Listening to Eaves can be an oddly contradictory experience. The songwriter has a habit of crafting soothing, oddly intoxicating melodies before delivering a lyrical sucker-punch.
Finding his own sound amidst a plethora of influences, Eaves – real name Joe Lyons – is able to deliver something special, something individual within a broad diaspora of genres.
Perhaps that's due to the way he learned his craft. Playing in bands as a teenager, the furtive adolescents simply couldn't work out what music they actually wanted to make.
“I'd be listening to a new artist and then that week I'd be writing more like them,” he laughs. “I went through cycles of folk and indie and then heavy rock. That kind of thing. For a good six years, seven years.”
Turning solo, Joe Lyons transformation as Eaves coincided with leaving behind his small town home to cross the Pennines and live in Leeds. Adrift in his early 20s, the songwriter began sketching out a map for his life with new material.
“I could write those songs then because I could reflect on where I'd been,” he explains. “When you're there you never see it, because it's too distorted and all up in your face. Then there's some kind of clarity so I could write about that then. They were just sort of waiting to be written.”
Recording his debut EP with a number of different producers, Eaves seemed to be gradually following a singular path. Finding a like mind in the form of Cam Blackwood, the two set about constructing the singer's debut album.
“We had a similar vision of where we want to be musically, both of us. Our tastes, as well,” he says. “He really dug in and tried to find out what kind of sound I wanted, and what kind of person I was, to try and get the best record out of me.”
Out shortly, full length debut 'What Green Feels Like' is certainly an imposing debut. Containing nine tracks, Eaves manages to be both ambitiously broad and effortlessly composed, it's youthful intensity arising from a new to step back from certain emotional issues.
“It's important to get space from these things,” he states. “Any kind of turmoil, or even happiness… to distance yourself from it. You can see it on the album, it's bare bones and I think I'll progress and get better at expressing any emotion.”
Words: Robin Murray
What: Intensely youthful, intensely emotional songwriting
Three Songs: 'Pylons', 'As Old As The Grave', 'Timber'
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