Photo Release -- Brian Evans Book `Never A Dull Moment' Coming to Book Stores


LOS ANGELES, Feb. 23, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Brian Evans, a big band singer who began his career on television shows ranging from "Full House" to "Beverly Hills, 90210" is writing his autobiography.

A photo accompanying this release is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=4751

The book follows Evans around his journey towards the ultimate goal he has set out for himself in showbiz.

From growing up in Haverhill, Massachusetts to living in Bel Air, Evans discusses trying to get ahead in a business full of voicemail directives from various assistants of the rich and powerful to once being committed to a psychiatric hospital by his mother in order to protect him from an abusive stepfather.

"The bizarre thing about the hospital was that my stepfather had the chance to attack me in the hospital after he was committed to the same hospital by police," says Evans. "My mother put me in there for a weekend because her insurance covered the stay, while she readied to leave the guy who was making our life hell. When he learned she'd done this, he attacked her, police came, and they actually committed him to the same place she put me to protect me from the guy. What happened next was pretty incredible," says Evans.

Evans and his mother eventually moved to Los Angeles, where Evans picked up parts in TV shows ranging from "Full House" to "Beverly Hills, 90210" and various movie roles such as New Line Cinema's "Book of Love" in the 1990s. However, in 1990, Evans and a few friends impersonated radio deejay Casey Kasem, landing Evans in jail himself. At first given probation for the prank, he was later sent to jail for a year after violating his probation.

"I was asked to sing the national anthem in Baltimore for the Baltimore Orioles," says Evans. "When I left the state to go sing the anthem, my probation was violated. We later learned the probation officer was giving the victim in the case interior decorating tips."

In 1996 Evans moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he began a career as a big band singer. He and Michael Buble', a fellow crooner, began performing at the venue "Babalu", and Evans describes that even in Canada, the music business was very much the same.

"Competition in the music business is fierce," he says. "I wasn't really considered a Canadian, and they are pretty supportive of their own up there, unlike the U.S. where they'll kick you down as soon as they lift you up. In America people like the fall. In Canada it was more or less about me not being Canadian. The management of my competitors would call other venues I was playing at to get me knocked off the gig, saying I wasn't Canadian and for that reason shouldn't be supported. I shot back with my own methods of getting even, but ultimately various people up there succeeded in making me look like an idiot," says Evans.

But Evans is not one to give up.

Having met various luminaries ranging from Johnny Carson to Frank Sinatra, Evans most definitely has stories to tell.

Now recording what will be his international CD debut, some 17 years after he started in the entertainment business, Evans is relaxed these days.

"I've learned to roll with the punches. Sometimes you think you've been given a great break, but you really have to make it on your own. I'm in a business where you can email someone too much, and the next thing you know you ticked someone off that you didn't even mean to," says Evans. "It takes very little to tick someone off in the music business, especially the one's who have made great success. They just aren't hungry anymore, and they don't have the tolerance they once did because they no longer need to. They just call you crazy and turn the page because in their reality they needn't have to figure out what makes you tick, and they don't care."

Perhaps this bite at the apple is the one Evans has waited for.

"The book is something I needed to do, but the CD is going to be the thing I believe gets people going," Evans says. "I wrote most of this CD, and the material just exploded out of me. I was trying so long to try to be someone everyone liked that I lost myself in the process, and I was hard to figure out, even to myself."

The book, to be released by a Random House venture company, will also feature a specially made CD.

"There really are people who just sit back and enjoy your failure. I've always lived by the premise that the best revenge is living well, and I've lived extremely well. I'm in a genre where my competition as a singer is limited, and that has always helped me to do extraordinary things," says Evans. "Your competition is never a bad thing, and the better they do, the more they make ... which means they are no longer approachable in terms of most budgets, so they come to me. However this CD is my life experiences with a barcode.

"Many of my friends of the past have gone on to do quite well. From Sky Dayton, who invented EarthLink, to Angelina Jolie, who was my date to the `Book of Love' premiere, I've never had a problem knowing people. The problem for me has always been insecurity, and not feeling worthy, but that never halted my drive."

The book will be called "Never a Dull Moment" and will be released this year. Brian's CD, self-titled, will also be released this year.

"Everyone thinks you are crazy until you make it, then they call you brilliant. It's about hanging in there and taking the punches, and not being afraid to throw a few of your own if necessary," Evans says. "I've met so many hot-shot managers and people in positions of power who you truly shake your head at and wonder what lottery they hit, because some of them just don't get an idea at all; then when that idea works they chalk it up as a unique `enigma' because they can't accept the blame for not stepping up and acting on an idea.

"I love what I do," says Evans. "Sometimes, I have not loved who I feel I've had to be. It's easy to judge when you've never had to struggle."

All of which, Evans explains in the book.

For more information on Brian Evans visit www.brianevans.com, or visit him MySpace page at www.myspace.com/brianevansonline

The photo is also available via AP Photo Express and at NewsCom, www.newscom.com


            
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