I had the opportunity to speak with Colleen Fitzpatrick, Eve’s Plum’s vocalist. Eve’s Plum recently released their second CD titled Cherry Alive and they are visiting town as part of Ray Gun magazine’s first ever concert tour. Cherry Alive was produced by Fred Maher, a drummer who has worked with everyone from Lou Reed and Material to Bill Laswell, that would also be Material wouldn’t it? He has also produced CDs by Matthew Sweet as well as a Belly single.
Fitzpatrick called me from a tour bus parked in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Maher tour was on its second date and she reported that things are going well so far. Her press materials have her working as a dancer and actress before she joined the band. She studied ballet at NYU. I asked her what kind of dancing she did. She said that she’d done stage dancing, jazz dancing, and some dancing in videos back when that was popular. She couldn’t remember what videos she’d done, but she did remember one she didn’t do. She was called to dance in a Pat Benatar video, but was unable to make the photo shoot due to a prior commitment. It’s too bad because we could have had a new pop singer as the dancer in an old pop singer’s videos.
Next I asked about the songs. Who writes the songs? The press release gives the impression that Fitzpatrick does all the writing and it isn’t true. She does write most of the lyrics, but the songs are either co-written by guitarist Michael Kotch and Fitzpatrick or they are written as band songs. The songs are good, risking some criticism from all the strange little subcultures that read this rag, I’ll say that Eve’s Plum has some excellent pop songs. Nothing alternative about it, nothing cutting edge, nothing hard or industrial, it’s simply pop music. I guess I should slam it, but I fall for a pop band fronted by a girl every now and again.
The next question I asked was about their song on the Spirit of ‘73: Rock for Choice compilation—a benefit album for Rock for Choice. The project was in the works for about three years according to Fitzpatrick. For reasons I don’t understand and she didn’t know, the album was politically controversial. Record labels didn’t want to touch it. I asked about the man factor, but Fitzpatrick didn’t have information. She did say that a woman was responsible for finally completing the album. Eve’s Plum was excited about recording a song from the seventies. Remember Fitzpatrick is a dancer and they cover a disco song on Spirit of ‘73. She and the rest of the band were supporters of the cause.
The next question was about any weird encounters with audience members she’s experienced. She does write some songs dealing with sex in a blatant fashion and she is quite lovely. The basis for this question was the recent Heather Nova concert. If you were one of the psychos staring at Nova, get over it and find yourself a girlfriend. Fitzpatrick reports that she’s had none of the weirdoes chasing her. She said her band is a boy/girl band and that Heather Nova “must be a sex symbol.” From: https://www.slugmag.com/archived/eves-plum-november-1995/
