Seventeen Evergreen

Caleb Pate and Nephi Evans, operating out of San Francisco, California, shape the subdued singing and layered textures that mark Seventeen Evergreen. Pate, who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, left for Sacramento, California, as a teenager after finding little to occupy him. Evans, having crisscrossed the United States, encountered Pate during a rafting excursion. The two eventually converged in San Francisco and launched their collaboration as Seventeen Evergreen, a name drawn from lines in an early King Crimson track. They first pursued a rock-leaning style that placed them on bills alongside the Dandy Warhols and the Rapture. Deeming this approach too standard, the pair soon pivoted to a more exploratory, open-ended direction. Their debut album, Life Embarrasses Me on Planet Earth, appeared in April 2007, fueled by themes of outer space, alien existence, and frustration with life on Earth.