Interview: Big Eyes’ Fight To Keep A Dream Alive

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Interview with vocalist Kait Eldridge

“When I got back to New York I had to start over from scratch,” Kait Eldridge, the brainchild of Big Eyes, comments. Their newest full length, Stake My Claim, found Eldridge having to regain control of her project and reel it back in under control. “It was starting to go in a direction where and I didn’t really like it,” Eldridge reflects, continuing, “I’m really happy with how it is now. It is 100% of what I have been wanting instead of having a battle with other people in the band for control or whatever.”

With that in mind, Eldridge found a new team that added to Big Eyes rather than detracted from it, creating a record that combines all of their influences. Every song is an anthemic joy ride, packed with garage rock, punk vibes and a pop edge to them. “I feel my songs have been getting shorter through the years. I will write a part that isn’t flowing as well and it’s like ‘screw it the song can be two minutes.’ The more I am doing Big Eyes, the more concise it is getting,” Eldridge says in regards to the writing process This awareness breathes across Stake my Claim in a quick 23 minutes.

Big Eyes used to call Seattle its home, but now Eldridge found solace back home in New York. “It was definitely daunting, I was like ’oh shit this could take a long time.’ I had been at this level for awhile and had to go back down a steps to teach new people the songs. We kept at it and things are better than ever now,” the singer comments. Moving back home can be a weird transition, highlighted across a few songs on the record. “Leave This Town” is the mindset that things are not going right; time to pack back up and move onward.

At the same time, Eldridge wrote “When You Were 25” in relation to all the old friends that still reside in New York, finding them not the same as before. “I got to watch my friends from into their 20s into their 30s… Moving back to New York I noticed a lot of my friends there were no longer playing in bands or lost interest in a lot of things. I’m trying to keep the spark alive in me,’ Eldridge reflects. That’s where the urgency on Stake My Claim resides, in Eldridge’s fight to keep her dream alive.

Purchase Stake My Claim here