Eilera has a metal music background. She has been among the French pioneer composers to bring elements of Pop music, electronic and Celtic folk music inside the Heavy-Rock genre.
Today, she releases a new single and a music video Sea Widow which are part of her upcoming album Waves, a peculiar sonic experience in her discography, to be released on March 6th 2020.
Dan Locke: Eilera, you are a musician, songwriter, guitarist, and music producer. What comes first?
Eilera: Songwriter and producer come first and together, for when I imagine a song, it usually comes already produced in my head. Then comes the singer and finally the guitarist. I actually took a good six years away from the guitar, following a hand injury. It coincided with a time when I had lost interest in the guitar and wished to focus solely on songwriting and singing. My interest for the guitar has been coming back gradually since my previous record Face Your Demons and finally with my latest Waves, whose demos originated from me playing the songs on a (terrible) folk guitar, before I sent them to the other musicians.
You begin playing classical guitar at twelve. Who were some of the classical guitarists you learn to play in your early years?
I remember practicing Jeux Interdits, from the film that carries the same name and played by Narciso Yepes. I remember also practicing pieces of Leo Brouwer and at the end of my second year in music school, at the final presentation, I played Yesterday, by the Beatles. I remember playing Menuets and Hispanic tunes, when really, in my heart, I was secretly longing for playing a Fender guitar and the tunes of Mark Knopfler. I was a big Dire Straits fan back then.
What was the make and model of that first guitar you started to learn and do you still have it?
I still have it, yes. It is at my parents’ house. It was a Diapason guitar with nylon strings. I got it as a Christmas present from my uncle, the other guitarist of the family. It was not the red Fender of my dreams – like Mark Knopfler’s 🙂 – but it was my first guitar and I loved it. I had lots of good – and also painful times on that guitar… One day, as I told my teacher of my intention to move to the electric guitar, he predicted for me that I would come back to the classical guitar when I’m older… This has not happened yet, but maybe it will.
What made you move over to metal music?
The album No Prayer for the Dying, by Iron Maiden, which I picked out of my English cousin’s huge CD collection when I was fifteen years old. It paved my way to metal music. Later on, when I was seventeen and dating the drummer of the only Metal band in my town :), he and his band members introduced me to extreme metal bands. They sounded odd to me at first. I was not thunderstruck by extreme metal music, yet it slowly grew on me and after a few months I had become hooked on Chuck Schuldiner’s work with his Floridian band Death, on English Carcass’ most melodic work and a bit later on melodic Black Metal with nordic bands like Dissection, Dimmu Borgir and Emperor. After a few more years I discovered more of the melodic Scandinavian metal scene and I really loved the first albums of Swedish band In Flames. Only later I discovered the Finnish scene, shortly before I got signed to a Finnish record label.
You were a pioneer in French metallic music scene with your band Chrysalis. How did people take you as one of the first female metal players?
As a pioneer of the metal scene in France, I got lots of rejection and misunderstandings. Lots of people in France saw us as marginals – that was true – and as losers – this was not. My own parents for long did not really want to know about my musical activities, as I think they were embarrassed by them and indeed, the fact that I was a girl, in a world that was almost absolutely masculine, made it all look even worse, in the eyes of conservative people at least… Metalheads were considered more or less like jokes in France. There was no music school for people like us, there was no legitimacy, there were very seldom concert venues that would let us play. Among the musicians in south of France where I started to play, first in Ales, then in Nimes and finally in Montpellier, some of the musicians made fun of me for even wanting to have a band, others were more open-minded about it and mostly intrigued.. or turned on. 😀
What were some of the bands you have opened up for or have opened up for you over the years?
Skyclad, Kalisia, Twilight Guardians, Furia in the past; mostly local bands.
How has your music changed over the years?
A huge change happened as I moved from being a guitarist and composer in Chrysalis to becoming a singer and songwriter as Eilera. The first demo-album Facettes was not a metal album. It certainly had its cutting edge but it was made as a Celtic and electronic Pop-Rock album. I was listening to other genres and to outstanding artists like Tori Amos, Björk, P J Harvey, Massive Attack, Irish Folk music and all of those other influences came to enrich the music I made, together with guitarist Loïc Tézénas. In those times I actually found more enjoyment in recording this music as in recording metal music. I started to get very interested in creating shorter songs that say it all with less. I found more freedom in this new direction and working only with one musician, with whom I had a fantastic connection and who liked the same things as I did, felt as if there was no more limit to what I could do.
How has your recording techniques changed over the years?
We had started using home-studios early on with Loïc and recording on some of the first software, like Cakewalk. Then we grew with Logic Audio and finally with Pro Tools. A major change happened during the years when I was signed by Spinefarm Records. Then I got to experiencing recording in big studios, together with session musicians and a professional producer. I learned a lot. After I became an independent artist again I learned to combine both of my home studio and professional studio experiences together. Then my experience widened further when we recorded my previous record Face Your Demons live in the studio. This was really a big challenge, as we recorded altogether with the band and only recorded a few tracks separately. There was no space nor time for mistakes… My latest album Waves was recorded in both professional and home-studios. I had to learn how to record my vocals with an inflammation in my throat and way too much dust around me, as we worked in a factory’s basement.
In your spare time, you teach the French Language and culture to adults. Why not music?
Teaching French language and culture brings more to me as a person and as a songwriter than teaching music. Since I have been living in Helsinki -Finland, for many years, it feels good to me to stay close to my mother tongue by studying it and by teaching it. I also stay closer with my birth country when I study its history further or learn about its monuments, so that I can teach others about them. Besides, the Finnish adults I teach to in my courses are interesting people who have a lot of stories to tell and it feels refreshing for me to hear stories of people who belong to a different world than the musical one.
You just release the video for Sea Widow. Can you tell me the story behind it?
Sea Widow was inspired to me by a book called Wives of the Fishermen, by Angela Huth. I read it during the time when I was composing my album Waves, which is itself inspired by stories of the Ocean and of all that constitutes waves, physical and emotional.. I loved the heroine in the novel and I decided to write a song inspired by her.
Sea Widow is the most dramatic song of the album. It is the story of this woman, the wife of the captain of a fishing boat, in a village of Scotland. In the song, we meet her on the same day that she receives the news of the death of her husband.
In the opening lines of the song, she is standing in her kitchen, staring at the sea. She wants to believe that her husband is coming back. Yet her heart is telling her another truth that she is not yet ready to hear.. Will she sink under a heavy wave of despair, down to the bottom, or will she defy the Sea?
Sea Widow is a song about staying strong and dignified in times of personal loss and adversity.
Why did you pick Luc Chavarro to direct the video? This is the same person who did the Amazing 5 months traveling around South and North Island of New Zealand. The videos are shot with a @Lumix GX80 a GoPro and an Iphone6. The last part is happening in Sydney, Australia?
I met Luc from mutual acquaintances. It was a coincidence really, that I met this French man in Finland, where I live. It was another coincidence that he happened to enjoy filming and was – still is, in the process of building his video company, with a special interest in music video making. I checked a commercial video he sent to me and even though he had no music video to show me, I could feel his potential and I knew we could do good work together.. So we jumped 🙂
Any plans for any live shows next year?
Yes! I can announce in February next year who the live band is going to be. I am excited to start our rehearsals next February, as I think this band will be pretty phenomenal 🙂 If everything goes as planned, we will play the first shows in the Helsinki area in May 2020.
How do you see yourself in 5 years?
I am pretty certain there will be another album released in five years. I think I will have played a lot more concerts by then, as I intend on making it a priority. One can never know what is awaiting us but there would have to be a very big tragedy in my life for me not to be making music anymore.
Anything you like to close with?
Thank you for this interview. Even though we are separated by an Ocean I am glad that we could exchange those words. I would love to come and tour in the USA. May this happen someday. In the meantime, I am sending you all the good music and vibrations I can, from France and from Finland
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