself, I was a big Harry Potter kid, you know, like The Chronicles of Narnia and all this so, London has always had this romantic quality about it that I though want to get there and now I've been here three times a year.”
Have you been to Kings Cross then and tried to pass through?
“Oh, yeah, I have run into the wall to see if anything would happen and it turns out I am as muggle as it gets. They do not rednecks into Hogwarts, I guess.”
Musically, we've got a new song that has just come out since you got the new deal but what are we looking at in terms of that partnership with bringing out new music going forward?
“Yeah, so the way that we're planning on everything right now is that this new release “Lula” is part of a six-song EP that I'm releasing here coming up this spring. I had started making that in a little cabin that I built behind our house to write songs in and I made it with a few good friends of mine; Rico Csabai who is my manager that produced it with me as well as our friend Squirrel, which is a great name. It's a long story, his name's Dave Covell, but everyone calls him Squirrel. It was a passion project that we made in my little cabin and then when we had started talking with the label, we played it for them and they wanted to put it out. I did the deal with them in January, they put the first song out on March seventh and then I've got thirty songs that we're going to start cutting this summer for a full length album and then just kind of seeing like which ones hit because when I'm making an album, I don't want to just say like, oh, here's fifteen songs that I wrote in the past eighteen months where it is let's record them and throw them out. I want it to tell a larger story as a whole, so now we're just in the process of looking at the songs for what's coming next and part of that here at C2C is that I'm playing some of those new songs to see how they feel.”
A lot of people say that over here is a good place to road test new songs because of how people listen to music compared to in the States but also people gravitate towards really deep cuts that you probably haven’t even though about in years.
“I mean that happened to me in Germany, someone requested a song called “Nights I Can't Love You” off my last album called “Lonesome” and it's a piano song. He comes up and he's like, I came hours to see you play at this festival, are you going to play this song? I don't have a piano to play it but I said, listen, I'm not going to play it today, but if you come tomorrow, I'll play it. So, I went back to the hotel that night, transcribed it on the guitar and made an arrangement to play it on the guitar then played it the next day. That’s what I love, when people listen to the music and then dive deep into it then with the storytelling, that's one of the things that I want to do with my live show and have it be less of a set, where it is here's a song then here's another song and another song. I'm really inspired with my live performances a lot by stand-up comedians and by theatre to where it's like, what I'm gonna do is bring these stories between each song, and I'm not talking about half hour diatribes on something. It's just that ties it all together so as an audience member, it almost feels a little bit more like theatre. You know, even when I'm doing a full band rock show, I want it to all tie together instead of having dead space and tuning guitars between songs. It's like keep it an experience at whether it's just me with an acoustic guitar, me with a small ensemble or when I play big stages with a full band. I think it's a way more compelling way to do songs and to show people the stories behind them where you give them something to go back to.”
People here love the story and that’s so cool because when someone writes a song and somebody else hears it and takes different things from it and they interpret it so far from the story you were telling when you wrote it.
“There’s a lot of different ways that you can do that too, I mean, even with the stories, sometimes it's less even about telling somebody what it's about and more just putting their their mind inside of the context. It's setting up the universe around the music and then it visualises it for everybody where you go, oh and you'll still have those emotional connection, hopefully where it means something different to you or you're seeing it a little bit differently but everybody all of a sudden is now in a room together hearing the same thing, seeing the same thing and that's really cool to me.”
In terms of these stories, “Lula” is the track which has just come out so to make sure people read that how you do, what’s the background behind it and where does it come from?
“Lula at its core, if you take everything at surface level, it’s bout a girl who grows up in a rural town and is abused by her drug dealing father, until finally she has enough that she murders him and then rides a train up to the city, where the only way that she can take care of herself as she turns to the world's oldest profession. So, she starts living that lifestyle until it bears such a toll on her and what the story ultimately culminates with, is her jumping off of a bridge into the river to end it all, but there's a reoccurring line in the song that says, I'm not going to do what you want just because you tell me to. That’s the storyline which is happening, but to me, the deeper meaning behind it is this is a person who control has been robbed from her ever since she was born and she has been grasping for any sense of control, so it's about living and dying on your own terms. Where it comes from, you know, it's not a biography of a certain person but it's an amalgamation of many stories that I have heard, I have encountered personally on the road and known many people in a variety of those situations. Like I said, it's an amalgamation of all of those in a character that represents that because where I grew up in Nebraska, there's Omaha, which is a city referenced in the song. It's about two, two and a half hours away from where I grew up, there's two main interstate highways that run through there and it is one of the biggest hubs of human trafficking and drug trafficking in the United States. Those stories don't get told and the people that are involved in those stories, they get overlooked then when that happens it's not addressed. With being able to tell a story like this in a song that shows people, hopefully provide some empathy for those people in those situations, just highlights those things and says we can look at hard things because life without pain is life without perspective. You have to you have to look at these things and you don't have to glorify them, but you don't have to ignore them so with an opportunity like this, I thought, what a better thing to do than tell a story that perhaps otherwise wouldn't be told.”
“Yeah, so the way that we're planning on everything right now is that this new release “Lula” is part of a six-song EP that I'm releasing here coming up this spring. I had started making that in a little cabin that I built behind our house to write songs in and I made it with a few good friends of mine; Rico Csabai who is my manager that produced it with me as well as our friend Squirrel, which is a great name. It's a long story, his name's Dave Covell, but everyone calls him Squirrel. It was a passion project that we made in my little cabin and then when we had started talking with the label, we played it for them and they wanted to put it out. I did the deal with them in January, they put the first song out on March seventh and then I've got thirty songs that we're going to start cutting this summer for a full length album and then just kind of seeing like which ones hit because when I'm making an album, I don't want to just say like, oh, here's fifteen songs that I wrote in the past eighteen months where it is let's record them and throw them out. I want it to tell a larger story as a whole, so now we're just in the process of looking at the songs for what's coming next and part of that here at C2C is that I'm playing some of those new songs to see how they feel.”
A lot of people say that over here is a good place to road test new songs because of how people listen to music compared to in the States but also people gravitate towards really deep cuts that you probably haven’t even though about in years.
“I mean that happened to me in Germany, someone requested a song called “Nights I Can't Love You” off my last album called “Lonesome” and it's a piano song. He comes up and he's like, I came hours to see you play at this festival, are you going to play this song? I don't have a piano to play it but I said, listen, I'm not going to play it today, but if you come tomorrow, I'll play it. So, I went back to the hotel that night, transcribed it on the guitar and made an arrangement to play it on the guitar then played it the next day. That’s what I love, when people listen to the music and then dive deep into it then with the storytelling, that's one of the things that I want to do with my live show and have it be less of a set, where it is here's a song then here's another song and another song. I'm really inspired with my live performances a lot by stand-up comedians and by theatre to where it's like, what I'm gonna do is bring these stories between each song, and I'm not talking about half hour diatribes on something. It's just that ties it all together so as an audience member, it almost feels a little bit more like theatre. You know, even when I'm doing a full band rock show, I want it to all tie together instead of having dead space and tuning guitars between songs. It's like keep it an experience at whether it's just me with an acoustic guitar, me with a small ensemble or when I play big stages with a full band. I think it's a way more compelling way to do songs and to show people the stories behind them where you give them something to go back to.”
People here love the story and that’s so cool because when someone writes a song and somebody else hears it and takes different things from it and they interpret it so far from the story you were telling when you wrote it.
“There’s a lot of different ways that you can do that too, I mean, even with the stories, sometimes it's less even about telling somebody what it's about and more just putting their their mind inside of the context. It's setting up the universe around the music and then it visualises it for everybody where you go, oh and you'll still have those emotional connection, hopefully where it means something different to you or you're seeing it a little bit differently but everybody all of a sudden is now in a room together hearing the same thing, seeing the same thing and that's really cool to me.”
In terms of these stories, “Lula” is the track which has just come out so to make sure people read that how you do, what’s the background behind it and where does it come from?
“Lula at its core, if you take everything at surface level, it’s bout a girl who grows up in a rural town and is abused by her drug dealing father, until finally she has enough that she murders him and then rides a train up to the city, where the only way that she can take care of herself as she turns to the world's oldest profession. So, she starts living that lifestyle until it bears such a toll on her and what the story ultimately culminates with, is her jumping off of a bridge into the river to end it all, but there's a reoccurring line in the song that says, I'm not going to do what you want just because you tell me to. That’s the storyline which is happening, but to me, the deeper meaning behind it is this is a person who control has been robbed from her ever since she was born and she has been grasping for any sense of control, so it's about living and dying on your own terms. Where it comes from, you know, it's not a biography of a certain person but it's an amalgamation of many stories that I have heard, I have encountered personally on the road and known many people in a variety of those situations. Like I said, it's an amalgamation of all of those in a character that represents that because where I grew up in Nebraska, there's Omaha, which is a city referenced in the song. It's about two, two and a half hours away from where I grew up, there's two main interstate highways that run through there and it is one of the biggest hubs of human trafficking and drug trafficking in the United States. Those stories don't get told and the people that are involved in those stories, they get overlooked then when that happens it's not addressed. With being able to tell a story like this in a song that shows people, hopefully provide some empathy for those people in those situations, just highlights those things and says we can look at hard things because life without pain is life without perspective. You have to you have to look at these things and you don't have to glorify them, but you don't have to ignore them so with an opportunity like this, I thought, what a better thing to do than tell a story that perhaps otherwise wouldn't be told.”
Thank you for taking time, it’s been a really fun hang man, I don’t often get to talk heavily about really deep storytelling and East End pubs in the same conversation. I’m really looking forward to hearing this project that’s on my he way and hope you do find your way to The Grapes because it’s a real cool hidden gem in town.
“Lula” is the latest release from Evan Bartels which is out now and available HERE. To find out more about Evan and his music, you can check out his WEBSITE and you can keep up to date with all that he is up to socially on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK X & FACEBOOK.
C2C: Country to Country will return to Berlin in 2026 across the weekend of March 6th to 8th where you will be able to find more details on their WEBSITE and keep in the loop regarding lineups and ticket information on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK. Then we will see you again in London (or maybe even Belfast/Glasgow) a week later across March 13th to 15th with early bird tickets on sale now where you can find more details on the WEBSITE and socials (FACEBOOK X and INSTAGRAM)
“Lula” is the latest release from Evan Bartels which is out now and available HERE. To find out more about Evan and his music, you can check out his WEBSITE and you can keep up to date with all that he is up to socially on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK X & FACEBOOK.
C2C: Country to Country will return to Berlin in 2026 across the weekend of March 6th to 8th where you will be able to find more details on their WEBSITE and keep in the loop regarding lineups and ticket information on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK. Then we will see you again in London (or maybe even Belfast/Glasgow) a week later across March 13th to 15th with early bird tickets on sale now where you can find more details on the WEBSITE and socials (FACEBOOK X and INSTAGRAM)
