One of the latest artists to come across my radar is a three-piece rock outfit by the name of Eyes Eat Suns. Think of their sound as something akin to Paramore, but more along the lines of alternative rock (if I'm making any sense). Their music has the pop-rock sensibility and production to it, with a bit more of an experimental, matured sound. They're riding hot on the heels of their newest EP, Alive, and they want the world to hear it. I had the pleasure of speaking over the phone with vocalist Ayisa Adderley, about the process of bringing Alive to life, the band's shift in sound, and their music video for 'Priceless Faces'.
The band have two upcoming shows as well, so check out dates and social media information at the end of the article for more information!
Where are you guys playing tonight?
We did have a show, but it got cancelled.
Oh no!
It got cancelled last night. Yeah, it was going to be at this place in Wilmington, NC called The Throne Theater. We were direct support for Neck Deep, but [it was cancelled] because of the hurricane and everyone getting evacuated from the coast.
I’m sorry to hear that it got cancelled.
Yeah, it’s sad, but safety first!
What are you guys doing to kill time then, since you have all this extra time now?
Too much time now! Since we’re just kind of home (we live right there), we’re just hanging out. We went to Walmart and did some grocery shopping while we could. It’s a nice off day.
You guys released the Alive EP earlier this year, if I’m correct on that. Tell me a little bit about the process of putting that EP together.
Yeah! It was fairly easy. We had all of the songs, for the most part, written [before we got to the studio]. There was only one song that we didn’t really get to finish until we got into the studio, which was the first title track. We only had an acoustic version of it, where it was just guitar and vocal. Everything else got added in the studio.
These songs were written over the course of a year and a half. We had a lot of time to really take our time and put a lot of effort into it. We demoed out the songs on an iPhone voice memo; we sent it over to James [Paul Wisner], the guy who worked with us. We went into the studio, and we had about two weeks to record everything and get it all together.
Fantastic. That sounds like a pretty straightforward process, honestly. I’m used to hearing about a process where there’s all kinds of hiccups in between.
Yeah, the whole thing was pretty easy! I think the only hiccup for us was, ‘do we have enough money to spot ourselves?’ And we did; that was really the only complication, since we paid for it all on our own dime.
When you went into the studio, were there more than the five songs we currently hear on the EP in mind? Or did you keep it to just those core five?
We had six that we originally had that we sent in to demo, and we just kept five. I definitely have notebooks full of songs and ideas that could be ready to go at any time, but they’d need to be workshopped.
This one was pretty easy; we had the five that we loved, and we knew that those were the ones that we wanted to put together. We had a track list in order before we got there, and we had everything dialed in.
In terms of the sound that you were going for on this record, what were you trying to achieve in terms of influences that were there, from a songwriting standpoint? How was it different than anything you guys had released before?
Our previous release [2015’s POW! EP] I think had a poppier kind of tone to it. With this one, we kind of darkened it up and matured our sound, which is what we really wanted to do. We just wanted a mature, alternative rock sound. We did play around with some different effects. That’s something that we really want to get into the future. With this EP, we were like, ‘let’s add some effects in there and give these songs a little more depth, rather than just [have it be] guitar, vocal, drum, and bass.”
You did a music video for the track ‘Priceless Faces’. What was it about ‘Priceless Faces’ that made you want to make a video for it in particular?
We were kind of going back and forth on which [track] we wanted to do for a video. I let the director we wanted to work with decide which song. I felt that if the director had a song in mind, they already had an idea in mind. When you have an idea in mind, you work harder at it and invest more into it. You have all of these reasons to give it a hundred and ten percent, versus ‘oh okay, they picked this song; I guess I have to do a video for that song”. It’s almost apathetic in a way.
Are you working on any new material at the moment, if I may ask, or are you guys focusing solely on the Alive EP right now? If so, what can fans expect?
Both! We are still promoting, but we are also writing and working on new stuff. In terms of what to expect, more of an experimental sound. We’re really experimenting with sounds right now.
Last question: what does music mean to you?
Music, to me, is therapy, and that’s the easiest answer that I can give.
Eyes Eat Suns' new EP, Alive, is available now. Click the iTunes link below to purchase. The band will be performing on November 13 at Kings in Raleigh, NC, and on December 3 at Greene Street in Greensboro, NC.
Eyes Eat Suns
www.eyeseatsuns.band
www.facebook.com/EyesEatSuns
@eyeseatsuns
This has been another Shameless Promotion.