Ève has what
you crave

>>As DJ Evalicious, supermodel Ève
Salvail gives music another spin

FROM CATWALKS TO CROSSFADES: Ève Salvail

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Even as a teen in rural Matane, Quebec in the ’80s, Eve Salvail stood out, and not just in her striking appearance, which she’d later amplify by routinely shaving her head to bare the bold Chinese dragon tattoo on her scalp. The soon-to-be supermodel, maverick designer Jean-Paul Gaultier’s ambassadress on countless European catwalks in the mid-’90s, was already an unusual girl.

“I used to listen to Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, all the punk and alternative groups,” Salvail recalls. “My brother is older than me by three years, and he listened to that genre of music, so I basically stole everything. I would do mixtapes from very early on, probably took that from him as well.”

After a first foray into modelling, in Japan (where her tattoo carried creepy gangster connotations), Salvail clocked in a stretch behind the bar at Foufounes Électriques—“It was my favourite place to go out to when I first came to Montreal, so it was an honour for me to work there”—and even after being discovered and heralded by Gaultier in 1991, Salvail stayed in touch with her musical inclinations. Settling in New York, she picked up the mic to front trip-hop unit 10 Watt Mary for four years, an experience she says wasn’t that different from prowling the runway.

“I did a lot—a lot—of fashion shows. You’re on stage and you play a little bit with the public, even though the main thing is to stay very, how can I say it—you’re not supposed to smile, you’re not supposed to start dancing or anything, but I think that especially with the look that I had, people expected a little more from me than just walking up and down the runway. It’s about the same thing.

“Since then, I’m extremely comfortable on stage. I actually love it. And I’m not a very extroverted type of person, I’m actually extremely shy, but put me on a stage and I’m fine, I’m totally in my element.”

Speaking of elements, Salvail appeared in the Luc Besson film The Fifth Element (a Gaulthier hookup, perhaps—he created much of the sci-fi lark’s wardrobe), and of course the fashion-model flicks Zoolander and Prêt-à-porter. It was on the shoot for Bryan Adams’ 1999 photo book Made in Canada, a collection of portraits of Canadian women to raise funds against breast cancer, that Salvail first met the Can-con icon. It was an instant friendship.

“He taught me a lot about writing on my own, and we co-wrote a song [“Pour Toujours”]. He did most of the melody and I put lyrics to it a couple of years after we wrote that, for a friend of mine who passed away. I sang it at a fundraiser, that’s the only time I’ve sung it live.”

Lately, Salvail’s exploring another facet of music. Under the moniker Evalicious, she’s giving spinning a spin, working the wheels of steel at high-end clubs and company parties.

“I’m a baby DJ, I started maybe four years ago, so I’m not as experienced as others—although I’m getting there! As far as the set goes, it’s pretty much whatever makes people dance, whatever’s popular, whatever you hear on the radio and know the lyrics to. Either that or what was popular in the ’70s and the ’80s—or has a good beat. Nothing slow for sure.”

At Space Ultralounge on Tuesday,
May 27, 10 p.m., $20