Newcastle alt-rockers Eat Your Heart Out have been diving into the depths of their souls to create meaningful music.
They have just released their new album Florescence, which certainly strikes the heart-strings as it’s a personal recount of vocalist Caitlin Henry’s experiences and encounters over the past year.
“Lyrically it [Florescence] is pretty much all based off all these things that I’ve experienced, people I’ve met and had interactions with or feelings I’ve felt in the last year or so,” Henry says. “It’s like an excerpt of my journal, it definitely feels very personal to me.
“It’s realising that accepting these kinds of things and dealing with them is part of being an adult and a real functioning human. This is the most personal I’ve ever got with our songs, which I think is cathartic to let those feelings out, but also scary to be a bit vulnerable.”
Henry’s compassion certainly radiates throughout her music: she mentions that her main reason for sharing her personal experiences is to help people.
“Even though it is personal, it’s better to share it because maybe it can help someone else going through that as well,” she says. “It’s nice to know that it could have that impact instead of just keeping it to yourself. That’s all you can really hope for, that people listen to it and can relate to it in some way.”
The developmental process behind Florescence proved to be more complex; Henry details how the band had written a lot of instrumentals, but they stalled the production process because they stressed themselves out.
“Once it was time to go into the studio, we had a lot of instrumentals but not much of the vocals were finished,” Henry says. “We ended up writing most of the vocals in the studio, which was a daunting task.
“But I think it actually ended up being for the best because it meant that everything I was writing about was very fresh and relevant. I think we definitely work best under pressure, when there’s like a really strict deadline, because we didn’t have the time to second guess ourselves.
“You just have to go with your gut feeling and trust that what you’ve done is it, it’s the best version of it. We never wanted it to be perfectly produced and sound very polished, so I guess we’ve tried to strike the balance between still commercial to a degree and accessible, but also still maintaining some of that rawness.”
Amongst all the tracks in Florescence, Henry’s current favourite is ‘Closer To The Sun’ – a really zestful live track that’s infectious and vibrant.
“It just has a really cool energy, I think it’s a very unique song and has this interesting vibe to it,” she says. “I’m very excited to see what people think of that song in particular.”
Henry is also excited to play more live shows, since she loves performing and establishing a solid connection with her audience.
“Playing a live show is a feeling like nothing else – just hearing people singing your songs back to you is probably the craziest feeling in the world,” she says. “I know it’s never failed to make me smile like crazy.
“It’s just the wildest feeling that people have taken the time to listen to your songs; that they relate to them enough to want to learn the words, and then come to a show and sing it back to you. That’s just insane to me.”
Eat Your Heart Out’s new album, Florescence, is out now via Fearless Records. Give it a spin via streaming services.
