Following the release of their EP Start Living, we caught an interview with Houston duo Eucalyption to find out more about their musical journey so far. Here’s how it went.
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Hi guys – thanks for the interview, and congratulations on the EP. Just to give a little background – how did you meet, and what prompted you to start making music together?
Our names are James Nissen and Ben Nissen. We’re actually brothers, so we met at a very early age. And we’ve played music our entire lives, so it just made sense to start making original music.
Who or what would you say has inspired you the most to make original music?
Probably a band called Mutemath. Darren King, their former drummer, is probably the main reason I’m any good at drums at all, because I just learned all his drum parts when I was learning to play the drums, and they were so different from any other drumming I was hearing at the time. My brother Ben learned a lot of their bass-lines too, anyway we just always really liked that band.
How do you get started when writing a new song?
Every song is different. But usually one of us will come to the other with a riff, or a verse, or a chorus, or just some part of a song, or even just a weird synth sound or something, and then we’ll both work together on making it a whole cohesive song. Sometimes we’ll have pretty much a whole song down and we’ll just have the other person do a little bit to it, but yeah, every song comes together differently.
If people only have time to listen to one of the tracks – which would you recommend, and why?
Probably No Better. Just because it was the last song we wrote and recorded for the EP, and we’re always most excited about the last song we’ve been working on. But we’re really proud of all the songs on there.
What do you hope people take away from this EP?
I think we just hope that people feel inspired after listening to it.
Will you be touring with the new songs, and if so – what can audiences expect from a live show?
We’re working on putting together a live show right now, and we’re planning on booking shows early 2019. We’re really excited to start sharing some of our songs with people live! It’s going to be a lot of fun!
If you could sit down for lunch with any artist or band, past or present – who would you invite, and what would you ask them about?
I can’t speak for my brother Ben, since he’s not here at the moment. But for me, I think it would be James Murphy from the band LCD Soundsystem. And I would ask him a bunch of techy nerdy stuff about how he made certain synth sounds and stuff like that.
What’s next for you?
Finishing getting the live show together, and playing as many shows we can. And in our down time between shows next year we’d like to start recording our full length album.
Is there anything else we should know?
To stay up to date with shows and everything we’re working on, people can follow us on Instagram . And you can always check out our Website.
Thanks for the interview, we appreciate your time.
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