Imaginary Apocalypses for Private Audiences

So Tuesday night I talked with Don Bailey, of the band Eyes Like Headlights (warning, link imediately starts playing loud music). He brought up the fact that they’d been

playing a lot of private shows, and I was curious about the difference between public and private performances, and the difference between a public and a private performance

space. As a regional act, Eyes Like Headlights has played with nationally touring acts, up-coming high school performers, and most everything in-between, so I figured Don

would have an interesting perspective on this question. They’ve also recently signed a recording contract and are midway through the recording of their first album, so I

figured this might be a good opportunity to see how that’s going as well.

Wes Unruh:

So what can you tell me about the band? Who all the people are that are in it, and what has been your experience as far as house parties versus the commercial venues there in

that Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City region?

Don Bailey:

Well, okay. I’m Don, the band is Eyes Like Headlights from Lawrence Kansas. The members are Griffin on the drums, David Zai on guitar, myself, Don Bailey, on the guitar and

vocals, and Tanner Mulford on the bass. Basically we play as many shows as we can around Lawrence, Kansas City, and Topeka right now. We don’t really have the means to do a

tour and travel to play different cities right now. We just kind of play our shows, as many as we can.

One of the things I can say for the music scene here is it’s really hit and miss. If you play house parties, that’s really where it’s at we’ve discovered. Playing house

parties people are way more into it, they’re really not afraid to dance and move around. Whereas at the venues, it’s a problem, it seems it’s an epidemic, people pretend like

they didn’t pay to come see the bands, and then stand there like they’re a critic and not really let themselves go and enjoy the music or anything. Like they almost seem too

worried about what everybody else around them is thinking, more than just letting go and having fun with the night. It’s kind of annoying plkaying shows sometimes when you

can tell are on the edge of enjoying it but just won’t let themselves go. We played with this band from Colorado called ‘Anna Dies’ and they’re on a US tour all over the

place, and they said that if you combined all their Midwest shows together, you’d get one show that they’d put on on the east or the west coast. So they said they still enjoy

playing the mid-west, but just not as many people turn out. So what Beat Oven is trying to do is to build a scene because it’s really fleeting out here right now.

WU:

And as a venue, I know that these aren’t small house parties. I know you’ve played house parties with multiple bands, right?

DB:

We’ve played with as many as five bands at these house parties. We’re really trying to push the house party shows as the way to go, and we’ve been talking with a lot of bands

about pushing house parties, and they’re all like, ‘House parties are where it’s at.’ Right now we don’t even want to play venues, we’d rather play house parties. Although

we did just play the Replay, a couple of Mondays ago, which worked out amazingly, because it was ‘Metal School Night’ so they had a metal DJ as well as us playing. And we’re

kind of a metal band, so our crowd was already there. That was a great show, the Replay was a really great place to play because they paid us, they gave us free beer, and we

had a great night all night. It was like playing a party, actually. And the Replay is one of Lawrence’s crowning jewels of a bar.

As far as playing on stage versus in the studio, I’m a big fan of both. Some shows are really good, and you have a great time doing them. Some shows aren’t that good. Not

so many people show up and sometimes it feels like a waste of energy to drag all your equipment around to play a show to the other bands. Although that’s a good way to get in

with other bands, so ultimately it kinda helps out more than it hurts. Actually we recently played a show with a national act called ‘The End,’ who’s one of the bands

Griffin and I first bonded a friendship over was listening to this band. It was really awesome to get to play with them at the El Torreon up in Kansas City, because, you

know, we were both huge fans of The End. That was just an awesome experience.

WU:

Who are some of the bands you’ve been playing with and how does Beat Oven link into this scene?

DB:

Well, some of the bands are really good, there’s some amazingly talented bands out here. And yeah, we’re on Beat Oven Records, it’s a KC local label and we’ve got a really

good deal with them. They own the El Torreon venue, they own the Hyde Park recording studio, they own Beat Oven Records and Beat Oven Productions for duplication and printing

of cds, they do all the printing, artwork themselves, and all the cd cases and labels and all that stuff they do by hand. They’re also branching off into making music videos

now so, we’ve music video capabilities. I think there’s a band making a music video now or not that long ago.

Local bands around here, one of the first bands that we really started playing with and befriended was Left on Northwood, and then one called Reddig, which Reddig has already

broken up. The three of us, we called ourselves the trifecta, and we played as many shows with the three of us as we possibly could, because we felt that if the three of us

became really good friends, then we could build a scene out of three bands, you know. Like if we keep playing enough that people would keep coming to our shows and build up

fans. But Reddig broke up which is sad. We’re still friends with those guys, they’re working on starting new projects. We played a house party with a band called ‘Sever

End’ who was all really young, they were all under twenty-one, all really talented and nice, and I really liked playing with them. We’re going to try to play with them more.

There’s an industrial band we play with called ‘Mind Control’ which is two guys and a drum machine and they’re awesome. They’re good friends and we’re going to be playing

with them June 29th at the Boobytrap in Topeka. There’s a band on the Beat Oven label called ‘six to Chaos’ which is hard to describe, they’re sort of this Mexican band

that’s kind of emo, screamo, indy, and at the same time they’re doing something that no one’s really doing. They’re very unique, I hate to lump them into that emo/screamo

thing, but I don’t know what else to do. They’re really good though, ‘Six to Chaos.’

WU:

And so about the album that you’re building in the studio right now, what can you tell me about the kind of narrative you’ve got going for the album, and what it’s like

working in the studio, and sort of where you guys are at with the production?

DB:

I can really only speak for myself right now, but the album’s sort of written with an underlying concept, it’s not really the main concept to the album but more or less just

for us and for whoever picks up on it. There’s plenty more to learn about it, but it’s basically about two characters who grow up in a world very much like ours and they grow

up their whole life with this paranoid delusion that people are always looking down on them, people are expecting something bad to come of them. And through all of this they

get this paranoid delusion that they’re bringing about the end of the world. So towards their mid to late twenties the end of the world starts happening. There’s like

plagues, there’s fire and destruction and devastation and people are screaming in the streets like.. the end of the world is happening as far as they can tell. Out of their

eyes they can see this stuff, but the reality is that none of it’s actually happening, it’s only through these two characters and their paranoid delusion that we’re seeing

this story about the entire world. It’s not happening at all.

So basically the underlying concept here is about this imaginary apocalypse, one that you think and you feel is happening, but the reality is that none of it is actually

happening. When it comes down to it it’s not happening at all, it’s in your head. Everything’s going on like normal, like it ever would. And that’s kind of like the

underlying concept of the album, and the songs, kind of a basis to go from. We just wanted to entertain ourselves with a story, as well as the music and everything, to keep

our brains active and flowing along with the music, and to keep it so it keeps growing, and it’s got a never-ending feeling to it.

And so far it’s really cool, like, in the studio we kinda get to come in whenever we want, we just call ahead of time and let them know. And we just come in and record for

as long as we want really. Try to get as much done until we’re burnt out, then go home and come back and do it the next day or next week and do it. Where we’re at now is

we’ve got a lot of the music finished for the album, a few vocal tracks done, and we’re basically deciding whether or not we’re going to re-record some of the tracks because

we don’t like the way they turned out. Or not. I’m writing a lot of lyrics right now trying to finish the lyrics for the album because I improv lyrics a lot live, because I

can’t ever settle on one thing. It’s so hard for me to settle on one set of lyrics for a song. But being on an album eventually I have to, so right now I’m working on

writing lyrics for some of the songs I don’t have set lyrics to, and just trying to crank this album out. We’re hoping to have this album out by the end of the summer.

Don and the rest of Eyes Like Headlights have agreed to do an interview and debut some of their tracks later this summer when the album is complete, and for Alterati readers

in the Lawrence or Greater Kansas City area, keep your eyes out for those private metal shows.

Beat Oven Records




Eyes Like Headlights