Eliza Eden
Interview conducted August 17, 2022
By Dan Locke
On Eliza Edens’ sophomore album We’ll Become the Flowers, she seeks to understand what happens after the end. Whether grappling with heartache or a loved one’s mortality, the Brooklyn-based songwriter reimagines endings not as finite events but as devotional experiences that give way to new beginnings. Edens takes inspiration from folk luminaries such as Nick Drake, Karen Dalton and Elizabeth Cotten, sowing her compositions with introspection born from her own grief. What emerges is a glowing collection of songs that serve as a map through tumult, toward hope.
What was your upbring like?
My upbringing was very wholesome and rural. I played in the woods and brook behind my house with my older brother. We made up a lot of games. My mom forbade junk food, and I ate packed lunches in school and always had the weirdest food. I knew I had to live in a big city at some point to experience a different way of life.
How did you discover music?
I discovered music when my parents played me lullaby tapes as a child. I think that’s when I fell in love with beautiful melodies.
How did you start to write music?
I started writing music when I read Dr. Seuss’s “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish” as a child and then began singing it instead of reading it.
What was your first guitar? Do you still have it?
My first guitar was a Yamaha dreadnought steel string guitar. I do still have it. It’s well-loved.
What is your guitar of choice now? Year, make and model?
I’ve never been able to really choose my guitars much because of money, but I do love the parlor-sized Guild I’ve had for about 5 years that I got at a music shop in Boston. I’ve gotten some great songs out of it. I’d love to get a mahogany guitar at some point – they have a beautiful, mellow sound.
What was your first performance at like?
The performance that felt like my first true, official performance was in New York at the Bowery Electric in 2017. It was a 5 band bill, and I played solo. To be frank, it was not a great show.
Describe your music.
Tender, full of heart, searching, joyful.
Royalties never appear like magic. Royalties are only sent to you through work undertaken by a PRO to ensure that their members are getting paid. If you’re not yet signed up to a Performing Right Organization like ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, you may not be receiving all the royalties you deserve.
Do you belong to any to songwriters’ organizations like the International singer-songwriter association, SESAC, BMI or ASCAP ?
I belong to ASCAP.
What makes a good songwriter?
Attention to the flow of a song and the flow of a story. Attention to what’s at stake in the story. Why is what you’re singing about important? How are you carrying your attention and your listener’s attention from moment to moment? Attention to the balance between the words and the music and how they become fused into one with songs – becoming something greater than just a poem or just a piece of instrumental music. A good songwriter is someone who can capture a moment in time because that’s what music and stories are – an organization of time. A good songwriter is also someone who pays attention to their breath and how it becomes the song.
What was the title of your first original song? Did you record it?
“Out of Here.” I wrote it when I was 15 about wanting to move to New York City. I do have a lo-fi recording of it.
What is the process of writing your music?
Usually noodling around on the guitar and finding a melody that my body connects to and then singing gibberish around it until that turns into words and then building on that. Editing, refining, taking space, coming back. Cycling through all that until I feel it’s good enough. You can definitely overwork songs or lose perspective. It’s about balancing your need for control over the song with what the song innately wants to be.
Tell me about your single ” I Needed You”?
This is a mellow summer banger. It’s one of the first songs that I’m really proud to have released because it ends somewhere different than where it started. It’s a breakup song, but it’s fun and uptempo (ish). I initially wrote it as a sad waltz with a Townes Van Zandt style of phrasing, but we changed the time signature when we recorded it and gave it a groove and it made all the difference.
How did you find that cassette tape record you used in the video?
My friend bought it on eBay.
How was it to work with Matt Gaillet on the video?
I love him! He has so much positive energy and is such a go-getter and is one of the most creative people I know.
Tell me about the album “We’ll Become the Flowers” which is available on Oct 14th?
This album is a coalescence of a couple different griefs that I went through amid covid – the slow loss of a loved one and the end of a loving relationship. The idea of “becoming flowers” is, of course, the idea of the natural life cycle. When things die, something else is also born. I needed to tell myself that and to write these songs to persist through an incredibly difficult and tragic period of my life. So the album is quite sad, but it is also quite hopeful too. It chronicles the innate human desire to hold on tight to the things and people we love, and how hard it is to let go with an open heart. I hope any listeners can find their own stories in the songs.
Are you going to do another Record Release Live Stream Concert
Probably not. I hope live streams are over for good!
What are you’re feeling about streaming music?
Streaming music is wonderful because it makes so much beautiful music accessible to everyone at the drop of a hat. It also underpays artists and creates yet another corporate structure that de-values art. There’s of course much more to say on all of this but I’ll leave it at that and also point you to the Music Workers Alliance website: https://musicworkersalliance.org/. If I really want to support an artist, I go to their shows, I buy their albums and merch from them directly or via Bandcamp, and I tell my friends about them.
The symbol # is known as the number sign, hash, pound sign and a sharp sign in music. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes Since 2007, widespread usage of the symbol to introduce metadata tags on social media platforms has led to such tags being known as “hashtags”, and from that, the symbol itself is sometimes called a hashtag.
Are people forgetting that the # is a part of music?
I don’t think so.
Digital vs. vinyl?
Both! Vinyl if I’m in a mood where I hate the internet.
What song from the past is in your mind right now? Moreover, what is the meaning that song means to you?
This year I’ve been thinking a lot about the song “I Remember Everything” by John Prine. The song balances narrative and abstract songwriting in a striking way and also has a soaring melody that wraps around my heart and is irresistible. It leaves space for you to fill in the blanks with your own experiences and memories, almost like a Mad Lib. The best songs do that. They are individual yet shared, and I think that’s really powerful.
For me personally, this song makes me think of the moment I met someone I loved for a brief period of time.
If “Video Killed the Radio Star” do you think that the Covid-19 virus has killed live music? Do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
I think it’s having less of an impact now than it was two years ago, but yes, covid has irrevocably changed the music business and landscape.
Do you think that Covid-19 has been a plus to an artist career?
Yes and no. It killed live music for a year and half which was devastating to artists that made a living off of touring. Some artists stopped pursuing music because of it. It also led to a lot of introspection and people focusing on their craft for a period of time which led to deeper art and songs. Personally, I spent my lockdown time working on my guitar skills, and I’m a better musician for it. I also released my first album during April 2020 which was unfortunate, so you win some you lose some.
How do you stay healthy during the lockdown?
Go on walks and get out of your head.
Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?
Baking.
Live Nation Entertainment – the corporate parent of Ticketmaster and a dominant force in the entertainment industry was able to get many of the funds which were met for smaller Venuses. Because these venues were not able to get access to these funds. Many of them went out of business still protected.
Live Nation as a parent company did not directly receive any money from the program, but the government relief to its subsidiaries still protected its investments and improved its long-term outlook, however slightly. The earnings of its subsidiaries provide Live Nation with crucial cash flow and enable it to service its debt, it said in securities filings. The aid enabled the companies to pay staff and recover more quickly from the disruption, their executives said in interviews and emailed statements
In 2018 Live Nation purchased what it described at the time as a majority interest in Frank Productions, a Madison, Wis.-based concert venue promoter. Frank Productions’ operating company, Frank Productions Concerts LLC, received $10 million from the SBA grant program in July, the maximum amount possible. Both Frank Productions and Frank Productions Concerts are listed as Live Nation subsidiaries in the SEC filings.
Do you think it was fair for Live Nation to use their power within the lobbies of the congress to get money for their subsidiaries?
I don’t think I know about this enough to comment, and I’m not sure this is a relevant question for me, but I will say that I’m sure Live Nation received more money than they should have.
How can bands keep their fans if they cannot play live in front of the fans and sell merchandise to them at the show?
Live stream, I suppose. Luckily enough, it seems like shows are coming back for the most part.
Is pay to play still a thing? Now pay to play also means thinks like playlist on the internet and opening slots for a major band on tour.
I think it is, but I don’t think it’s a great strategy.
What about Holographic concerts in our living room?
I’m down.
In the past if a musician stop doing music they find a new career. For example David Lee Roth from Van Halen became a licensed EMT in NY for 6 years, San Spitz (guitarist for Anthrax) became a master watchmaker, Dee Snider (Twister Sister) voice over work for SpongeBob SquarePants.. If you can’t do music, what would you like to be doing?
Hiking the Appalachian trail.
What is your happy place?
My favorite swimming hole.
Did you hear back from tiny Desk Contest yet?
Yes – I did not win but a good friend of mine did who really deserved it and I cried because I was so happy for her.
Where was the desk?
The desk was a tiny desk on top of my amp in the video.
Red Hot Chili Peppers are about to sell their entire song catalog for $140 Million. In the past year a lot of musicians such as Stevie Nicks ($100 Million) , Bob Dylan (over $400 Million), Taylor Swift, Journey, Def Leppard, K.T. Tunstall, and Shakira have sold their catalog rights within the last year. Bob Dylan sold his entire catalog for a reported $300 million. Neil Young song 50 percent of his worldwide copyright and income interest in his 1,180-song catalogue to Hipnosis Songs Fund limited. Once you get to the age of about 70. Publishing is far more lucrative then the mechanical royalties paid to artist based on sales, airplay and streams. A good example of this is Michael Jackson brought the rights to the Beatles catalog in 1985. And in the late 80’s the Beatles Revolution appeared in a Nike commercial.
The lump sums being offered by publishing firms are more tax friendly concerning estate planning.
Do you think you would be willing to sale your back catalog if someone like Universal is will to buy everything, such as all the rights to all your songs?
Probably, if they give me enough money and don’t use it to sell ridiculous things.
What is your feeling about TikTok? With Sony Music and Warner Music strucking an “expanded” global licensing agreement with Universal Music Group. Now that TikTok is now fully licensed by all three major record companies, will you start using TikTok more?
I have mixed feelings about TikTok. It is a hilarious platform, and I do enjoy some of the videos I come across. People are wildly creative and it gives a great outlet for that. It also fragments peoples’ attention spans to a terrifying degree and is another symptom of an overstimulated world. I’ve come across songwriters that have garnered followings on there, and I find that it affects the songwriting in a way to make it more grabby or hook-y so that people will keep watching whatever video they stumbled upon. And the question to ask there I suppose is, does that still make a song good? Or does it cheapen it or make it more shallow? I don’t have an answer there but I think it’s something to chew on, for sure. I think it’s a great, and free, tool for getting yourself out there, and the algorithm is different as opposed to other social media, but it also comes with a toll that’s important to be mindful of. I will probably start using it more at some point but create some personal boundaries with it, like all social media.
Also, TikTok has launching TikTok Radio (ch. 4), a full-time SiriusXM music channel. The station will be available is vehicles and as a streaming channel on the SiriusXM App, desktop, and all connected devices.
The station will be part of a new TikTok collaboration with SiriusXM and its subsidiary, Pandora, to jointly promote emerging talent. Do you think this platform could became a force in the future of streaming music?
Quite possibly.
They say create content content content. How does pre-save help with content
Creating content and creating art are two different things. Pre-saving helps with making sure your art is in someone’s library the second it’s released. I honestly don’t know more than that. The industry is always changing.
Anything you would like to say in closing.
Nope. Thanks!
