EagleWolfSnake

EagleWolfSnake Zang!
Release Date: October 30, 2015

Some may flavor it as hipster rock, or something colored with a disco-rock beat, but none of that matters in the moment when the record is spinning and pumping out the songs of EagleWolfSnake, a super solid little trio whose debut EP, Zang!, deserves to be cranked up in your car or dance hall, upon its release.

Like the melodic jams of Franz Ferdinand, EagleWolfSnake's catchy hooks strike big points on the score boards for the listener's ears. Eight amazing tracks compose the album, most making one wish those kept running a lot longer than they do. The opening track, "Are You Alright?", is fantastic little composition that sucks you into the world of the album. With-in moments you start bobbing and singing along, setting an energy that continues to frolic through the album's core. Other highlight's include "Empty Weather", filled with an upbeat dance ability, essential to digging an album like this. "We are we are", a great track where despite the cynical lyrics is just too damn catchy to not crank up.

The other notable highlight includes closing track, "Whatever You Say", which also functions as the album's first single. A great way to close out the album, making you long for more, "Whatever You Say", contains those hooks you just sing along with, combined with mixing various tempos, reminiscent of the mentioned Franz Ferdinand, to create a memorable little ditty, deserving the single it serves as.

EagleWolfSnake is off the a great start here with a fun EP. Aside from having a bad ass cult-appeal name for their band, their music proves beyond reproach, calls to see them live and most importantly a curiosity to see where they go next.

Reviewed by: Drew 1340 - 1340Mag

Remember when videos used to be cool, and stuff was all messed up and kinda surreal and you were like, “What the F is going on? I love this!” Yeah, we do too. Which is why we’re stoked to premiere the new video for “Empty Weather” by San Francisco-based EagleWolfSnake. More info after the jump – and be sure to cop their new LP ZANG!, out 10/30/15.
About “Empty Weather”
“We recently had a friend who lost his mom to a long painful fight with cancer and it made us think about what he must be feeling and what will happen when we lose our mom’s and the relationships we currently have with them. The phrase Empty Weather we made up to identify the place or void that exists after death and before life. One of our members has a story from his mom that she made a deal with him on the astral plane and completely conspired to bring him into the world. One night when she knew the timing was right she seduced his dad and bam! one more baby. The lyrics in the song “rocky mountain album outcome” are a reference to her laying in bed listening to John Denver knowing that she had accomplished her goal of bringing another being into the world.”

About the video
“We wanted to make something that wasn’t really a story of the song but more in line with a representation of a live show and basically all about fun. We love the old Talking Heads videos and some of the trippier video’s from the 80’s and 90’s like The Flaming Lips “She Don’t Use Jelly”. We were also inspired by the photos from the Holi Festival in India where they gather in the thousands in the Spring and throw colored dye at each other. We liked it so much that we tried doing it live at the Bottlerock Festival in California, it looked awesome and was lots of fun…..but we did get in a bit of trouble with our stage crew (sorry guys we owe you one). Since we were the only ones getting dirty in the video we figured why not, we also might try it at a show again sometime we’ll just have to bring parkas for everyone :)” - Performer Magazine

Eagle Wolf Snake is one of the tightest, fullest sounding trios I’ve heard in quite awhile. Just listen to their debut EP for evidence: layered vocals that make choruses arena-ready, chiming guitar lines that effortlessly float through the driving beats, deceptively simple song structures featuring big melodic hooks and an explicit desire to get your feet moving. You can reference everyone from the Speaking In Tongues incarnation of the Talking Heads to any era of Franz Ferdinand (because, let’s face it, those guys never really did change up their sound, did they?), but for brevity’s sake, it’s better just to classify the band as danceable rock/pop ear candy. “Empty Weather” is especially catchy and so concisely constructed you’ll wish it was longer than just two-and-a-half minutes. - The Bay Bridged

EagleWolfSnake represents the latest creation from three multi-talented musicians whose purpose is to make you get off your ass and have fun. San Francisco’s Indie Pop Rock trio constructs driving beats accompanied by precision harmonies, sprinkled with funky guitar licks, leaving you no choice but to move your feet. Debuting as EagleWolfSnake, they’ve orchestrated a full-bodied sound that makes one wonder how there’s only three members in the band. At Bottom of the Hill, there was no lack of energy when they took the stage. Their stage presence demonstrated this integral brotherly chemistry, only accomplished by years of playing together. The catchy, upbeat melodies from songs like Whatever You Say keeps your body moving while chanting along to the anthem. Check out the music video below: - SF critic

EagleWolfSnake bring a pop edge to indie rock with their first single, ‘Whatever You Say’. It’s a dance number with high energy vocals, catchy guitar hooks and just full on fun – taking something familiar and making it their own.

“Our single was the first song that the band wrote when we began the initial jam sessions. The idea behind it was people who are blind followers, possibly following someone out of love but also out of infatuation. We saw a cult like scenario with members wearing bow ties and staring into the sun, hence the idea for the video which eventually led us to wearing the bow tie cult look on stage for every show.” – Songwriter Eli Meyskens, speaking about ‘Whatever You Say’
The first single off their upcoming album, ‘Zang!’, ‘Whatever You Say’ is a nice taster for an album which must be heard in its entirety to be fully appreciated.

“We want all of our music from here on out to speak to us and have a very strong vibe, if it doesn’t, it goes in the rubbish bin. We think this song has a very strong vibe and a feeling that we’ve really built upon and written most of the rest of the songs hoping that they would be as good as this one. I think the song and orchestration harkens back to a day when rock was more prevalent and not everything was sequenced with big electronic beats behind it (not that we mind those songs as we like all that big electro stuff too!) We’re all big fans of early Police and a lot of the shouty vocals, harmonies, song structure of this song was a kind of an homage to those guys and other great bands of that era like The Clash.” says the band of their upcoming album.
From San Francisco, EagleWolfSnake formed in March last year when their previous project, Music For Animals, came to an end. In fact, Eli Meyskens, Nick Bray and Ryan Malley had all been writing new songs on their own before the the official demise of the old band – and EagleWolfSnake was born.

As the band adds, “This project was born from the pure love of music. We have played together for years in previous bands, writing albums, touring the US and Europe. After having a brief brush with the major label record industry, we have seen that nothing is as important to us as the music. If we are not playing what comes natural and intuitively then we’re not making the right kind of music. This band wants to make music that makes us feel good and hopefully it will make others feel good too.”
EagleWolfSnake will release their debut album Zang! this October 2015. We got to chat to the band to find out whatever they say…

EP: It’s an interesting name for a band – what’s the story behind that? There are three of you – is one an Eagle, one a Wolf and one a Snake?

EWS: The name has a couple meanings but it mainly coming from one of our member’s nickname being Eagle, which naturally led to the wolf and the snake. We also were all in a band together before called Music For Animals so we thought it fitting that we would be some of the animals from that band. Everyone doesn’t necessarily identify with one animal or another, we kind of let the crowd take care of that because after the show they always have their own ideas about who’s who.

EP: Tell us about your musical influences.

EWS: The 3 of us have pretty different music tastes but we also like a lot of the same stuff. We’re all big fans of The Flaming Lips (old and new) Talking Heads, Built to Spill, The Police, Arcade Fire, Helio Sequence, Modest Mouse, The Kinks, The Clash all that great stuff. For this project we drew a lot from bands that were doing it with just 3 people and their instruments.

EP: Who have been your inspirations, both musically and in your life in general?

EWS: The two Daves: David Byrne and David Bowie are probably the top two that come to mind, Wayne Coin too. We love music and the art that goes along with it, we’ve long been fans of trying to make our shows as much as an experience as possible with projections, outfits, lights, confetti, holi powder, whatever we can get our hands on to get the vibe going.

EP: Top 3 songs/artists that you couldn’t live on a desert island without?

EWS: Unfair question but we’d probably have to take the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, which leaves an impossible spot to fill….at the moment probably Tame Impala.

EP: Do you have any advice for those just starting out in the music industry? What’s your take on the current state of the music industry?

EWS: The best advice we’ve ever got is to never stop making music. I used to think that just applied to age and as you get older never stop making music but through our brief experience with the industry types it also mean DON’T STOP PLAYING MUSIC! When we had our “shot” in earlier bands there are a lot of people around telling you what to do, what to wear, what to write songs about, etc…We learned as we went but now we know, fuck all that just make music. If you are writing and playing music that you like and you believe in then you are doing the right thing, keep doing that. This project is steeped in our history together and our philosophy is to do what we want to do, make the music we like, if people like it…..great!

EP: Talk us through ‘Whatever You Say’. Do you feel the music industry encourages blind followers (ie. it’s easier to have fans who don’t think than ones who question everything)?

EWS: That’s an interesting idea which you could apply to the song but we wrote it more abstractly. We like to make up stories in our music and in this one we used a Jim Jones type character with a love interest twist that inspires a blind following of those too obsessed to see straight. There’s a little nod to The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” too. To answer the last question, I think the current music industry is more about money than ever, because let’s be honest the commercial music industry has always been about money. Tom Petty had a great statement a couple years back about American Idol and how it was the death of a bunch of people just getting together in a garage and making music, which was in his opinion what it was all supposed to be about.

EP: What’s the best venue you’ve played at? Best festival?

EWS: The Great American Music Hall is definitely the prettiest but our old favourite Bottom of the Hill club in San Francisco definitely has the most vibe, we’ll be doing our album release show there. It’s one of the many venues in San Francisco that’s on the endangered species list with all the new condos going up for the Tech Community so it will be a really sad day if/when it ever closes. This band has only been together for 9 months so in that time the best festival we played was Bottlerock in Napa, Ca. We had long had the idea that if we ever got to play an outdoor festival then we would use the coloured Holi Powder from the Indian Holi Festival and cover ourselves in it at the end of our set. We did it and it looked spectacular but we did have some apologizing to do to our stage crew…..

EP: Do you feel it’s important for artists to retain creative control over their work?

EWS: ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY

EP: What will you be doing in a year’s time? 5 years?

EWS: Making music, hopefully sometimes in clubs in Europe…Denmark.

EP: What question do you wish someone would ask you in an interview but nobody ever does?

EWS: What’s our favourite movie? for some reason it’s never come up, I’d be curious to see if we could agree on anything, it’s kind of an unfair one like your earlier desert island scenario - EssentiallyPop.com