Being Dead is an eclectic group from Austin, Texas, made up of Falcon Bitch (F) and Shmoofy (G), they have since developed to a trio when live and now include bassist Ricky Motto. They released their first album When Horses Would Run in 2023 and are now releasing their new brilliantly fun, but dark album, EELS on September 27.
EELS spans an incredible range of genres from ethereal harmonies to indie rock to punk. There is so much personality in this album with a few shorter interludes placed perfectly between big bursts of energy, reflective passages, and inflections of humour. There is significant experimentation between songs and is such an entertaining listen with the driving rhythms and changeable sonorities.
Paired with this album, Being Dead have released two music videos for their new songs ‘Van Goes’ and ‘Firefighters’ which are incredibly fun and have their own storylines attached to them. All seemingly filmed on a camcorder, the retro-style footage fits the grainy guitar riffs and powerful drums throughout the songs. To dive a little deeper, this band has a few live recordings of their performances that are brilliant to listen to. Therefore, if you are a fan of shoegaze, alternative, and surf-rock styles, this is definitely a band you want to keep on your radar.
To find out more about EELS, Aoife held an interview with them to get to know more about their thought processes when creating this record and their career journey over the past year.
M: The ‘Van Goes’ music video is seemingly both dark but it is also quite bizarre, it looked great to film! What was your favourite part of filming the video and how did the face paint idea come about?
F: I think we kind of got together and the idea was like ‘let’s make something in one day’...because we weren’t gonna have a music video at all, but we were like ‘let’s do like a ten hour film fest kinda...five hour film fest thing. Let’s get together and just see what ideas we have’. So it was Saturday morning and Nicole was at.a yard sale and found that baby and we knew that we wanted our friend to star in it. So I had some face paint and I think we were coming up with different face paint ideas and then put it on and all of it came together!”
M: Leading on from this, the concepts for your music videos are so unique, they seem to complement the song perfectly. What is the process for coming up with the ideas, and are they a part of the songwriting process?
G: No, no, they come afterwards, we just kinda throw them together. I think it’s funny that you said they compliment the music so well, because I don’t think any of the music videos have anything to do with them
F: We always try to incorporate some kind of theme from the song but then it doesn’t work or I feel like we’re trying to fit too many ideas. I guess that’s like the songwriting process itself, we’re trying to fit too many ideas into the video and then it becomes like this very confusing world pretty fast.
G: More often than not, we watch the music videos after and we’re like ‘well...(laughs) we try’
M: It seems like you’ve been on a roll with two albums released in just over a year, how did creating EELS compare with When Horses Would Run?
G: um...there’s a lot..
F: sarcastically: There’s a lot at stake...so there’s a whole nation that is counting on us. Well I don’t know if you were following the Olympics, but it’s kinda like that kinda level of pressure. You know the first record was pretty much- it kept getting pushed back because of the pandemic. So um, so this one we were just eager to get her going...
G: ...Get her done
F: because the last one came out and we were like ‘these are songs...they’re good- they’re fun songs’ but they’re not how we feel- they’re not what we’re excited about.
G: Yeah this is more of an accurate representation of where we’re at right now.
M: And you’re currently working on new stuff?
(Falcon nods)
G: Yeah, I think we’re always working on new stuff.
M: ‘Gazing At Footwear’ is such a gorgeous haunting soundscape which differs so much from the rest of the album. What was your thought process behind writing this song?
F: I think that it was born out of having some fun and experimenting, you know? And we were thinking, it felt very like some kind of ‘David Lynch’ style/scape. And it felt like a fun idea to flesh out for a small song. It was gonna just be an interlude but it became a song.
M: It seems like you take inspiration from many different genres, are there any artists in particular who helped to inspire the varied and colourful sounds of EELS?
F: That’s hard. I wouldn’t say that there’s any specific influences to any of the music that we write. Nothing that I personally can be like ‘Oh yeah like that’s what we were going for’ but we listen to a lot of music and we like a lot of music so it just naturally happens I guess. Especially after this album and I guess you can kinda tell it’s a little all over the place.
M: I have to ask, where did your stage names come from?
F: My stage name became my real name. So my name is Falcon now for real.
G: I think I was in the car with my girlfriend and I kept saying like, you know ‘I'm so smooth’ (laughs) at the end of the day I’m like ‘Goddammit now we gotta do this for a year’.
M: So you wouldn’t legally change your name too and go by that for real?
G: Oh, no.
F: We'll just keep going. Each album there will be someone new until he feels like it's the one.
M: Until one sticks?
F: I was kinda putting a lot of pressure on the first one because I knew I might wanna just start going by a new name.
M: ‘Falcon’s’ cool though, it’s actually on my baby names list
F: Hey! Thank you
M: That’s all my questions for you guys, is there anything you want added to the article?
F: Hm...
(They grab hands in the air) can you add that?
Absolutely.
