A match made in the name of music!

Not only do they love music, they perform together. At times being a band and keeping their day jobs is challenging but somehow it’s the perfect life for them.

 

Where did you grow up?

 

We both grew up in Brackenhurst, Alberton, though Rachel was born in Manchester, England and immigrated to South Africa with her family when she was seven.

 

What's the name of your band?

 

The Raevans. Rachel’s stage name is Rae - we added that to Bevan and voila!

 

When did you decide to start a band?

 

When we met in December 2010 we had music in common. We loved it, we sang and played it and wrote our own stuff. After we married in December 2012 we decided to celebrate our union by forming a band and started gigging immediately.

 

What do you love/hate about your job?

 

Well the Raevans aren't a full-time band, as much as we'd like to be so we both have day jobs. Rachel is a swim instructor and I juggle two jobs; filmography and plastic injections moulding. To answer your question, the only thing we hate about our jobs is we wish we had more time to play music. What we love about music? The freedom, the fun, the creativity and the smiles we see on other faces.

 

Where do you see yourself in five years?

 

Five years... Wow, that's a tough one as we don't see beyond our next rehearsal, but we'd like to have kids and have our music help us out more financially. Though, we still don't want to be dependent on music to live as that takes the fun out of it. We have a couple of contacts in producing/recording and an album is definitely possible.

 

Have you travelled to any interesting places in your career?

 

As the Raevans not yet (but you'll see us soon in Waterval Boven) but Rachel has been a full-time musician in Budapest, Hungary. That was an amazing experience! And I travelled to Afganistan and Thailand and took my guitar everywhere I went!

 

Who has been your inspiration and motivation?

 

We have had our own separate motivations over the years, but the important ones that brought the duo together are Ryan Adams, KT Tunstall, Poison, Mr Big, lots of soft rock, hair metal and country music in general.

 

How did you career start out?

 

When we got engaged we started talking about how Jhb South is missing a big chunk of the art scene. We both had taken part in open mics and we thought there were others out there like us who would benefit from the experience. So we spoke to a few local pubs and we started up two open mics that ran Sundays 1pm-5pm. It went very well! A good handful of local smaller or ex-musicians heard about it and attended weekly to have their slot on stage. We also got a regular gig playing in the garden at Lady Marmalades Rietvlei on a Saturday or Sunday. That is still very popular and will start up again in May at Rietvlei at Andre de la Nina restaurant.

 

What's the inspiration behind your songs?

 

Because of how we met and how the band started, our newer stuff is inspired by each other. The rest of our solo written stuff is inspired by past experiences from childhood, friends, holidays to hardships and of course other musical experiences we've had.