evan_rockz

With a Wink and a Smile…

If you’ve listened to Avril Lavigne’s multi-platinum albums, you’re already familiar

with the musical talent of Evan Taubenfeld. The 25-year-old Baltimore native was

Lavigne’s musical director and lead guitarist from 2001 to 2004. He co-wrote

several tracks on her last two albums, including the gold single “Don’t Tell Me”

from Under My Skin and “Hot” from her latest release The Best Damn Thing, and

toured the world with her in support of her 6x-platinum debut Let Go.

Now Taubenfeld — a multi-instrumentalist who has also written and produced

music for such up-and-coming artists as rapper Tyga, hip-hop group The Pack,

and Japanese pop group Oreskaband, as well as for several MTV shows

including Kaya and Pageant Place — is stepping out to show the world what he

can do on his own by releasing his debut solo album, With a Wink and a Smile...

. Produced by John Fields (Jonas Brothers, Switchfoot, Lifehouse), the album is

a self-assured set of thoroughly addictive, radio-ready pop-rock anthems that

showcase Taubenfeld’s melodic gifts, driving rhythmic sensibility, and engaging

personality.

“For the first time in my career, I’m not hiding behind anyone else, whether it be

as a guitarist or drummer in someone else's band, or being the writer and

producer,” Taubenfeld says. “I've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for this for

so long. I'm like that kid on the basketball team who is pretty good but rides the

bench the entire season for three years until finally, the coach is like, ‘You're in.

Don't screw this up.’ So With a Wink and a Smile… is about me from the first bar

to the final note. It’s Chapter One of the story of my life.”

That life has been filled with music ever since Taubenfeld walked over to his

parents’ upright piano at age 2 and began playing along with Michael Jackson’s

Thriller. “From then on, I was always messing around on the piano or banging on

pots and pans and the toy drum set my grandfather gave me,” he says. Seeing

as this was the ’80s, movie soundtracks to Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters,

ruled the charts, as well as one-hit wonders like Swedish pop group Ace of Base.

As a result, Taubenfeld says, “I fell I love with songs before I fell in love with

artists. I wasn’t old enough to be like, ‘Ace of Bass aren’t cool.’ So at age 7, I

became obsessed with a well-written pop song.” By 12, he had fallen in love with

rock music, obsessing over Green Day’s Dookie, Nirvana’s Nevermind, Alanis

Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, and The Offspring’s Smash. “I would sit in the

living room for hours and bang on a bunch of textbooks that I had set up like a

drum kit and play along, memorizing the songs.” At age 13, Taubenfeld, seduced

by melodies, began playing guitar, and by 16 was fronting his first band.

Dreaming of being a rock star, Taubenfeld turned down an offer to study at

Boston’s Berklee College of Music, choosing instead to try to get his band a

record deal. A month after he deferred his acceptance to Berklee, Taubenfeld’s

band broke up. “That was really hard because my friends chickened out and

decided to go off to college,” he says. “I felt like such a loser, living in my parents’

basement. No college, no band.” He started writing songs and making his own

demos, sending them a friend in the A&R department of Arista Records, who had

just signed an unknown singer named Avril Lavigne and was looking to put her

band together. Though he still wanted to lead his own group, Taubenfeld hopped

on the train from Baltimore to meet Lavigne in New York City.

The two clicked immediately and hit the road for a promotional tour of the U.S.,

performing acoustically at radio stations across the country. Lavigne turned into a

sensation, giving Taubenfeld a front-row seat to what becoming a star was all

about. “It was literally like going to college for being an artist,” he says. “I spent

three years in the shadows, but the whole time I was writing songs for her, for

myself, and networking, asking people who worked with her questions about

what they did. I figured if I’m going to get signed myself, I’d better watch and

learn.” Which he did until 2004, when a song he and Lavigne had written

together, “Don’t Tell Me,” became a hit. Taubenfeld decided it was time to leave

the nest and take his shot.

Warner Bros. Records quickly signed him up and put him to work writing songs.

For more than two years, Taubenfeld wrote, sending demos and asking for

feedback from his manager and mentor Jonathan Daniel of Crush Management,

which also represents Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, and many other hot,

young artists. “I would send him songs and he would say, ‘This sucks, that sucks,

this is good, change that verse,’” Taubenfeld recalls. “So when it came time to

make the record, a lot of the legwork was done. We just needed to team up with

the perfect producer to take the songs to the next level and make them sound

like realized hits.” That perfect person was John Fields. “He is a musical genius,”

Taubenfeld raves. “We fit together like pieces to a puzzle. He’s also an amazing

keyboardist and added lots of sounds, textures, and parts that I never would

have thought of.”

Together, Taubenfeld and Fields have come up with a meticulously arranged

album that brims with youthful energy and unrestrained glee, starting with the

knockout opening track “Pumpkin Pie” — a song about being a hopeless

romantic that Taubenfeld says “sounds the most like me in a nutshell. If you put

on that song and listen for three minutes, it’ll give you a sense of what it’s like to

hang out with me.” From there, Taubenfeld sketches out his life story on songs

like “Boy Meets Girl (“a timeless love song that will hit you in the heart whether

you’re eight or 80,” Taubenfeld says), “Story of Me and You” (“about a long-term

relationship and how what was once magical is now tarnished”), “Matter of Time,”

(“about a crazy summer love affair”), and “Evan Way,” which addresses the issue

of alcoholism in his family. “It’s the story of a terrible car accident my father had

been in a year to the day before I was born. They thought he was going to die,

but he pulled through. The circumstances of it are still unspoken in my family, so

writing about it was my way of confronting it. It’s the toughest song on the album

for me.”

Overall, With a Wink and a Smile… ”is about being a hopeless romantic trapped

under a cinnamon-coated shell that is L.A.,” Taubenfeld says. “I think your

outside hardens when you live out here. Most people don’t express how much

they want to fall in love. For me, half the album is about being able to expose

that. The other half, on songs like “It’s Like That,” “Love/Hate,” “Better Than You,”

and “Cheater Of the Year,” is more about having fun. Like, ‘Come hang out with

me. I’m going to take over the world. You’re all going to work for me one day but

I’ll take very good care of you.’ That’s just my personality.”

In his bid for world domination, Taubenfeld has also created a fan community he

calls The Black List Club. “I wanted everyone who has ever connected with my

music to feel like they are part of something bigger than my album,” he says. “It’s

like we are all a part of this together. I want every kid who likes what I do to be

recognized and become a valuable member of The Black List Club. From Day

One, I’ve always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I'm not a

philanthropist, and I’m too much of a coward to be a soldier or a missionary. I

always thought that if I could make somebody's day better through one of my

songs, that would give me a reason for existing on this planet.”