Track By Track: Eisley's "Deep Space" EP

EISLEY take us track by track through their new EP for Equal Vision, Deep Space:

“Lights Out”
Sherri DuPree-Bemis: With the way the economy is these days, my parents were some of those people that were looking at possibly, quite seriously losing their house. This song is just about dealing with that as a family. It's the house that we moved into when I was 15 so that was 13 years of memories at that point, and it's a really special place for all of us. It was just an emotional ordeal we all went through together. Even though we're all married and moved out, watching them deal with the pain of possibly losing something that  special to all of us was really hard. But it also got me thinking about how, bottom line is, yes, it's a huge thing to lose, but at least it's just that, a “thing,” not a person and it really doesn't matter where you physically live, as long as you have your friends and family around you all of the time…and it turns out they got to keep the house so it had a happy ending.

“Laugh It Off”
Stacy DuPree: I suppose the sentiment behind this song is deeply relational and most likely inspired by my marriage, but overall, it's a song about the power of hope and how critical it can be in a relationship when things get tough or life just looks really bad, and how beautiful it is when one person helps to pull the other along. The feel of it is dancey and I like that because it mimics the fact that life is just that! A very delicate, sometimes scary but mostly fun dance. Our younger sister Christie sings backup vocals on this one and I was so delighted. She poured her heart out as if it were her own song and it made it that much sweeter and meaningful.

“Deep Space”
Sherri: If you ever had required reading in high school, you probably have read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. He is one of my favorite writers of all time and consistently inspires me. His collection of short stories The Illustrated Man holds a story called The Rocket Man about an astronaut, and it's really moving. Outer space has always fascinated me and I wrote this about a couple leaving Earth to live life in space, knowing they may never see Earth again. I wanted it to build musically so that you're very focused on the story and by the time it gets to the bridge, it literally feels like you're right there with them, feeling that mixture of excitement and sadness as you soar out of the atmosphere. 

“192 Days”
Sherri: I was raised on (and absolutely love) old films and music, so I wanted this song to sound like it could be taken out of a 1930s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie (think Swing Time). Those are some of the best romantic comedies ever made! It's funny that this song pays tribute to vintage film and music, when I met my husband through the internet…technically through emails, (he is in a band, Say Anything, and had asked me to sing on a project he was working on with Chris Conley from Saves the Day called Two Tongues). Even though it was literally a “love at first email” kind of thing (I know…that sounds so silly, but it's the truth), we sort of “email-courted” for about five months before we finally decided to meet in person since we had both recently come out of rough relationships, but this is a song I wrote, literally, 192 days into our courtship….yes, I counted.

“One Last Song”
Sherri: I was thinking one day about songwriting and how a song is something you leave behind forever, like a story in a book, hopefully for generations if you're lucky. And I was mulling over, if I were only able to write one more song in my life, what would I want it to be about? Since I'm hopelessly romantic, I realized quickly that it would have to be for the person I care about most on Earth and that is my husband…so this is a love song. We had never recorded or written a song that had a blatant tempo change in it and I had one in mind for the end of this song, so it was really fun tackling that in the studio and making it work. alt