Deep Thoughts and Laughter
August 6th, 2008 - Written by gemma
CONFRONT: So, is this like your 1st, 2nd, 3rd time [in Montreal]?
CHAUNTELLE: I’d say fourthish.
SHERRI: Yeah, fourth time. We haven’t been here in a while… maybe 2 years. Does that sound too long, a couple years?
CHAUNTELLE: No it’s been at least that. We were touring with New Found Glory when we came here last.
*Chuckles between the girls*
CONFRONT: When you guys started the band, did you have to make any big sacrifices?
STACY: Umm… we sacrificed our education.
CONFRONT: Aw, like high school? No, wait, you started very young.
SHERRI: Yeah, Stacy was…
STACY: I was 8, I remember. I wrote my first song and then we just all started writing and playing shows… like we were all really young when we had our first show.
SHERRI: We didn’t really sacrifice our education; we just… well not, it wasn’t because… well we kinda did do it on purpose, we didn’t care.
STACY: Yeah.
SHERRI: So, we’re not… we’re like through and through artistic people to where we’re just not smart in that other way.
*Everyone laughs*
SHERRI: Like we know how to write songs and school was just great for smart people.
CHAUNTELLE: We’re smart in like… life ways, like how to survive in relationships.
*Laughter again*
CONFRONT: Yeah like kinda street smart, I think it’s called that.
SHERRI: Yeah! We’re urban!
*Laughter yet again*
CONFRONT: Did anyone ever try to make you change your image music wise? Like labels and stuff.
STACY: Our labels have been awesome. They’ve been cool but when we first got signed I think they were just trying to figure out, you know… what we were all about.
SHERRI: I think once they realized we were really strong willed people and knew that we were really focused with our music and knew what we wanted to do and who we were… they just kinda let us do our thing. The worst thing that could’ve happened was that our first management team tried to put us on tour with Hilary Duff.
*Gemma laughs*
SHERRI: It was just like… you’re fired!
*All laugh*
CONFRONT: That would’ve been… exotic.
*Girls laughs*
CONFRONT: So, you know how people these days say music gets them through and I’m sure you guys are no exception. So, how do you respond when someone tells you that you’ve changed or saved their lives?
CHAUNTELLE: Really, it’s what makes everything so worth it; like it’s the only reason that we’re like hanging on so passionate.
SHERRI: It’s very fulfilling.
STACY: It is.
SHERRI: Like kids who come up and say “I didn’t commit suicide because your band got me through this hard time,” and it’s like holy crap! Are you kidding me?
STACY: There’s this specific story I remember in general that this kid was seriously about to hang himself…
SHERRI: And his radio came on…
STACY: And our music came on and he decided not to hang himself.
CONFRONT: Wow, I’m getting goose bumps.
SHERRI, STACY, CHAUNTELLE: I know!
CHAUNTELLE: He was actually already hanging there and decided to cut himself down. So yeah, it definitely means a lot.
CONFRONT: Like I can’t imagine how it feels because I’m not you; I don’t write songs and stuff but you guys must write what helps you… so when the stuff that helps you helps others too it must be amazing.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah.
SHERRI: Yeah, totally.
STACY: It’s amazing like, you write a lyric and it’s cool whenever people say “that lyrics, when I heard it for the first time it just spoke to me,” it’s like wow!
CONFRONT: Yeah, that must be cool. So, what’s the greatest gift a fan has ever given you?
STACY: Oh this is a good question.,.
SHERRI: Yeah this is a good question because yesterday we got called to the front of the bus and our father who is our tour manager was like “There’s some guys who have a surprise for you,” so me and Chauntelle walk to the front and see these brand new shiny guitar cases and these guys, two brothers like own a guitar company and they made us custom guitars. Like we just got them yesterday and we were freaking out.
CHAUNTELLE: And they’re beautiful electric guitars, we’ve already been playing with them.
SHERRI: They’re incredible, we love them and the guys were like “no, we don’t want anything, just here you go.” We were like ok. And other than that our friends are so sweet, they bring us Starbucks double shots and Starbucks cards and like, that stuff means a lot when you’re on tour like it’s so helpful.
CHAUNTELLE, STACY: Yeah.
CONFRONT: Ok, so what’s one issue in the world that you guys are concerned about? Like hunger, abortion, suicide…
SHERRI: The whole world is just… there’s so many things that grieve me I would say equally as much.
CHAUNTELLE: For me it’s abortion just because I have a daughter and I know what it’s like to be in that position
SHERRI: Yeah, cause you were like a teenage mom.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah, I was a young girl, I wasn’t married and I was 18 so it’s really bad when people even consider abortion.
CONFRONT: Abortion is actually the one that bothers me a lot too.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah, it’s crazy.
STACY: I read this story of this woman who went about all these experiments with herself
SHERRI: Oh, I’ve read about that!
STACY: She like impregnated herself..
SHERRI: She impregnated herself and documented this whole thing were she aborted her child.
STACY: Yeah, she aborted it and collected the blood samples for art and put it on display… and I’m like you’re not human!
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah, that woman is not human.
CONFRONT: I don’t get how some people think, it’s really disturbing.
CHAUNTELLE: Some people don’t realize that humanity is so precious and valuable.
CONFRONT: Yeah, for me it’s kinda like who gives them the right to choose whether the child lives or dies? Every being deserves to live their life… I mean, there’s a plan for that child’s life and you’re just taking it away.
SHERRI: Right.
STACY: Right.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah, exactly.
CONFRONT: So, is there any news on a new single or music video?
STACY: Umm… not yet, we were talking about doing like another EP soon. Like after this tour like we’ve been writing a lot so maybe a new 4 song EP with this new material.
CONFRONT: What about old material that you haven’t used?
SHERRI: We have a lot of old material. We might dig some of that out, who knows…
STACY: I think we should.
SHERRI: We have at least 75 hundred songs that are just like sitting there.
CHAUNTELLE: And there’s so many that I love that it’s just like “oh, why didn’t they write that one? It’s so good!”
SHERRI: I was watching a Radiohead DVD the other day and they were soundchecking this song and I think it was something like 1997-98 and they were soundchecking this song that is now on their new record that just came out and it’s like they had that song forever and it just came out now… so yeah.
CONFRONT: By the way, I was actually wondering how you guys do things; do you write songs first then write the music or music then lyrics?
STACY: It just depends I think…
SHERRI: I rarely write lyrics first. There’s been sometimes where I’ve drawn a picture and it’s inspired lyrics. Usually, it’s just we write lyrics and music at the same time; like music will influence the lyrics sometimes.
CONFRONT: Aw, that’s cool. Have you guys ever thought of releasing solo projects?
STACY: If we did it wouldn’t be something that’s the main focus. It would probably just be for fun because Eisley is our main focus.
CHAUNTELLE: It’s really because we love being in the band together so much, we love being around each other. So, if we go off and do something on our own it would be like “oh, I wonder what Sherri’s doing, how she’s doing”.
CONFRONT: Aw, it must be nice being really close and all.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah.
CONFRONT: I don’t have any sisters.
CHAUNTELLE, STACY, SHERRI: Awwww…
*Gemma laughs*
CONFRONT: Have you ever thought about writing a story based on characters in your songs?
SHERRI: I don’t know if we have enough… I don’t know, I mean, I guess it’d be possible but I think that’s why we kind of write sometimes these fictional short stories in our songs. I don’t know if I could focus enough to write a whole story. I would run out of ideas or get A.D.D.
*Laughter*
SHERRI: It’s easier just to put it in 3 minutes.
CONFRONT: You [Sherri] write most of the lyrics?
SHERRI: Um, no we [Sherri & Stacy] each write separately on each of our songs. Sometimes we’ll work together on songs, like some of the songs we have we wrote together.
CONFRONT: Well, I love your lyrics.
SHERRI, STACY: Thank you!
CONFRONT: When you make friends on the road, do you guys find it hard to keep in touch?
STACY: No, we’re pretty good with keeping in touch. It depends; I mean sometimes yeah, you make friends and lose touch but most of the time we keep touch. Like we toured with Brighten and we’re still friend with these guys, we’re really close so…
CONFRONT: So, you guys do keep in touch, that’s good.
SHERRI, STACY, CHAUNTELLE: Yeah.
CONFRONT: So, do you guys find it hard to get pumped for a show when you’re doing it every night?
SHERRi: Oh, yeah.
STACY: Um… sometimes.
CHAUNTELLE: When we’re sick sometimes. But we have the occasionally “Yeah, I don’t feel like playing tonight”.
STACY: But we have our Starbucks…
SHERRI: Yeah and sometimes if we’re feeling a little tired we’ll have some red bull.
STACY: Do some jumping jacks…
SHERRI: I think in the past maybe more so but this tour has been really like our first real headlining tour on this album and we were all going through like all this crappy relationship stuff like divorces and disengagements and stuff so we had all this time off were all this crap happened and I think it’s just been so nice to like get away from all that. Like it’s past us now, we’re over it and now we can go focus on this and it’s just been so fun playing every night.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah.
CONFRONT: Are you guys feeling it tonight?
SHERRI: Yeah, well it will always be interesting playing different countries.
STACY: Yeah.
SHERRI: But we haven’t really played here as much so I don’t really have a feel for our Canada crowd but like…
STACY: A show is a show pretty much
SHERRI: Yeah. Like we don’t really care about how big the crowds are cause’ the crowds haven’t been huge on this tour but it’s ok.
CONFRONT: I personally, as a fan, love smaller crowds because I find it way more intimate with the band.
CHAUNTELLE: Oh yeah, that’s true. Some of our best shows have been at these tiny venues and most bands usually say that too.
CONFRONT: Like the bands and the fans both prefer the smaller venues because of the intimacy.
SHERRI, STACY, CHAUNTELLE: Yeah.
CONFRONT: What’s the most ridiculous rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself that it actually made you laugh?
*Small laughter between the girls*
CHAUNTELLE: Ok, so this isn’t really a rumor but it’s a quote from people that were trashing us and they called us “dirty, smelly, Eisley bitches” and just the combination of those words made us laugh.
CONFRONT: Why would they say that?
CHAUNTELLE: I don’t know. They were just hating on us. Ok, some pictures got out of us swimming at our house in bathing suits and they were trashing us.
SHERRI: So bad! Like they just went off on us for no reason.
CONFRONT: Was it a newspaper or magazine?
CHAUNTELLE: Well, no, Sherri found it on a website. Sherri and I were just hanging out together and we took the pictures ourselves, we were all alone and someone hacked into our computer and got the photos and posted them online making fun of our bodies because we don’t look so great in bathing suits; we’re not super models.
CONFRONT: Wow, that’s pretty rude of them.
CHAUNTELLE, SHERRI: Yeah.
CONFRONT: Well, don’t listen to them, you’re all beautiful girls.
CHAUNTELLE, SHERRI, STACY: Awww! Thank you!
CONFRONT: So, what is your most prized possession? Either current or past.
SHERRI: Probably the first guitar I bought when we got signed. The black and white one I play. I’ve written a lot of songs on it, you know.
STACY: The Fender Rhodes that I have used to belong to Don Henley so, it’s pretty cool.
CONFRONT: Aw, cool and you still have it?
STACY: Yeah.
CHAUNTELLE: I would have to say my first guitar that was actually supposed to be all of ours to share and we got it for Christmas when I was like 14 and I sort of claimed it and then we had all sorts of things done to it to make it sound better.
SHERRI: We call it the Blodith. (spelling?)
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah, we call it the Blodith. It’s actually called the Lotus which is really a cheap guitar which shouldn’t sound good at all but it’s my favorite guitar and it sounds the best so, yeah.
CONFRONT: Aw. By the way, how old are you guys?
CHAUNTELLE: 26.
STACY: 19.
SHERRI: 24.
CONFRONT: [Looks at Chauntelle] You really don’t look 26.
*Chauntelle gives a sigh of relief*
CHAUNTELLE: Oh, thank you!
*Laughter*
CONFRONT: What is your current craving?
SHERRI: Hmm current craving… Gushers. I haven’t had Gusher food snacks in such a long time.
CONFRONT: What are Gushers?
*Sherri gets up and gets some Gushers to show me*
CONFRONT: Oh, I think I’ve actually seen those before.
STACY: I’m always craving dark chocolate and I’m really excited to be here [Montreal] because you guys have way better chocolate and candy.
CHAUNTELLE: I really like those rainbow strips with all the sugar on it. I don’t know what they’re called.
CONFRONT: Oh, yeah those are good.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah.
CONFRONT: Would you like to share a funny story that happened recently?
SHERRI: I know there’s so many but I can’t think of them right now.
CHAUNTELLE: We need to like store them up just for our interviews.
STACY: Yeah, write them down.
SHERRI: Like the guys [Weston and Garron] always remember stuff…
STACY: And they’re good at telling them and making them really funny.
SHERRI: Well, here’s something kind of funny… the guys were kinda obsessed with tasers. So they were secretly wiring each others’ bunks; like Weston is really mechanical so, he like put this wire and wound it under our merch guy’s sheets and stuff but our merch guy found all the wires before he went to bed and stuff… he has done it though; he’s got on Garron.
CHAUNTELLE: And they think those things are hilarious.
SHERRI: They haven’t tased us yet.
CHAUNTELLE: Yeah, they know better.
*Laughter*
CONFRONT: Ok, so what was your first and last album purchased?
SHERRI: Well, we were into country and Christian stuff when we were little so it was probably something like DC Talk. The last CD I bought was uh… Manchester Orchestra.
STACY: I can’t remember the last CD I bought… I think it was Sean Lennon.
*Their father, Boyd walks in and takes Sherri away for something*
CONFRONT: What was your first and last concert attended? Besides your own concerts…
STACY: Umm, Radiohead.
CHAUNTELLE: I think that was my first show, too. We went as like a family vacation.
CONFRONT: Aw that’s cute.
STACY: I was so little I had to sit on my dad’s shoulders to see.
CONFRONT: Aw, Radiohead. That’s cool. Ok, so we have a section on the site called Daily Urges and basically it’s a section where readers can submit bands or artists they feel other people should discover or rediscover. What would be some of your Daily Urges?
STACY: Well, we’ve been listening to a lot of new bands; Sherri mentioned of one them before called Manchester Orchestra… another band called MGMT.
CHAUNTELLE: The Junior Boys, Bob Dylan…
STACY: Obviously Radiohead. We’re just naming every band we love.
CONFRONT: Ok, well, thank you so much!
CHAUNTELLE: Thank you!
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http://www.myspace.com/eisley
http://www.eisley.com/index.php/
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