The Everly Brothers Celebration pays tribute to the sweet brotherly harmonies and duelling guitars that made The Everlys so iconic, featuring timeless hits including Bye Bye Love, All I Have To Do Is Dream and Wake Up Little Susie.
For Oliver and Max, performing these songs together brings an additional authenticity to the story. As brothers who have grown up surrounded by music and the arts, they understand the unique dynamic of making music with a sibling – the instinctive harmonies, the shared history, the disagreements and, ultimately, the bond that brings you back together.
What does it mean to come back to Wales and perform together at The Muni?
It’s really special. We’re both Welsh and grew up not far from Pontypridd, so performing together at The Muni feels like a real homecoming, ‘says Max.
Oliver continues;
There’s nothing like playing close to home. For Max, Pontypridd is his home. It makes you remember how simple it is with family watching. Reminds us of how we got into it in the first place. Singing to our Nana in her living room. Using her walking stick as a microphone.
The commute is a lot nicer too. As nice as it was taking the Bird Dogs as far as Alaska and Hawaii, quite far though, isn’t it.
Oliver continues to share about their childhood growing up in Wales.
Our dad worked from home as an illustrator. His studio was in the attic and he had a guitar up there that he’d sometimes play. He didn’t play it much, but he’d very occasionally wow us with the bass line from Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’.
We both remember learning to play the riff being one of our first goals in life. Neither of us were particularly academic, but the artistic subjects shielded us from ever feeling affected by it. I remember feeling bulletproof when I found a band to play with and Max did the same.
We both remember listening to the other playing and writing from our separate rooms. We did play briefly together. Max’s band played a few festivals and I played backing guitar and vocals. After school, Max went to Mountview in London to study musical theatre. I went to the Bristol Old Vic and studied acting, and that set us on separate paths for a while.
How important has the Welsh theatre and music scene been in both of your careers?
I’ve been really supported by the Welsh theatre scene. I developed my first play with the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. The Sherman really nurtured and developed us and helped put a great team of Welsh and Wales-based creatives around us.
South Wales has some of the best session musicians around and our band are incredible. Everyone in the scene knows one another too and everyone champions one another, so I’m proud to be a part of that.
You’ve both performed at major venues, but is there something different about performing in Wales – particularly when your family and friends are in the audience?
For better or worse, you can’t really hide behind anything in front of people who know you so well. There’s something nice and non-pretentious about it. Wales is an authentic and non-pretentious country.
I’ve been lucky enough to play some large arenas in front of 10s of thousands of people, but it’s extra special (and extra nerve-racking for some reason) performing at home with a handful of family and friends in the front row.
You are real-life brothers performing as a musical duo. Who first suggested that you should actually perform together?
It was Max’s idea after performing as Phil Everly in the Bill Kenwright production of The Concert They Never Gave, which featured an array of big names like Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly.
It stayed with him for years and after going deeper into the Everlys’ back catalogue, we knew there was a show in there of our own. We even feature Orbison and Buddy Holly in our show.
What are you like as brothers when you’re rehearsing?
To be honest, these days with how hectic life can be, I think we’re both just happy to be in the same room as one another.
We started in lockdown, so we were doing it via Zoom originally, with our first-born children at our knees just out of shot. The Bird Dogs is the world’s greatest excuse for two brothers to see each other more.
Most of the time we forget to rehearse and chat instead. That’s not to say that we’re not extremely well polished, so don’t worry!
What does each of you bring to the partnership?
Well, I’m the good-looking one and Max is the really good-looking one.
Have you discovered anything new about each other through working together professionally?
Well, I would say Max is very prepared and often ready a long time before he needs to be, which puts Oliver on edge a bit. Max would say Oliver is hardly dressed at all before going on stage, which is stressful for Max.
I think we do very well to embrace each other’s ways.
Why The Everly Brothers?
The Everly Brothers were famous for their incredibly close harmonies and their sometimes complicated brotherly relationship.
What attracted you to their music?
They are an incredible showcase for us. Other brother duos aren’t as balanced as the Everly Brothers.
The Kinks very much had Ray Davies as the front man, writing and singing most of the songs, which sidelined his brother Dave quite a bit. Oasis took it in turns to lead the songs and were quite separate personalities on stage.
The Everlys both wrote and were both integral to every song. You can’t have one without the other. They completed each other really.
I didn’t realise how great they are until sitting down to learn more than just their biggest hits.
Do you think being brothers yourselves gives you an advantage when recreating those harmonies?
Possibly. I do think siblings have a unique and almost telepathic way of playing together.
What is it about songs like Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie and All I Have To Do Is Dream that still connects with audiences generations later?
Great songs don’t go out of fashion, do they.
Of course, the Everly Brothers didn’t invent rock ’n’ roll and country music, but there’s something so pure about their sound. They are the original brother duo and their songs are the primary colours so many artists have drawn inspiration from.
Without them, the Beatles, certainly early on, wouldn’t have sounded like they did. The Beatles impersonated the Everlys.
Is there one Everly Brothers song that particularly means something to each of you?
Crying in the Rain is such a great song. I think it’s both our favourite song. It’s over way too quickly. I always want to repeat it.
I’m lucky enough to have a campervan and have just been driving around North Wales with my two young children sitting up front with me. They say, “Put some rock ’n’ roll on, Daddy,” and we’ve been blasting Everly Brothers on the CD player all over the mountainside.
It’s a live album from the Albert Hall reunion and my 6-year-old has been belting out the lyrics to Bye Bye Love at the top of her voice. It’s wonderful. Especially when she substitutes some of the lyrics for the word “poo”. Which, at the moment, is her all-time favourite word.
Oliver, having played Dave Davies in Sunny Afternoon, what have you learned about performing music from playing a real-life rock musician?
Don’t overthink it. Let the songs do the talking, I think.
I didn’t bother trying to impersonate Dave when I played him really, and we don’t impersonate the Everly Brothers either. It is interesting though that when you play the music honestly, you start to feel and move like them without overthinking it anyway.
You’ve also written your own music and performed with Oliver Hoare & The Late Great. How does performing your own music compare with stepping into another artist’s world?
There’s nothing like playing your own music, but it can be quite exposing sometimes. It’s liberating to disappear into another artist’s world and not feel too responsible for it.
Lately I’ve been feeling quite excited about writing more though, and I think the Everlys and singing with my brother is a big part of that.
Did your experience playing Dave Davies influence how you approach The Bird Dogs at all?
I was lucky enough to meet Dave a few times and we had a couple of pints together. We even spoke a while about the Everly Brothers. He told me how much he loved the Everlys and idolised them growing up.
It was him who talked about siblings being telepathic, actually. I stole that from him.
Dave came to see the show a few times. Nothing helps you remember you’re playing a real person more than when that real person is watching. And you have to play them honestly. No frills.
Obviously, Phil Everly passed away in 2014, but I definitely think of him being real and not just some big star. I love thinking of Dave loving him too and the influence the Everlys had on the greatest British brother duo of all time, THE KINKS!
If the two of you could go back and give your younger selves one piece of advice about the careers you were going to have, what would you say?
I heard an actress say this the other day:
“Often, finding the next project is like waiting at a taxi rank; you have to take what is available when you reach the front.”
We all overthink things a bit when we’re younger. I certainly used to anyway. I’d tell myself to just get in the taxi.
You’ve both had successful careers individually. Why do you think it has taken until now for the two of you to properly put your names together on the same stage?
I think we were both just busy on our own paths, often in different cities and not in each other’s lives enough.
Lockdown gave us the opportunity to rethink things a bit. And thank the Everlys that we did!
Bird Dogs: An Everly Brothers Celebration (Y Muni) Pontypridd
