A B O U T

Richard Evans is a musician, writer, filmmaker and producer.

Music: 1981 - 1998

Richard began songwriting in his late teens, forming his first band St Vitus Dancers in 1981. This was a four-piece, new wave band for which Richard played guitar and wrote all the music.

The band's high point was a track called The Survivor which was featured on the Bullshit Detector 2 compilation album (Crass Records, 1982). The song featured on BBC Radio 1's John Peel Show and the LP reached the top of the UK's independent album chart, with the band splitting by 1982.

He spent the 80s writing and performing in a number of different bands, making the switch from guitar to synthesiser as his main instrument in the early part of the decade.. This led to becoming keyboardist for a pop act, Playing At Trains (Warner-Chappell Music), for their 1987 UK tour and performing at legendary venues including The Marquee and Astoria in London.

This was followed by a stint with James, playing keys, songwriting and recording with the band. Richard appears on James’ second album Strip Mine (Sire Records, 1988) contributing synths to the track Are You Ready? and co-arranging on Medieval. A unused version of Ya-Ho was also recorded with Richard on keys.

After departing the James set up in early 1988, Richard focused on developing a solo career in a first stint using synthesisers, sequencers and drum machines, before a break from music in the late 90s.

Writing & Filmmaking: 2000 - present

Richard wrote a number of short stories, a novel and an unpublished feature length screenplay during this period. Print stories were released through a number of publishers including Serpent's Tail, Litro Magazine and Dead Ink. Subject matter ranges from robotics, to viral outbreaks, to a Cold War era thriller exploring a twist on the urban myth of the lost cosmonaut.

Also developed in this period were two apps, Persona (2013) and Aeon (2016), which blended short form video, text and digital content in narratives exploring synthetic biology and a global pandemic. Between 2016 and 2018, Aeon expanded from an app into a series of immersive theatre experiences, placing audiences directly into viral outbreak scenarios, all in the years before COVID.

Development for these projects involved research at Massachussetts Institute of Technology, the University of Osaka's android lab, Star City Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow and the University of Manchester's Faculty of Biological Sciences, leading to feature articles in popular science and tech magazines T3 and The Sky At Night. A further spin-off from the cosmonaut project was Gagarin 50, an art exhibition directed by Richard to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight.

Richard continues to write and to make short films, with a new project due for release later in 2024.

Music: 2016 - present

The writing process for what became Sentinel commenced in 2016 with the show first being performed in 2017. Early performances featured an additional vocalist, although all songs were without lyrics, and initial visuals were created by a data visualisation artist.

During the pandemic, the project evolved with funding secured to release an album. In this period, lyrics were added and a lot of early material was culled, leading to an extensive writing phase for new material.

In February 2022, the Sentinel album was released to positive reviews with songs playlisted on radio stations all over the world. The first single, Made of Stars, reached the top 100 on the Euro Indie Music Chart, representing Richard's first chart appearance of any kind since 1988.

In late 2023, Richard released a new EP, Dream Of The World, again to critical acclaim and which reached number 53 on the EIM Chart. He also further developed the Sentinel stage show - including new, self-developed video content - to create a large scale, outdoor event with visuals projected onto a building during the live performance.

He is now writing and recording his second solo album.

Production company & media

Richard is the director of Cold Star Media which has received support from Arts Council England and Creative UK, most recently towards a virtual production studio for the creation of digital video content. He has featured on BBC Radio 2’s The Arts Show, Anthony H. Wilson’s Talk of the Town (BBC Radio Manchester), BBC News Online and The Times Online.