90's Guilty Pleasures #53: Eve 6 "Inside Out" (1998) / Eve 6 "Leech" (1998)

I'd like to say my memories of Eve 6 are limited, but the more I think about them, the more I remember... I do remember that there was an annoying red-haired dude on The Real World around 2000 who looked exactly like the lead singer, and I used to refer to this guy as "Eve 6." I remember seeing the band being interviewed by Matt Pinfield on 120 Minutes around the time the "Inside Out" video was blowing up, and they said they got their name from an episode of The X-Files, cos I guess they were big fans of that show. I remember the girl from the "Inside Out" video with the braids being way cute. And I also remember enjoying their follow-up single "Leech" a lot more than "Inside Out," even though it got played significantly less on the radio. There's a lot of severely played-out radio songs from around this era that I simply cannot stand today, but somehow I still enjoy both of these. And now my attempt to break it down...

They were at least 18 when these songs were written, and the pseudo-intellectualism found within the lyrics of Eve 6's first two singles give them a distinct charm that only adolescence could have conjured, which may have been their most compelling attribute. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the songs stick in your head, they're fun for singing along, and they rock decently hard, or at least as hard as well-produced mid-tempo made-for-radio modern rock can get. (They almost rocked as hard as The Toadies, but definitely surpassed Ben Folds Five.) Had Eve 6 continued indulging their Pixies influences and continued writing singles with medium-levels of testosterone instead of resorting to the slow-dance wussy dribble of 2001's "Here's To The Night," there's a chance they might have stuck around longer. (Oh yeah, I forgot about that "Promises" song.. which was mid-tempo rock and was definitely way shitty.. Okay, so maybe they wouldn't have stuck around.)

"Inside Out"


"Leech"