In Conversation With: Eloise
One of the most exciting voices to come onto the UK scene - Eloise - has released her brand new track ‘Left Side’. She had a chat with us about early childhood memories in Normandy, listening to the likes of Billie Joel and what her future EP has in store for us.
Some of your childhood was spent living in Normandy, what is your best memories of living there?
Leaving school for lunch break and running straight into the lake and catching frogs with my little sister and then going back to school with wet lake hair.
When you were younger, your mother used to play a lot of jazz to you, do you still listen to that style of music? If so, who are your favorites and why?
I still listen to all of the albums my parents showed me throughout my childhood. That music is the first place I turn to when I have anything close to writers block. My favourites are probably Billie Joel, Gilbert O’Sullivan and Blossom Dearie because they all tell stories and paint pictures so vividly in their own ways. They let you so far into a feeling for the 4 minute duration of the songs. They also sing the lyrics how they would speak them timing wise - it’s so free and conversational and I believe them.
As a fan of classic films such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, if you could pick one as your favorite, which would it be and why? Do you feel it has influenced your songwriting?
It’s so difficult to choose a favourite because those films were all so fundamentally relevant in my childhood but I’d have to say the films I always go back to are Some Like It Hot, Meet Me in Saint Louis and Sweet Charity. I think those classic Hollywood films inform my style and visual aesthetic more than they do my music - all the characters have this quality that makes them timelessly cool and quirky. That being said, the scripts for those films are so brilliant that my lyrics have, for sure, been influenced by some great one liners in them.
You deal with the topic of love quite a bit in your songs, do you believe in love? Are the lyrics from personal experiences? Are you in that stage of your life where you are dealing with the concept of love?
I have been in and out of love in various forms for most of my life! I’m someone who feels things extremely profoundly so in nursery, I didn’t just have crushes on boys in the playground, I would propose to them... I do believe in love. As my friend Bruno says, it might just be the closest thing we have to a meaning of life. All of the songs I’ve written are based on my life of the lives of close friends around me. I have to know the feeling inside out to write it because it’s so crucial to me for the songs I write to be as honest as possible. Honesty in any art form has always been at the root of anything I’ve ever responded to.
Your latest single ‘Left Side’ is out now, what is the track about?
Left Side is about having to make yourself get your head around the fact that, if you push through the heart ache, you WILL be okay. And that acknowledgment in itself is hard to accept but it’s crucial to survival. I’ve never regretted having my heart broken. It’s the reason I now know how to love better than I ever have before.
‘This Thing Called Living’ is out later this month, where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories?
Half of the EP was recorded at Strongroom Studios in Old Street and the other half at Bruno’s studio. It was the loveliest and most exciting experience giving these old songs some new clothes. I was just so lucky to have someone like Bruno who understands my music to his core. It meant that I could ease my way into understanding what production is and how much it can add or take away from a song. Everything just flowed out into a higglety pigglety warm collage of songs that make up the story of my adolescence.
Once the EP is out, what are your plans? What next?
Live a bit, run wild, make a mess, clean it up and write about it! I’m just going to enjoy the luxury of time in order to write the best songs i can possibly write. I’m so excited to learn myself again and grow from the soil I’ve gathered from the last 2 years of learning on tour.
Eloise’s EP ‘This Thing Called Living’ is due for release on the 30th May 2019.
The Slaughtered Lamb – 29th May (SOLD OUT).