Now And Then is out now!
Image: Luke Henery.
Australian indie-rockers Eliza & The Delusionals have delivered their debut album, Now And Then. To celebrate the release, front woman Eliza Klatt has shared with MILKY five key factors that went into creating the record, as well as what the future holds for the band.
“I think this album was the best thing to come out of the pandemic for us. We had just dealt with a huge loss of all of our touring in America, and when we got back to Australia we both were feeling quite lost and sad. We took the opportunity to build a studio at home and bunker down and turn all of the feelings that we had been experiencing for the past two years into songs. It was a really nice way to cope with what we were going through, and also to deal with emotions and experiences that had happened in the past few years of our lives" Klatt shares.
Band member Kurt Skuse adds, “This album really helped me get through a tough time in my life and I’m really glad I got to do it with Eliza. Between not being able to tour and also having to come back to Australia, this album and the whole process seemed like the only thing that mattered to us at the time. Even though it was an extremely hard place to live in, I’m happy to have gone through it and I hope people can hear even a little bit of what we tried to capture."
COLLABORATIONS
We were lucky enough to work with Sarah Aarons and John Hill for two days whilst we were in LA. I think it just was perfect timing that we were all in the same place at the same time and keen to write something together.
It was actually one of our first collaborative writing sessions with writers outside of the band, so it was a really special experience. We had a similar situation with Keith Harris when we wrote Save Me, it was so cool to work with other artists who come from different genres and styles of music and it definitely opened us up a bit more as songwriters and made us more excited for collaborating with other writers in the future.
We also have been lucky enough to work with our producer Kon Kersting for most of our releases, including A State Of Living In An Objective Reality, so it just felt right for us to record our debut album with him. We feel like Kon has always really understood our musical vision and helped us bring the best out of our songs every time, especially on the record.
SONGWRITING TAKEAWAYS
I think for me personally, it was opening up to collaboration and learning how to work with others when writing music. For the early parts of Eliza & the Delusionals, I was doing all of the songwriting on my own, so I was very used to being in control of the sound and being satisfied with what I was creating myself.
When Kurt joined the band, I had always admired him as a songwriter and it was a perfect opportunity for us to write together for the new era of the band. It definitely took me a little bit to be a bit more open to ideas and be comfortable sharing my fresh thoughts with someone after being so used to just writing them down and working on them myself. But I’m really grateful I pushed through and opened myself up to co-writing more, I feel like it was an essential step for me personally as a songwriter, and I think Kurt and I work so well together and create really cool music as a songwriting duo.
FLASHES OF BRILLIANCE
I think with this record it was really interesting, because we wrote the vast majority of it whilst we were in lockdowns and whatnot, so we didn’t really have a lot of ‘change of scenery’ when writing it besides the few songs we wrote whilst we were in LA about a week before the pandemic took over. So it was pretty much written from our couch in our home studio.
I think there definitely were songs that made me feel a lot more than others, a few in particular are Save Me and Halloween. They’re definitely my two favorite songs from the record, and when we were writing them and demoing them and taking shape I could really feel that they were special and that they were going to be stand out tracks. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I think it captures our songwriting and performance at its best, and I just have this really strong gut feeling about my love for them when I listen back to those tracks in particular.
MUSICALITY AND PRODUCTION
I think the stand out difference for this record was that Kurt and I wrote it together predominantly, which was a much different process to how our previous EP’s and singles were written. Kurt plays guitar so differently to the way I do and creates chords and ideas that I wouldn’t have even thought of, so that inherently changed the vibe of our overall sound. I was super excited about it, because I remember feeling very limited and boxed in with my guitar playing and creativity, and Kurt creating new chords in different tunings outside of E standard was super refreshing. I think we also explored a lot of things outside of our usual comfort zone when it came to the production of the record, which I think we really needed to do to grow and keep things exciting for ourselves.
PRIDE AND REFLECTION
There are definitely times I wish that we had had the opportunity to continue touring in the USA in 2020 and work on the album on the road, but I really think that the situation had a big influence on the way we formed the sound of the album and our influences - musically and environmentally. We had worked so incredibly hard on the songs for the better part of two years, so as much as I’d like to go back and try things and work on things more sometimes, I think it was good that we had a bit of a recording timeframe to get it finished. Otherwise we would probably still be working on it and adjusting things now!
CREATIVE HIGHLIGHTS AND INSPIRATIONS FOR THE NEXT PROJECT…
This is always an interesting question, because I really do think that creative projects and musical projects are really never finished, you just have to realise when it’s time to abandon them and let them be what they are - in a really good way. It’s so easy to overthink things, especially when you have the ability to adjust things at your home studio instead of just leaving everything at the door when your studio time is done. I think there’s a lot of things I would love to change and continue working on, but I think it comes time for every project to be left how it is and for you to move on to the next thing. In saying that, I love how Now And Then turned out and I’m really proud of what we have created. I think moving forward and listening back to the record, there are definitely some moments and some songs where I believe our songwriting really shines brightly and those are probably some moments we’ll continue to develop and work on for the next album we write.
Now And Then is out now!
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