Not to be mistaken with “Evil Man” from Eyes Like the Sky, “Evilest Man” is about the person Stu thinks is the evilest man in the world. That person is Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch owns/owned/founded a number of high profile publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Times, a number of conservative papers such as the New York Post and The Herald Sun, tabloid papers such as The Daily Telegraph and Star, and TV channels such as Fox. His influence over society is immeasurable; in fact, it’s easy to argue that his influence has changed the trajectory of a large portion of modern politics. A look at the sway of Fox News alone makes a good case. Yet beyond the influence is a history of less than favorable ethics such as Operation Nigeria in 2002, where a Murdoch-owned publication paid large sums for illegally obtained voicemail messages. To explain his disgust, Stu wrote “Evilest Man,” a song that not just directly name drops Murdoch, but cleverly uses the various scandals and Murdoch-owned properties to make a song about the failings of modern journalism, distrust in the media and how headlines and outlets could turn us all into people like him.
The roots of “Evilest Man” go all the way back to at least 2019 when the band was recording at Flightless HQ. In an interview for SPIN magazine, Stu said “‘Evilest Man’ is kind of an older one. It was actually recorded at our old studio, which we haven’t been in since 2019. After we made Butterfly, we figured out how to use analog modular synths a little bit better, and that one got more synth-heavy. It was more of a straight-ahead rock song to begin with.” The song incorporates a slowed down synth line first found in the song “Cyboogie” from Fishing For Fishies.
Liner notes state that Ambrose (percussion/vocals), Cavs (drums), Cook (guitar), Joey (synthesizer/percussion) and Stu (vocals/guitar/flute/vibraphone/Wurlitzer/synthesizer/keyboards/vocoder/bass/percussion) all played on the track. It was recorded, mixed and produced by Stu. As part of a guessing game for the album’s track titles, “Evilest Man” was given two tweets. The first on February 2nd, 2022, features a devil emoji, a newspaper emoji and a man with a mustache emoji. Days later on the 8th was a new string of emojis: a devil, a first place medal, a night sky and an icon of a man. @samtrichard15 guessed the song on the 8th. The song was released as part of Omnium Gatherum on April 22nd, 2022.
“Evilest Man” has not been played live but was reportedly soundchecked at one point.