Musician Nate Evans’ Hollywood dreams are coming true

Nate Evans. // photo courtesy the artist

Tommy Stovall’s Faustian drama, Condition of Return, hits iTunes, Amazon, and most other digital VOD platforms on October 23. Directed by Stovall from a script by John Spare, the movie stars AnnaLynne McCord as Eve Sullivan, who “makes a deal with the Devil to escape a life out of control,” and also stars Dean Cain, Natasha Henstridge, and James Russo.

Courtesy image

It is absolutely chock-full of every single plot twist one could possibly imagine and makes for the sort of viewing experience wherein you’re definitely astonished at what’s happening onscreen but definitely don’t dare look away for fear of missing whatever comes next. Because of everything that happens, it’s not quite a spoiler to mention that by Condition of Return‘s halfway point, McCord’s protagonist has lost her baby, caught her husband cheating, and been arrested for child sexual abuse material.

It only gets wilder from there, not the least of which is discovering that Kansas City musician Nate Evans has both his music and artwork featured in the film. Given the wild experience that is watching Condition of Return, we were not surprised to discover that Evans’ experience becoming part of the was no less so when we spoke with the musician by phone.

“By chance, I happen to be in Arizona with a friend of mine, and ironically enough, his friends that we were staying with at the time just happened to be the movie directors Marc [Sterling] and Tommy [Stovall],” Evans says. “They had just been starting the process of making the movie, and I’d mentioned that I did music and I’ve done acting and stuff like that.”

In the home was a movie theater room, and Sterling and Stovall sat down and watched Evans’ music video for “A Lovely Day” and listened to some of his other songs. A couple of months later, the pair messages Evans something to the extent of “We’re desperate for music, and we’re looking for some stuff. Didn’t you send us some CDs?”

“And they chose ‘Murder Mystery’ and then the other two songs, ‘Put the Haters on the Wall’ and ‘The Speed of Light,’” says Evans. “Then the rest was pretty much history from there.”

Thanks to its lyrical themes—“Murder Mystery” is about a girl who runs away to Hollywood to try to be a star while paying homage to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”—it fits the bill for what was needed in Condition of Return, and ends up playing for a solid two minutes during a pivotal club scene early in the movie wherein McCord’s Sullivan meets the man who will eventually become her cheating husband, Darren (played by Ryan Bates).

And then, to top that off, Evans also does photography and artwork, and that ended up appearing in the film, as well.

“I made them about seven pieces for the movie, and then two of them were featured in the movie,” Evans says. A good portion of the film sees McCord’s Sullivan being interrogated and questioned by Dean Cain’s Dr. Donald Thomas, and prominently featured in the background is a picture of Evans’ mom’s garden with a flag in the ground.

Evans was even featured in the film in a cameo role and flew down to Arizona to shoot it, where he then met Dean Cain, although it was sadly cut for timing. That said, while he knew his music would be in the film, he had no idea it would be featured so prominently.

“To be part of actually being on the set, doing everything I love from photography, acting, and then music, having most of those featured in the movie was just a dream come true,” says Evans. “I’m telling everybody right now, 20 years of making music are paying off. Being rejected by American Idol, people telling me my music sucks, that I should kill myself, that you’re never gonna make it, I never gave up. Timing was everything. It’s just having that endurance to never give up on your dreams, and things will pay off.”

As Evans puts it, all the work he’s put in is finally paying off because he didn’t want to be 80 years old on his deathbed, wishing he had done something: “So I just do it. Condition of Return, just like any other accomplishment, is not only an honor, but it’s probably one of the best things that I’ll be able to have on my resume moving forward.”

As Evans concludes, when people ask, “Who’s Nate Evans, and what has he done?” there’s now one heck of an answer.