The term “supergroup” gets bandied about frequently, but Evil Island are surely a band worthy of that description. Not because its members are the biggest names in the world, but because the projects those members have been in helped shape an entire genre, and their legacies are still standing strong and proud today. Evil Island is a punk powerhouse, a band comprised of post-hardcore heavyweights. There’s Johnny Whitney, Cody Votolato and Mark Gajadhar, who were (and are, once again) in The Blood Brothers; Autry René Fulbright, who’s played in OFF! and …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead; and Todd Weinstock, who played guitar in Glassjaw. That’s some pedigree right there.
It’s no wonder Evil Island’s debut album, Terraform the Afterlife is a frenetic, freewheeling concoction of noise that’s just as inventive and idiosyncratic as you might expect from such a grouping of musical minds. Made with renowned producer Ross Robinson and featuring guest vocals from Blood Brothers bandmate Jordan Blilie and Sleigh Bells’ Alexis Krauss, they even managed to coax Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto to make his first recorded vocal performance in a quarter of a century for the record.
With the record out now via Robinson’s recently minted Blowed Out Records, we posed five questions to Whitney and Votolato to find out more about it all. Find the band’s upcoming tour dates here, and read their answers below.
What’s it like starting a new project when you all have such a storied legacy? Does that make things easier or harder?
Cody Votolato: I’d say the main thing is staying realistic. It’s good to remember that your new thing is not your previous thing and not everyone will be down to go along for the ride. I think if you can keep that narrative, it gets pretty easy. If I put too much expectation on our previous work to carry our new work, then I’ll surely be set up for disappointment. Evil Island is a combination of embracing what we did previously and inviting those supporters into what we’re doing now with no expectation that they’ll follow. We’re just going to keep doing our thing and be grateful for anyone who wants to join us. So far we’ve felt plenty of love and it’s been awesome!
Johnny Whitney: I really see this as a continuation of what I would’ve wanted to do with The Blood Brothers had we decided to make more music. Mark, Cody, and I have been playing together since we were in eighth grade, so all the ingredients and instincts that went into making Blood Brothers songs went into making Evil Island songs. In that way, our legacy makes it easier, because it’s all muscle memory. If the three of us decided to start a new band and have it sound like Belle and Sebastian, it would’ve been much more difficult, because there would be zero shared instincts to bring a project like that to life.
You certainly haven’t mellowed with age. How do you keep that energy and passion in full-flow after doing this for so long?
Whitney: I was really inspired by the passion that Cody, Autry, and Mark put into these songs and tried to match the energy and how it made me feel. It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you just focus on your role; and conversely, it’s easy to let the vibe carry you when you let your ego lose itself in the energy of the music. For Evil Island, that’s extremely easy because the band are such talented, passionate players. Additionally, because I stepped away from making music entirely from 2010 to 2024, I approached the Evil Island record with almost 15 years of pent up creative energy. Writing the lyrics for this record came so quickly, and I think that had a lot to do with it.
photo by Ross Robinson
Was this intended as a one-off project, or do you see Evil Island continuing for a while?
Votolato: Definitely not a one-off—there’s plenty more Evil Island to come!
Whitney: At some point I want to make an Evil Island movie and/or theme park in addition to continuing to make records with Ross.
What did you get out of Evil Island that you haven’t gotten from any of your previous projects?
Votolato: Because of the way the band came together, I was able to musically direct this thing from the inception. Johnny hit me up and wanted to do something new. I had skeletons of songs and an idea of a record I’d like to make. It’s basically my dream record for guitars. I was able to make simple pop songs into avant-hardcore. At least that’s how I look at it.
Whitney: It’s easy to carpet bomb an entire song with screaming when you’re writing for two vocalists, but with this record I wanted to be able to do the songs live without a lung transplant, and I wanted to let the music breathe a little more than it did in Blood Brothers. We’re also putting a lot more energy into the aesthetic world-building of the band. Evil Island is a band, but it’s also an imaginary fascist nation state, a death cult disguised as an MLM scam, a reality TV show about a cult, etc. One of the main differences between being a band in 2006 and 2026 is that you have to compete for attention, so we’re trying to manifest some of the creative energy we put into making music all these years into multimedia content that’s weird and funny and still feels like it’s from us. This is something very different from any other band I’ve been a part of, and has been a fun challenge.
There are a number of impressive guests on this album, but perhaps most surprising is Guy Picciotto on “T-Hexx.” What did you say to bring him out of recording retirement?
Votolato: I told him about the new band and said we had a track we thought he’d be perfect on if he were up for it. He’s basically the sweetest person alive and said to send him the track and that he’d give it a shot. It wasn’t until he actually sent me the tracks that I believed it would happen—not because I didn’t think he’d deliver, but more so that it seemed like such an unattainable goal! When I was 13 I sent Fugazi a letter and Guy sent me a handwritten postcard back (teen mind blown). Thirty years later, he’s still blowing my mind!
Whitney: We have extensive blackmail on Guy from his time as a congressional page in the early ’80s, so he had no choice but to do the song with us (I’m kidding, obviously).
