a chat with eerie please

Recently one of our writers Maddi got to chat with NYC based singer - song writer Eerie, Please about their debut EP, and so much more!

Q: Hi Eerie! It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to chat with you. I wanted to start off with a vibe check, so how have you been?

Hi Maddi! It’s a pleasure to chat with you, too. I hope you’ve been well.

I’ve been feeling hopeful. It's February, and I like beginnings – feels like everything is possible.

Q: Your debut EP “Lover’s Eye” was released in November (congratulations!) What has the whole experience been like?

Thank you! It has been such a joyful validation. For the longest time, I was haunted by this weird mix of self-doubt and absolute certainty that I should record an album. Lover’s Eye made me closer to who I am and who I want to be. Writing and recording these songs was a deeply intimate process, almost the opposite of what it has been to share them with the world. It’s a bit like I let go of my secrets.

Q: What has been the most surprising about the release?

I’m always surprised that people like my songs. Again, it’s a weird mix of self-doubt and absolute love for the things that I create. Whenever I see someone listening to my songs, I’m surprised. Maybe this comes more from a place of happiness than of self-doubt – it’s a great feeling.

Q: What was the process of naming the EP “Lover’s Eye”? What does this title mean to you?

At first, I was going to release Girl’s Bones as a single. I asked my friend @thaismnz to make the single cover and told her that I would like something with bones. We did a photoshoot and I later gave her a few x-ray scans from when my girlfriend broke her foot. She then created what would be the cover of Lover’s Eye: me inside a heart made of foot bones. The inspiration behind the cover was a type of antique jewelry known as lover’s eyes. They were tiny, hand-painted mementos that showed nothing but the eye of the loved one. It was a way of keeping the lover’s identity a secret. My portrait is a bit more revealing than that, but there’s an aesthetic resemblance – and the air of mystery remains. When my friend told me about this, I felt touched. Then I decided that it shouldn’t be a single, it should be an EP called Lover’s Eye. The experience of loving someone in secret is part of me, and the feeling is still behind all of my lyrics. This EP is my carefully crafted memento of the secrecy within love.

Q: You started making music in your NYC apartment during the first pandemic lockdown. Was it during this time when you decided to begin releasing music, or has it been a lifelong dream for you?

It was my dream for the longest time, ever since I can remember. Then I almost completely forgot about it until it became a necessity again. I had been slowly learning to produce music for around a year when the lockdown started. Isolation was definitely a catalyst for me. I was alone and it was all I could do.

Q: Your five song EP is seriously magic, and for me what really brings it alive is a delicate blend of lost-love nostalgia and dreaminess. Can you tell me a bit about what inspired this EP?

You said that Lover’s Eye captured the moment when you’re standing in a dim high school auditorium, illuminated by a disco ball, and your crush extends their arm towards you with lights glittering in their eyes. What you wrote is as beautiful as it is accurate. I can’t think of love without feeling overwhelmed by nostalgia. The dreaminess of being in love for the first time is an ever-present feeling within me, and that is how I experience the world: trying to feel it just a little bit more, always longing for something that is too close to touch and yet so far. In Lover’s Eye, I’m either remembering something or trying to make sense of what is happening. I started with Girl’s Bones, and things got a bit darker from there. That’s why I decided to make it the closing track of the EP and added an interlude before it – it’s just so different from the first three songs. Definitely much lighter. Spirals Surely Travel is named after a Sylvia Plath poem called The Night Dances: Such pure leaps and spirals – / Surely they travel / The world forever, I shall not entirely / Sit emptied of beauties, the gift / Of your small breath, the drenched grass / Smell of your sleep, lilies, lilies. It felt like the perfect transition. Silently Like a Dream and Spark are a crescendo, and something breaks in Tonight I Might See. Then we start growing again.

Q: What stands out most in your music is the honesty and emotional rawness of the lyrics – in the creation of a song, what is the writing process like?

It always starts with a sentence. I’ve tried to write songs based on abstract ideas a few times, but it never worked. I really don’t have much control in that sense; it all begins quite randomly. I get obsessed with a sentence that comes up in my head, and then I build the rest from that. I often have no idea what I’m talking about until I keep writing and everything suddenly starts making sense. But it’s definitely a process guided by obsession.

Q: From the time you began making music to “Lover’s Eye”, has your creative process changed at all?

I don’t think I’ve changed enough. I’m still waiting for something to click to start my next phase, but a few things have already changed. I feel much more comfortable producing music now, which allows me to be more creative and gives me more control over how to shape my ideas. My goal is always to express exactly what I’m feeling, and now I have more tools to do that. As for the writing process, that hasn’t changed – it has been the same ever since I can remember.

Q: If you could go back and give advice to the Eerie Please who is stuck in their apartment about to embark this musical journey, what would you say?

If you keep getting a little bit better every day, you will eventually create something beautiful. Sometimes it’s more about discipline than having an epiphany.

Q: What bands/artists are you listening to right now that we should check out?

There are two albums that I've been listening to almost every day: Mort Garson’s Plantasia and Dead Man’s Bones self-titled album. I’m also often a little bit obsessed with Desire’s self-titled EP, Ultraviolence by Lana Del Rey, Darklands by The Jesus and Mary Chain, Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins, Fur and Gold by Bat For Lashes, Night Drive by Chromatics, A Different Arrangement by Black Marble, and Deep Cuts by The Knife.

Q: So where to from here for Eerie Please?

I want to start playing concerts and making more music. Exciting times lie ahead.

Words by Maddi

Keep up with Eerie, Please!

Instagram

Listen to "Lover's Eye" here