Singer/songwriter Eve Selis used to be in the San Diego cover band Heroes, along with her friend Mattie Mills. Selis left the group in 1998 to go solo, though the band and Mills are still performing today. Selis and Mills later collaborated on a book and website, Forty Schmorty: Life Keeps Happening.
For years, Selis was involved in a government-related cover-up. On September 9, 2000, she was to sing the national anthem at the America West Arena in Phoenix. The performance was supposed to be capped by an American bald eagle being released from a balcony to circle the arena and land on its trainer's wrist. However, the bird instead chose to land on top of Selis's head. She maintained her composure and even managed to bow for the audience, most of whom likely thought the landing had been planned that way.
Says Selis on her website, "The trainer asked us not to speak of it, for fear of the eagle losing his congressional approval. This bird, which is an endangered species, was the only bald eagle sanctioned by the U.S. government to fly free at sporting events, rallies, military celebrations, etc. So we understood and kept it on the down low. We recently heard that the bird had retired, so what the heck. The truth must be told."
Selis says her music has been legally downloaded over two million times on the Internet due to her successful self-marketing. She's sold 35,000 CDs, her music is heard in four movies, and she has performed on CNBC, ESPN, and the BBC. She has opened for Travis Tritt, Crosby Stills and Nash, the Doobie Brothers, Joan Osborne, Heart, Dwight Yoakam, Garry Allan, Chris Isaak, and Hootie & the Blowfish.
The Selis band frequently includes "Cactus" Jim Soldi and Sharon Whyte who, along with Mark Intravaia (the Monroes) have their own band, Cactus Twang & Whyte. Soldi played with Johnny Cash for four years and Ricky Skaggs for two years. She's frequently seen around town playing with Tim Flannery and the duo Berkley Hart.
Her album Angels and Eagles was released in early 2008. She won Best Americana Or Country at the 2008 San Diego Music Awards, and Best Americana at the 2010 Awards. She is married to Tom Gulotta of Reelin’ in the Years.
Her full-length Family Tree was released November 11, 2011, followed by a UK tour in June and July 2012 with Jeff Berkley. She headlined the Americana Festival UK on July 6, 2012, at the County Showground, Newark, Nottingham.
Both Selis and guitarist Marc Intravaia teamed up with Berkley and Calman Hart, to record a CSNY-style album billed as Berkley Hart Selis Twang, released in October 2014. That group appeared to go on hiatus in 2019 when Selis posted online about no longer working together with Intravaia. The guitarist replied “Eve and I remain friends and will always be friends. We did not have a fight or a blowout or anything of that nature. The fact is we just drifted apart musically. It’s been happening for the last couple years and now she is on a much different path than me.”
In early 2022, Selis posted online "Twenty one years ago Marc Intravaia and I took a trip to Nashville and both our label meeting and writing appointment canceled once we landed so we decided to take a road trip. We drove north looking for the Natchez Trace and got lost in Kentucky. We wandered into Russellville and decided to stop in the town square and write a song. That’s when we met Marion Humphries. He was cleaning up around a cannon monument from the Civil War. We stopped to talk to him and got so many wonderful nuggets of life wisdom we decided to write our song Russellville about the whole day. We ended up going back to the town with the band and performed on their radio station and did a concert in the town Square."
Humphries, whose 90th birthday in March 2022, had recently passed away. "I actually just spoke with him last week on a video app. I told him I would be out of town until Mother’s Day and would come visit him when I got back to Nashville. Little did I know it would be to say goodbye."