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Finding Your Way With RACHEL TRAINOR From NIGHTEYES · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hi, I'm night Eyes. I am releasing my debut album, The Way
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  Back Down on November tenth. It's a sort of journey through a bunch of
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  different kind of emotions and moods, and I really hope you like it yet.
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  All right, thanks for joining us today, Thank you, thanks for
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  having me pleasure. So, as you say, you were releasing your debut
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  album, The Way Back Down this Friday, November the tenth, So how
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  you feeling. You're nervous, excited all of the aboves. Yeah, I'm
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  really excited. I'm also pretty pretty nervous. I think it's my first release
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  with the solo records of solo projects, so I'm sort of doing everything kind
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  of myself. Is a learning curve, but yeah, yeah, I'm really
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  looking forward to having this album out. I've been recording it and working on
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  it for two years, so yeah, it's going to be nice to have
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  it all done. OK. So tell us a bit more about the album
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  from a musical point of view and what you're on for with it. So
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  it's kind of got a bunch of different sounds on it. I'm really inspired
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  by artists like Chelsea Wolf and Emma Ruth Rundle. Dark Hair is another really
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  good one. I really love her stuff. So I really adore the way
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  that some of those artists sort of mixed genres a little bit. So there's
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  some electronics sort of vibes in there, there's some heavy doom kind of elements.
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  We've got a little bit of post rock kind of sounds in there as
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  well. I've kind of yeah made it so so all of my kind of
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  influences have come together. And yeah, there's a bit of dark folk in
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  there as well. So kind of got things for everyone if you like dark
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  music. You mentioned this before, but I think it's important to stress that
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  you are actually a solo project with yourself running the whole show. So tell
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  us a bit more about light Eyes. Yeah, so night Eyes has been
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  a thing for the last two years officially, but it's been something I've wanted
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  to do for a very long time. It was always something I was sort
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  of saying to myself one day, one day, I'll get these songs down.
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  One day I'll do that, and then I think just it just sort
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  of the timing was right, and I started to have I had all these
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  songs kind of already written. Some of them I wrote ten years ago.
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  And so I started demoing them myself and sort of had the had the help
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  of my partner who's my producer, Drew, and yet kind of came from
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  that and has sort of grown. Now I've got a band together, which
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  is really really exciting. That was another big dream of mine to play these
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  songs live with a band, and I've sort of started just I started just
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  playing live shows just solo around about this time last year, and then,
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  yeah, it's sort of come that far. And one of the cool things
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  and maybe sort of a little bit more stressful things about being a solo It's
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  like, I, you know, you're paying for everything yourself if you don't
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  have funding. So I decided to play everything on the album myself. So
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  I'm a drummer as well as a singer and a guitarist, and I can
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  kind of play the bass okay too, So I decided I was going to
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  track everything myself, which I feel like it kind of you know, it
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  does feel good to say that I've done that when you know when it's done.
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  But at the time, I was like, oh my god, there's
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  so much to do. This is your debut album as a solo artist,
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  So what sorts of things do you focus on or pay extra attention to going
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  into your first album. I think I was really really keen to get the
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  sound that I wanted, so we really spent a lot of time just working
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  on sounds, making sure the vibe was there, making sure the songs were
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  as good as they could be. I think, because it's my first record,
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  I've put so much effort into it, and I'm not saying I'm not
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  going to do that for the next one, but you know, you really
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  want it to just be as good as it can be, So, you
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  know, I feel like I could have probably, you know, there could
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  have been there were times when I was like, let's just do it now,
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  let's put it out now. But luckily, you know, I thought
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  about it, and my producer Drew thought about it too, and and we
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  sort of said, no, if we're going to do it, we may
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  as well do it properly. And there's no rush to release. It's not
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  like I'm you know, yeah, there wasn't any any sort of pressure from
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  anyone to be putting it out, so that was really nice. So yeah,
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  just focusing on making sure that it just is exactly what I want it
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  to be, and I'm really happy that we've got that. I think it's
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  the first time in any release that I've done with other projects in this one
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  that I'm really really happy with everything. So that feels really good. You
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  released as singles Plenty, low Lighted, the Weight, So say someone's just
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  so those songs going into the album, Like, would you say they're a
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  good son of representation of what to expect? Yeah, I think they are
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  because all three of them kind of have, like low Lights kind of got
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  a bit more of an electronic are kind of feel to it, and then
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  in the way it is a very sort of stripped back, dark, kind
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  of folky song, whereas Plenty kind of starts with some of those elements and
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  then at the end it kind of gets into this big, heavy, sort
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  of doomy section. So I think it does really that those three songs do
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  kind of represent the album in a really good way. And it's actually funny
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  because I didn't super plan it that way with the singles. I just I
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  just sort of was like this one and the net one. I didn't think,
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  Hey, these are all great examples of the sound. I just that
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  was kind of how I you know, that was the songs I was gravitating
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  to at the time of release. So and I noticed that there's no actual
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  song on the album called the Way Back Down, which means it's got to
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  have a greater meaning. Yeah, So the Way Back Down is a line
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  from the chorus in the last song Spiral, and that was actually the working
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  title of that song. So the line is caught in the Way Back Down,
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  and that song is sort of about being stuck in kind of a crappy
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  kind of hit space or and you know, I think I kind of I
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  wrote it, you know, in the middle of lockdown in Melbourne, and
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  it's sort of I had this idea in my head of like this kind of
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  spiral going sort of down but then kind of going back up again. You
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  know. It's sort of like how how emotions can kind of take you on
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  these whirlwinds and yeah, and then caught in the way back down, it's
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  kind of like, oh, here we go again. You know, this
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  emotion is kind of coming back down but then and so the album is a
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  little bit like that. I've kind of trying to make it in a way
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  that it's almost cyclical the way that it kind of works. And yeah,
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  so when I decided that album name. I was really happy with it.
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  I was like, yes, that's exactly it. I didn't even have to
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  think of any other options, So I'm pretty happy with that one. The
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  Persson release says that it is a deeply personal story that guide's are listener through
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  a journey of darkness to light, Like, can you elaborate on that?
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  Yeah, So some of the songs are pretty personal. Some of them are
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  a little bit more abstract, like, for instance, down by the Sea,
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  which is the open and that's definitely more of a sort of me imagining
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  a story that hasn't really been a part of my life, whereas songs like
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  My Only One are very sort of my own experience of mental sort of illness,
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  I guess, like anxiety and that kind of thing. So that's pretty
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  personal and sort of moving through other experiences I've had. I know that.
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  Yeah, in the way can plenty of definitely sort of inspired by the kind
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  of climate crisis that we have, which is it felt like a very pressing
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  topic for me for a long time without much movement in the way that things
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  are going, So I think that's kind of part of it too. And
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  then yeah, and then Spiral, Yeah, Spiral is a very personal song
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  for me, just you know, the way that it was written was very
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  much in that Lockdown vibe. I'm sure a lot of people can can relate
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  to that. And but then at the end, you know, because I
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  didn't want I didn't want the song to end in a you know, sad
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  sack kind of way, which my only one I guess kind of does that,
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  but spiral. I wanted it to kind of be uplifting. So there's
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  this really you know, uplifting part of the end of the song. It
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  kind of goes back to a diatonic kind of chord progression with these sort of
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  soaring kind of melodies, and yeah, it kind of relates back to this
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  night that I had in Lockdown where I was, Yeah, I was just
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  in this space where I was feeling really terrible and then sort of going through
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  all these thought loops and stuff like that. And then at the end of
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  the night I went outside and there was this really amazing sunrise, which just
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  felt really kind of transformative in a way. It's like, you know,
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  here we are stuck in this horrible situation, and yet nature is still doing
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  these amazing things around us. Kind of got me out of that, and
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  the funniest thing is that I actually wrote Spiral like two weeks before that actually
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  happened, So that felt really Yeah, that felt really special. And yeah,
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  so that's kind of the story of the album. I guess I didn't
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  really plan it that way. When you know, all these songs have been
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  written in so many different times down by the Sea, I started writing in
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  twenty ten, so but yeah, they just still have come together in a
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  really amazing way, so it's pretty special. You've also got a bit of
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  a background in the circus and cabaret, so tell us a bit about that.
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  Yeah. So so I've been doing a bit of touring with some professional
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  circus shows, so we'd go to places like Adelaide, Fringe Ed and Purffringe.
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  And it's actually really special with one of the shows because that's kind of
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  how I started doing the night Eyes stuff. Because the show. The show
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  is called The Defiant and it's I think there's eight a fab performers, so
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  all acrobatics, you know, jugglers, hula hoops, all that kind of
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  stuff, the classic kind of circus vibe, and then me playing the music.
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  So I play drums, guitar, and I sing or with kind of
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  backing tracks to back me up. And when we were doing the development for
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  the show, the producer asked me if if if I had any original songs.
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  So so I hadn't even really demoed these ones yet, but I sent
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  her what I had of low Light, in the Wake and Spiral, and
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  she really loved those three, so we put those in the show and I
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  suddenly had to start recording them because I needed something to play along too,
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  and that kind of actually got me thinking, oh, wow, I should
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  really start this project. This is the perfect time to actually start doing this
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  properly. So that's great, and so that's why. Yeah, low Light
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  came out during Adelaide Fringe last year, and the Wake was the same time
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  this year for the Adelaide French season. And yeah, it's been a wonderful
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  time to be performing on stage doing music but having this amazing visual like you've
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  got aerialists, like it's just wild what these people can do, and to
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  be part of that is really special. Yeah, so it's been really fun.
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  Not only do you actually drop the album on November the chance, but
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  you've also got an album wat whole Lot of Love, So tell us about
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  that. Yeah, So I'm really excited to have that gig happen this Friday.
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  We're going to be playing the full album with the band, and Ocean
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  Lord are the main support. So Ocean Lord of this amazing sort of stone
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  of doing band from Melbourne. They've got some incredible music, and we've also
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  got Maggie Rachel Lockhart opening up, who's a solo artist and she plays just
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  the most beautiful music that I think I've ever heard. So I'm really excited.
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  It's going to be a really special night and I'm hoping we get some
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  good crowds in and I'm going to have my I've got some t shirts to
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  sell and some merchant and stuff, which I'm super excited about too, So
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  it's going to be really special. Thanks very much for your time though Rachel
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  has been a pleasure. The album, The Way Back Down is out in
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  November ten, with album launch on the same night that whole Lord love us,
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  best of luck with it all. Thank you so much. Thank you.