Interview with EB & The Deadlights

Q1.What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?

A1. My mum showed me Alice Cooper's scene in Wayne's World of him performing Feed My Frankenstein when I was 4 in and the months that followed I was shown the likes of Rob Zombie, Manson and Murderdolls. I honestly don’t know what I would be up to if I didn’t get into music, I’ve pretty much wanted to be involved with it in some way shape or form since Mum showed me Coop!

Q2.What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?

A2. I read a lot, and any constant readers of Stephen King might recognise a few of my lyrics from his work. In fact, the new single Unmarked Grave where the tagline is “Bones in an unmarked grave” is a line from one of the Dark Tower novels. It’s not all Stephen King though, just reading in general has helped me so much with my own writing and I think what we have coming up after Unmarked Grave is a good example of that, at least as far as story within the songs!

Q3.How long has your band been around?

A3. It will be 1 year since our first single this October but the band started around March 2021 if memory serves me right.

Q4.Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music?

A4. Belfast Northern Ireland, we aren’t exactly a political band although if we were I would dare say we’d have endless amounts of writing material. I love a lot of old Belfast punk bands that I grew up listening to and one of my favourite bands is Therapy? Who’d I say played a part in how I approach music.

Q5.How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you?

A5. I originally started this as a solo project and when it became a full-fledged band I just thought E.B & The Deadlights sounded better than just The Deadlights. To be 100% honest the name doesn’t hold any real sentimental value to me other than the fact it sounds cool and looks cool on a t-shirt.

Q6.Tell me about your most memorable shows.

A6. They’ve all been pretty good to be honest, we’ve lucked out and haven’t had a stinker yet. Our second ever show and first headline was a sell-out in a 200 cap venue which was great, then we opened for Priest (who feature ex members of Ghost) which was very cool but the most memorable was without a doubt opening for Doyle, who of course is from The Misfits. We were worried because we were up first on the bill and there were quite a few other shows on that night, so we thought a lot of people might go from one show to another just coming in before Doyle went on but the venue was rammed and we went over extremely well. It just felt like we had something to prove and after the show judging from crowd reception and interactions I felt pretty confident in saying we established what we had to.

Q7.What is your favourite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you have not already?

A7. Out of the ones we’ve played it’d probably be Deers Head Belfast just because it’s the place where we did our first big gig opening for Doyle. One I’d love to play is the Ulster Hall in Belfast just because it’s probably my favourite venue here and I’ve seen a lot of my favourite bands play there.

Q8.If you could play any show with any lineup, who would be on the ticket?

A8. Oh god this will be a hard one, I’ll keep this controversy free and just pick acts who haven’t been ah… controversial in recent times let’s say. I’d put us on first, I know realistically I could have us headline but I’d want to be able to wipe off my makeup and then go watch the rest of the evening haha! After us I’d probably have Wednesday 13, then Creeper as main support with a co-headline by Rob Zombie & Alice Cooper.

Q9.What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band and some advice that you would give to your younger self?

A9. To both I’d just say keep at it and don’t be discouraged if someone leaves because it always seems to be a bit before you get your line-up steady. Oh, and save money because this stuff isn’t cheap!

Q10.If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?

A10. Keep at it and if someone is being insistent on something that isn’t sitting right with you then don’t go along with it! It is something I have learnt the hard way on a few occasions since I have started music.

Q11.Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?

A11. There’s one that isn’t released yet that is my favourite song we’ve written but you’ll have to wait a while before we can get into that. Out of the ones that are released I would probably say Still See Ghosts, it’s a song written about something quite personal that I fabricated, as i often do, to give it a bit more interest but the song is something I was struggling to really get out of my head and off my chest so after I wrote the first draft of lyrics I was feeling considerably better. It’s also one I know that people who listen to us really resonate with, which is always great to hear.

Q12.Which songs are your favourite to play and which get requested the most?

A12. As I said Still See Ghosts is definitely up there, Unmarked Grave is really fun and I’m looking forward to seeing the live reaction once we release it and people get a bit more familiar with it. Devil Between Me And You always goes over surprisingly well which means a lot because we thought that it maybe wouldn’t be received the best as it’s quite different from the rest of the first ep but it ended up being somewhat of a favourite.

Q13.What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?

A13. Mac our guitarist will write the music then we’ll both bash ideas off of each other of what needs lengthened and what needs shortened and the usual “what if we try this here” convos then I’ll start the lyrics and we’ll start playing it at practice to familiarise ourselves with it before we get into the studio. As far as what inspires me to write probably whatever is happening in life at the time or whatever book I am currently reading.

Q14.What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?

A14. I like to think most of what we write is from one extreme to another, so either really personal stuff where the message is it might be crap now but it will get better (granted there can’t always be an happy ending, but it seems people resonate with those songs more surprisingly) or something that is so far stretched it’s just beyond this realm. It does mean a lot though to know that people usually pick up the emotion we’re going for in a live setting at least. It is still very surreal seeing people singing the words to your songs back to you in all honesty.

Q15.Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them?

A15. With this new lineup not really, there's been a few over some things in songs but we usually land in the middle and keep everyone happy. Just Something that needs to be talked out, no matter how big or how small the issue may be, some people unfortunately don’t always see it like that but it isn’t really something we’ve had to worry about too much.

Q16. What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that is coming up?

A16. There is so much I wish I could tell you! As far as releases go Unmarked Grave is released September 30th and is the first step of a much bigger picture. Gig wise we are opening for spooky synth beast Craven on October 14th in Dublin and headlining the Barge in Belfast on October 28th as a launch show for Unmarked Grave, which will be a whole new show and setlist, tickets for that are available now! Thanks for taking the time to talk!

Keep in touch at https://www.facebook.com/e.b.andthedeadlightsband &  https://www.instagram.com/e.b.andthedeadlightsband/