Eisley - making an atheist jam to Christian music
One of my favorite indie rock bands come from a very surprising place: Texas. Yes, they are mostly christian, Jesus freaks. Yes, they are all white, north-american, siblings, some grew to be conservative. Yes, I'm an atheist transgender purple-haired woke person. Bla bla. Bear with me, this band is actually good, aside from all the gossip.
Rabbit hole
So, how did I discover them? One day, I was browsing YouTube, back when I was 13 (this was 2012) when I found this video.
It was posted by Phantom Planet, a band that I'm very fond of. You probably know them by the song California, from The O.C.'s opening.
This video featured this beautiful song called If You Were a Girl by Simon Dawes. Back then, I would search for this song everywhere and I couldn't find it on Grooveshark, Myspace, torrenting. But I would find Eisley's Final Noise E.P. without the featured artists (I was able to find it recently complete on Soulseek).
This song by Simon Dawes resonated with me a lot since I believe I was dealing with a lot of gender struggle and this song would make me imagine how interesting it would be if I were a girl.
The rest of the E.P. was also interesting, since it was mostly recorded by girls who were very into emo (there's even some gossip about one of the girls having some stuff with Hayley Williams from Paramore, when Paramore was at its peak).
Eisley comes from, guess what, Mos Eisley. What a bunch of nerds!
Their music resonating through my teens
I grew up listening to their music, but other people barely knew them. They've opened to Coldplay, but were still pretty unknown. I've introduced a few friends to them, some others already knew them, which made me bond with those people so quickly because who in the world knew this band?!
The fact that they were mostly women and slightly emo resonated a lot with me - transitioning and gender has been a topic that's been in my head ever since I was a kid and I believed life would be if I were a girl. The way the girls from Eisley sang kind of brought this idea of femininity to me. As much as I liked punk rock, hardcore, grunge, Eisley would make me feel at peace at least for a while.
Shout out to this very complex drum beat that they've added that kept on glitching my mind for years.
This song in particular would remind me of the days where I felt so down, but there was (literal) sun after the storm. I remember taking the bus to go back home after a storm and sunrays were being cast across the clouds. This song makes me feel so hopeful and joyful.
I can talk about emo someday (or should I say pop punk, or maybe scene kid style, since we all know what real emo is [okay I'll shut the fuck up about this]), but their style was something that every person who was heavy into rock'n'roll back in late 2000s would joke about. I was one of those kids, but I secretly wanted to be emo.
It's too bad I didn't listen to some more emo stuff back then because I enjoy it now, whether it be Paramore, Death Cab for Cutie, blessthefall, My Chemical Romance and other people who wore fringe bangs. At least I was a Green Day fan, so people knew I was slightly into emo (and also slightly queer since I had a crush on Billie Joe).
But of course, I wanted especially to be an emo girl.
Where to begin
Eisley has a quite extensive discography, and also lots of E.P.s, which are not very well recorded (if you like Garageband music, then do take a listen, it's interesting). The Valley was the first album I actually listened, and I thinking I've listened to it maybe hundreds of times. Room Noises has Marvelous Things, which is amazing. Combinations is also a great album which has lots of interesting songs.
From the E.P.s, Deep Space probably has my favorite tracks that they've ever recorded, Lights Out and Laugh it Off.
I honestly haven't listened to their other albums, and I honestly sided with Stacy King on their break up with Sherri Dupree, Eisley's lead singer. Sherri has been doing a lot of conservative north-american stuff that I dislike.
I'm getting a rush of nostalgia now - Stacy formed a band called Sucre and released A Minor Bird on HelloGiggles. If you were around Facebook in 2012, and were into girly blogs, you probably followed this website, founded by Zooey Deschanel (who was married to Ben Gibbard from Death Cab, who's also my crush, and I do have a crush on both Zooey and Ben, that's pansexuality to you, do you remember 500 Days of Summer btw?) THAT'S VERY NOSTALGIC.
Anyways, one of Stacy's songs, Say Something is probably one of my favorite songs of all time (I do have many of those, but I really mean it).
Stacy also opened up about mental health, depression and growing up in a conservative family. Her journey is quite interesting.
Closing thoughts
Eisley is stuck on my iPod's replay and always has been. They are a very talented band. Their journey is quite interesting since they did a lot of stuff that would've been a hit, and signed up with Warner, and I don't really understand how they didn't blow up so much. One thing that is clear is that they didn't seem to give up to the pressure of becoming a famous band.
Too bad some of the members didn't grow up to be interesting nowadays, or maybe I grew up to be more politically conscious of what I consume and some things are a bit unbearable. But still, Eisley holds a place in my heart as a band who defined me and my musical taste.