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Grab out those tarot cards, candles, and your loudest amps out, as QLD’s alternative rockers, In Eyes, have recently dropped their powerful, tough, dreamy fresh single, you guessed it ‘The Dreamer’. Lead singer Rosie Jacobson and drummer Kris Unwin had a chat with Jess from Moody Music all about their psychic fortune telling abilities… I mean the band’s new single and music video for their heaviest track to date, ‘The Dreamer’.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): WHAT IS THE ORIGIN STORY OF ‘IN EYES’, AND HOW DID YOU ALL MEET?
ROSIE: In Eyes started when my previous band broke up. Me and the bass player were like ‘we don’t wanna stop making music’, so we made In Eyes, just the two of us. Then we held an audition process, and we found Dylan playing guitar covers online, and we were like ‘okay this kid’s cool, let’s see if he’ll audition’, and he auditioned and got in immediately. So, he’s been with us since 2015. Then, I met Kris at uni, and he was like ‘I play the drums!’, and for a while I was like ‘okay, calm down’ haha, and then I heard him play the drums and was like ‘you need to be in my band immediately’, and then you are! That’s about how it happened right? Haha.
KRIS: Yeah, pretty much haha. We met at the start of our Bachelor’s Degree and it took a few months to get on well together haha. As soon as I got to play drums, Rosie was like ‘come and audition for the band’. It was pretty smooth sailing from there. I learnt the songs and got stuck in and yeah, the rest is history.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): Now you’re stuck with them haha.
ROSIE: Yeah, that’s it haha.
And we’ve had a couple of member changes throughout the years, just people coming in and leaving, then coming back in and leaving. But now it’s just the three of us, and the three of us work together so well, and I’m just like ‘this is nice, this is calm and how it’s supposed to be’.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): WHAT DOES THE NAME ‘IN EYES’ MEAN?
ROSIE: So, funny story! I could pull like a meaning from somewhere, cause I’m always pulling meanings from somewhere. I literally got it from one of my friend’s Mum’s from Highschool, he’s Mum was like the “Cool Mum”, she still is the cool Mum, she’s amazing. We used to go to her house all the time and hangout, party, and do whatever. She gave me this pair of jeans that were thrifted and was like ‘these don’t fit me, so here you have them’. They had like a metal tag that was sewn into the back of them, I don’t know where it came from, cause I don’t think it was the brand, it was just like roughly sewn onto the back of the jean and it said ‘In Eye’s on it, and I was like ‘that’s a cool band name’ haha. I still have the little plate tag thing, and I wanted to make a little Naruto headband out of it. Yeah, so the name came from Mum jeans haha.
I mean there’s the whole “eyes are the window to the soul” thing, like “you can always tell the truth about people from their eyes” and everything, but it’s really not that complicated, I just liked it on a pair of jeans! Haha
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): I love it! I love a simple band name, with a good story!
For ‘The Dreamer’ I’ve noticed that it’s the heaviest, biggest, loudest song you guys have done compared to ‘Time Won’t Wait’ (2019), and ‘Silver Lining’ (2018),
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT HOW THE IDEA FOR ‘THE DREAMER’ WAS CREATED, AND WHAT THE NEW SONG IS ABOUT?
ROSIE: Our previous bass player/ drummer, Daniel, wrote the instrumental for ‘The Dreamer’, and just sent it to the band chat like ‘Hey guys, what do you think of this?’, and I was like ‘This is amazing! Please don’t change it’, and then I sat down, wrote the top line at my boyfriend’s kitchen table in like an hour and a half. I always write lyrically about my own experiences, and then this song came through, like this song feels like it might be “the song” that pushes us forward a little bit. So I based it around my experiences of the last 10 years of playing in bands and trying to make a name for myself in the top of the heavy music industry and all that kind of stuff, so that’s what it’s about lyrically.
And then when, Me, Kris and Dylan came to recording it, we kind of fixed it up and polished it, changed some parts, added things in, took some stuff out, and it made it really cool.
KRIS: It’s pretty much that process, Daniel brought the song to us. Since then, I can’t remember how long ago that was when we first started playing it, but we’ve kind of done small changes here and there, and everyone has sort of added their own parts to it, to make it more of a complete product. I think it’s a really good song over all, I think the lyrical themes are quite relatable to everyone as well, which is really good. The fact that it’s getting a bit heavier and louder, is just the way that we are progressing as a band, which is a really cool direction for us to go in.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): WITH ALL THE PROMOTION YOU’RE DOING FOR ‘THE DREAMER’, I’VE NOTICED THAT IT HAS ALL OF THESE REALLY POWERFUL, DARK THEMES WITH THE TAROT CARDS, PSYCHIC READERS AND CANDLES.
WHY DID YOU GUYS DECIDE TO PROMOTE THE NEW SINGLE IN THAT WAY?
ROSIE: It’s so cool! I’m really happy about how it’s actually visually turning out. I had the idea in my brain, as soon as I wrote the song about being a “Dreamer” and always having these dreams and never giving up on them, despite what I had learned about the industry and experience and all that stuff, so I named it ‘The Dreamer’. Then I was like ‘The Dreamer’ sounds like ‘The Lovers’, ‘The Moon’, or ‘The Sun’, like it sounds like it could be its own tarot card, and then my brain just went ‘OH MY GOD! THE SYMBOLISM!’, and just came up with that whole idea that it’s like the tarot cards in most readings can represent like past, present and future, and that’s kind of what the whole song details. I had a friend, Erin, who stars in the video as our tarot reader, who’s really into all that stuff as well, so I was like ‘Oh My God you have to be in it, teach me more about it’, and then it’s all come to life and looks really cool!
KRIS: The themes kind of tie together really well, as soon as Rosie kind of put that idea to me at least, I was kind of like ‘yes it definitely works’. I think that the whole tarot theme is something that hasn’t been done specifically in a lot of music, or at least recently. It seemed pretty unique to me, which I think was pretty cool, at least from my knowledge it was pretty unique.
ROSIE: In fashion, tv and like Netflix, and social media, the idea of “cult” is becoming trendy, with shows such as ‘Sabrina’ and ‘Riverdale’, is making all of that kind of stuff socially prevalent. So, it’s kind of cool that this is coinciding with that, so hopefully that will do something to it haha
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): DO YOU CONSIDER ‘IN EYES’ TO BE DARK HORSES IN THE HEAVY MUSIC INDUSTRY AT THE MOMENT?
ROSIE: I guess? Haha. We properly started in 2015 and it’s been a slow climb. But now, we are working really hard to become prevalent, and I think that people will be surprised by us when they hear the new single. I think people won’t expect it to be what it is, so I’m keen for it.
KRIS: It’s obviously hard for us to judge ourselves as a band like dark horses or anything haha. But, I think Rosie’s right, that it’s definitely a step towards heavier sorts of music for us, so I think it will be surprising. A lot of people seem to think about In Eyes from before I had even joined, when it was a bit more… I would say pop-punk orientated. It’s progressed a lot since then.
ROSIE: The funny thing about that, was In Eyes was never technically pop-punk. We put out ‘Mercy’ and that was rock, but people saw me, who used to front a pop-punk band, and just went ‘oh this new band has to be pop-punk’. So, I think that’s what tied us more so to people thinking we are pop-punk, and then they listen to us and are like ‘oh this isn’t pop punk’, like ‘yeah!’. This new song definitely isn’t not pop-punk, hopefully that line will split now haha.
KRIS: I hope it will be a good turning point for us as a band, and moving into next year there will hopefully be a lot less going on in the world, so we can focus more and work more on music. I think that people will be excited to hear it.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): WHAT CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE ‘BEHIND THE SCENES’ TO ‘THE DREAMER’ MUSIC VIDEO?
ROSIE: It was stressful to put together! haha, but I’m so stoked with it, I’m so hyped about it. So, it’s like us playing, and then with the tarot reader, the stories kind of just intertwine, that way it’s dark, but it’s light, it’s spooky, but it’s beautiful, and powerful. It was shot and edited by our friend Zach Shane, he does all of our photos and stuff like that. Yeah, I bought a bunch of props, and I built that tarot table, and went ‘Dammit, this is my vision!’ and we made the vision come to life, so ‘go us’!
KRIS: Yeah, it was really cool! It was definitely stressful to organise it, like Rosie’s just said, but to actually see it all come together has been really cool. I think it’s definitely our best music video so far, we’ve only got a couple others to compare it to haha, but it’s definitely our best one so far.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): So, you guys had to make your own props for it? You got really into it!
ROSIE: Yeah so, I outsourced a bunch of stuff from everywhere. I went to Kmart and got a bunch of fake flowers, cause there was a specific look of flower I wanted, and then I had bought a pack of 100 tealight candles, and then I bought 16 regular pillar candles. I sat there with a lighter and burnt them down to make them look dripped, to make them look used. My boyfriend had the crystal ball just in his closet from like when he was a kid, and then there was crystals, and it was so much stuff. I had a bucket full of props, and rocked up at 8 o’clock at the video shoot like ‘I’m ready to go!’ it was hectic haha.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): EARLIER THIS YEAR YOU GUYS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO TOUR WITH THE BRAVE ON THE QLD LEG OF THEIR ‘THE BREAKOUT TOUR’ IN FEB, WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?
ROSIE: It was sick! Because I love The Brave, and to be on stage again was soo good. That was our last gig and would have been our first proper gig since 2017 or 2018, something like that. So it was good to get back on stage.
Unfortunately for The Brave, they had some technical difficulties in their set. One of the USB’s that helps run their show caught fire and then they couldn’t run their show, which was such as shame, and then the rest of the tour got cancelled cause of Covid, so I was like ‘oh no!’.
But, we had a great set! haha
KRIS: We felt really bad for them, cause they are really cool guys with really good music. It was really cool to even get that opportunity to do that one show with them, and I think it was a really good show at a cool venue too at Moe’s Desert Clubhouse, which I hadn’t been to before cause I think it was quite new at the time. It was a cool show for us, and it was shame that they had technical difficulties on their end, but it was also a really great opportunity.
ROSIE: It was really good for me personally, because some of the bands that were opening, Kings Of Heart and Wild Heart, played that show. I used to go see Kings Of Heart when I was like 15, and they were one of the bands that I was like ‘ahh I’m gonna be in heavy music, and I’m gonna play shows with Kings Of Heart’ and then I finally got to. And then, Axel, the lead singer from Wild Heart played bass in like my first ever band when I was 16. So, it was like all of this visual representation of my musical journey in the room, so that was crazy.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): IF YOU GUYS COULD TOUR WITH ANY BAND/ARTIST/MUSICIAN, WHO WOULD YOU TOUR WITH AND WHY?
ROSIE: Kris knows my answer!
KRIS: haha yeah I think we’ve got the answer. For our band Northlane is really the one we are leaning towards, they are a band that’s inspired us a lot.
ROSIE: Yes Northlane for sure! I will play just about anyone at this point, but a Northlane show would be a dream! A Hands Like Houses show would be dream! A Dreamstate show would be a dream haha! There’s so many, but like if I got a call right now and it was Northlane like ‘Hey do you wanna come hangout?’, I would throw my headphones off and leave this running and just go haha, like ‘Northlane put us on tour please!’ haha
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): IN EYES HAVE SAID THAT YOU HAVE “BIG PLANS FOR 2020, AND EVEN BIGGER FOR 2021”, SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE HINTING AT SOMETHING, ARE YOU ABLE TO TELL US ANY DETAILS ON WHAT YOU GUYS ARE PLOTTING FOR THE FUTURE?
ROSIE: Well, for the rest of this year, I think it will be writing a lot of music, because Kris is currently undergoing an incredible dissertation for an Honours Degree, and we are all very proud of him. So, we don’t have time to like completely delve into the studio and do all that. But, come November, we basically have 7 days a week to dedicate to doing In Eyes. I would like, personally, a bunch of new music out and tours and shows, that’s my dream just to play shows and put out music, so hopefully a lot more of that is in the cards.
KRIS: I think that playing shows is going to be the main thing. Like Rosie said, I’ve been super booked with doing uni as it’s such a big undertaking, so, I’m really itching to get back into it and keep writing and recording some more stuff. That’s sort of our main plan to write a bunch more new songs, record the best ones, and just play shows and get more involved and more present in the local scene as it starts to open back up with the Covid restrictions and stuff.
MOODY MUSIC (Jess): ARE THERE ANY FINAL WORDS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY ABOUT ‘THE DREAMER’, THE BAND, FUTURE PROJECTS OR ANY KEY MESSAGES YOU WANT TO GET OUT TO FANS?
ROSIE: Stream ‘The Dreamer’ where all good music is stream-able haha, buy it on iTunes haha. I just hope that everybody gets around it and you know we worked really, really hard on this, and have invested a lot of time, money and effort into it, there’s blood, sweat and tears gone into this release. I just really hope that it does for people what we want it to, and I hope that people love it as much as we love it, which is a lot!
KRIS: Yeah, I’m pretty much the same. I’m really excited for people to get to listen to it and just hope that they really enjoy it, and that they get that emotional response from it that we get from it, because we are so attached to it. I think people are going to really like it.
That was your personal tour guide to the behind the scenes of In Eyes and their NEW SINGLE 'THE DREAMER', hosted by Jess from Moody Music and featuring special guests lead singer Rosie and drummer boy Kris. Go check out In Eyes and their brand new tune and music video out right now!
IN EYES are
Rosie Jacobson (Vocals)
Dylan Quigg (Guitar)
Kris Unwin (Drums)
New Single
The Dreamer
In Eyes' socials:
Instagram @ineyesmusic
Facebook @InEyesMusicGC
#moodymusic #moodymusicblog #moodymusicblogau #music #blog #blogger #aussiemusic #newmusic #australianmusic #ineyes #thedreamer #qldmusic #alternativerock #altrock #altrockmusic #heavymusic #tarot FRI 11 SEPT 2020