We were lucky to catch up with The Rebel Eves recently and have shared our conversation below.

The Rebel Eves, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

We had planned a writing retreat in the summer of 2022 for the three of us to get together, write some songs, and dream about what we saw for the future. We met at Jliian’s grandparents lakehouse house for a few days in July, and we spent the entire first day sleeping because we all came there so exhausted. We decided to keep it low key to keep the pressure off of producing anything, and instead decided to focus on resting and dreaming without limitations. I believe the idea for The Rebel Eves came from a conversation we had while we were on a paddleboard in the lake; we knew we wanted to start a band, but we wanted it to be with a message that was inclusive and representative of the growth and struggles we all shared in common as women in the music industry. We wanted to write about things that mattered to us, and breach topics that might be harder for us to do on our own. Once we decided on the name, we went back to the house and started branding. We built a website, an instagram page, started writing with the band in mind, emailed our shared booking contacts to see if we could put together a tour for the following spring. It is amazing how much we got accomplished in such a short period of time together; we often owe it all to that first day of rest. Because we all live in 3 parts of the country (Nashville, Seattle, and Kalamazoo, MI), we planned out weekly zoom meetings so that we could write and plan the tour for the spring. In total, we’ve written almost 15 songs for the band, had one of the most successful tours any of us have had so far in our solo careers, and have been able to continue planning shows through the end of this year and into next. I don’t think any of us could have expected how quickly things would start to move forward, but we’re all thrilled with how it’s going.

The Rebel Eves, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

With beginnings in early 2020, we initially called ourselves, “The Nashigan Trio,” a combination of “Nashville” and Michigan to capture the two places that have been most like home to all of us. We had all toured together in a writers round format, that was formed from the joy of connection, love of creativity, and ultimately from a place of knowing too well that the gift of making music is not something to be taken for granted, especially as women. All three of us are Michigan bred award winning songwriters, and we have spent the better part of the last decade writing, touring, and harmonizing across the country as solo artists. After the hardships of 2020/2021 prevented the experience of performing live music in traditional ways, we decided to create a stripped down acoustic show where vulnerability, connectivity and authenticity lead the way both in our stories and in our music. It was so good to sing with other people after not being able to do that for so long. Over many conversations, tours, and reflections, we decided to move forward with becoming a band and rebranded as “The Rebel Eves in 2022.” Since then, we have been leaning further into writing honestly as women in an often times male dominated industry. We have a main goal of being empowering to, and empowered by one another and our listeners, and I think it’s fair to say that that has been one of the most rewarding things since starting this band. During our first tour as the Rebel Eves in March of this year, we sold out several shows on the run and had the honor of talking with women & men who had been fighting for equality their whole lives, thanking us for carrying the torch. It is inspiring and motivating to know that the music we are making and the message we are sharing is resonating with so many people. Among the three of us, we’ve played venues such as the Ark in Ann Arbor, MI, the BlueBird Cafe and The Basement in Nashville, TN, Midtown GR in Grand Rapids, MI, and Gibson Music Hall in Appleton, WI. We have been recording some of the songs that have connected the most during our shows in those cities, and are really excited to release the first song called, “Heaven Without You,” on June 23. We are partnering with the TN Equality Project to raise awareness for equality within the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month; connecting with the audiences in all of the places we’ve played has been incredibly rewarding, and our hope is that we continue to expand that connection to more people with our releases. We strive to create a show that includes honest story telling, hair raising harmonies, and compelling lyricism which cultivates moments of vulnerability, inclusivity, and laughter. Our biggest goal as a band is to leave people walking away feeling inspired, connected, and hopeful.

Any advice for managing a team?

Communication is king! Being in 3 different places and managing a business together has been a challenge at times, but we have all been working hard to prioritize and delegate tasks to each member of the band who feels strongest in that skill set. There are some weeks where one of us is more busy than the others, and the others are able to pick up more and vice versa. The biggest thing that has helped us continue to be successful in working together is always being appreciative/complimentary of the hard work we are each putting into the band. We also frequently come back to the “why” – why we got started, and the purpose of our band. This helps us zoom out when tasks start to feel stressful or overwhelming. It’s great to have a balanced perspective when managing a lot of things at once!

How’d you meet your business partner?

Grace and Jilian met in Nashville about 7 years ago. Jilian was working as a songwriter in town, & Grace was managing a non profit at the time, “Songs Against Slavery,” which worked to fight sex trafficking through benefit concerts. They became good friends during both of their times there. During 2020, Grace was working on an EP and got connected with Katie through their producer, Jake Rye. Katie had just moved from Michigan to Nashville and Grace had just moved back to Michigan from music city. They scheduled a zoom meeting and ended up talking for several hours, becoming fast friends and writing partners. In 2021, all three of us went on our first songwriter round tour together, and were a bit surprised and excited by how fun & easy it was for us all to harmonize together. We ended up having many deep conversations that run, as all of us had been going through leaving our spiritual communities at similar times while reconstructing what we wanted to believe about ourselves. We became very close through many of these conversations and tours, which eventually lead us to rebrand & start a band. The rest is history!

Contact Info:

• Website: therebeleves.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/therebeleves
• Facebook: facebook.com/therebeleves
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBt46Uv9v3cc-DLBPiRCHHg
• Other: Find out more about us through our linktree: https://linktr.ee/therebeleves

Image Credits
Laura Abbott, Juneberry Media