“My musical journey has been quite eclectic,” admits Levi Evans. The 25-year-old, who is now making a name for himself as an indie rock solo artist, initially wanted to be a rapper, then started a group called NOFUN! with some friends in a genre he describes as “someplace between One Direction and Wu-Tang Clan.”

“When I first moved to L.A., my one friend that I had out there, all we did was listen to hip-hop music,” Evans adds. “I’ve grown up in a musical household, but my intro into creating my own music was through hip-hop, which was kind of crazy.”

His musical journey began much before getting into Tupac and A Tribe Called Quest with friends: Evans is the son of U2 guitarist The Edge, and moved to L.A. from Dublin with his family as a teenager. After years of releasing music under different names, he’s finally emerged as a solo artist with a debut EP called “Head Chatter” last year and a string of singles dropping throughout 2025. 

Like many kids of famous parents, Evans initially didn’t have interest in what his dad does. Instead of music, growing up he was big into illustration and still does his own cover art and visuals.  

“I wanted to be an animator, and I did some animation classes. I was the kid that if you looked at their homework assignment, it was just cover corner to corner, just doodles all over the place, which got me into trouble sometimes,” he says. “But, yeah, it wasn’t until I was around 15 when I wanted to pursue music.”

Evans’ writing has gone through its own journey of transformation. Initially his “alter ego,” as he calls it, wrote about partying and a lifestyle that “masked insecurities.” 

“A big thing was coming to terms with who I was and being like, ‘hold on, actually, I am not facing a lot of these things that I should be,’” he says. “And that’s why I got more vulnerable and more sensitive with my work. I actually am this vulnerable, sensitive guy that has been doing this fun stuff for a while, but I’m growing up now and I’m actually really looking at myself in the mirror and being like, ‘all right, who am I?’”

As a kid, he grew up on a diet of The Beatles, The Kinks and The Strokes, but now finds solo singer-songwriters to be more his speed.

“A big part of my inspiration now is I don’t have a band and a lot of my production is from home. And so I find I get inspired by artists who are similar in that way. People like Dominic Fike, who are sort of that multigenre sort of thing…there’s a kid, Oliver Malcolm, who I really like. I think Hozier is a great songwriter. And he’s Irish as well.”

Last month Evans took the stage at New York’s club Berlin, and dropped his latest single “Bar Stool Rose.” He plans to keep releasing songs one-off throughout the year, now that he’s finally found his sound.

“It’s the refining of this focus from this journey and this experimentation to this sound where we really think this is it,” he says. “Now, we’ve worked on it for a year, and it’s really homing in and just getting better at what I have been doing.”