Start Listening To: Pale Blue Eyes
Navigating grief with Pale Blue Eyes.
In an industry that often thrives on ephemeral trends and fleeting sounds, Pale Blue Eyes has emerged as a steadfast beacon of artistic sincerity. Hailing from the charming town of Totnes, Devon, this enigmatic trio—comprising Lucy, Matt, and Aubrey—has gradually carved a distinctive niche for themselves. With their upcoming album, This House, the band dives headlong into themes of grief, resilience, and personal transformation.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
Lucy: We’re Pale Blue Eyes, formed in Totnes, Devon. Matt and I moved up to Sheffield a few months ago and Aubrey’s based in London currently.
Our music is an amalgamation of all our different tastes in music, and years of obsessing over music in general, from Disco, Rock, to Shoegaze and Electro Pop. Our initial intentions for PBE were just to have fun and play tracks that would be kind of up-beat and enjoyable live. We’ve been playing loads for the last couple of years and can’t quite believe the amount of gigs we’ve squeezed in.
Your upcoming album This House delves into themes of grief and moving on after the loss of your parents. Can you tell us about the emotional journey you went through while creating this album?
Matt: Raw, complex and unforgiving and the processing part is ongoing - I lost my dad suddenly and my mum slowly. The grief doesn’t just go away, you just, over time, learn to celebrate the positive memories as well as appreciating that change is inevitable.
I always try to find perspective and draw something positive from what we were faced with, and learning, but yes - it’s all tough stuff to deal with. The band and writing these songs was a positive escape from what we were faced with and working through what was happening along the way. Obviously we’re lucky to be fit and healthy right now, something we definitely now don’t take for granted.
The cover art features the childhood home of the band's vocalist and guitarist, Matt Board. How does this house symbolize the themes explored in the album, and what significance does it hold for the band?
Matt: My family lived in the house for 30 years and rebuilt it from the ground up. The place is full of our history, years of family memories both good and bad.
So much of this second record lyrically reflects the realisation that our time in the house was coming to an end, moving on from the place and starting fresh. Lots of end of an era moments played out.
Lucy: As a band we had our studio space out the back of the house - we’d developed the studio for a year or so before the lockdowns started and then during lockdown times we obviously spent all day every day in the studio. Writing, recording, learning, messing about with synths - it was our little safe zone where we’d create, rehearse and where we recorded both ‘Souvenirs’ and ‘This House’ so the place meant a lot to the band’s progression too.
Your band's debut LP Souvenirs also dealt with themes of loss and melancholy. How does This House relate to or differ from your previous work in terms of lyrical content and musical style?
Matt: Lyrically in parts the new record evokes a sense of positivity relating to moving on, an acceptance of embracing change whilst appreciating what has come and locking in to great shared memories. Hopefully it’s a slightly grown-up elder sibling to the first record but whilst still trying to hang on to innocent good fun.
Making this record was emancipating and was written and developed alongside some huge life moments for me and Luc - having an eye on the past but also looking forward.
The themes are in part pretty heavy once you get onto tracks like Sister and Underwater, but there’s also a few tracks in there that are just meant to be good fun.
Lucy: Musically we experimented a bit more with playing together in the room. The majority of the first album was produced in lockdown so parts had to be recorded remotely rather than together at the same time. On the second album there’s a kind of crossover of some tracks that we started in lockdown after we finished the first album and some tracks that we recorded a year or so later.
The album was recorded at your self-built Penquit Mill home studio. How did the recording process and location influence the overall sound and atmosphere of the album?
Matt: We’d put a lot of time and work into creating a studio space out the back of my family home in the countryside, whilst always knowing there was uncertainty around what would happen to the home. In May 2022 mum chose to withdraw treatment after five years of MND. We knew our time at our studio and this complex situation was coming to an end, it felt like a poignant moment and a way of saying goodbye to the place that had been so crucial to us. It felt like a good way to mark the end of the chapter by finishing the second record together in the space. As soon as we knew we’d finished a synth part we had to literally unpatch and pack the kit away. I was de-rigging cables whilst Lucy was putting final touches to tracks.
Lucy: We put many late night sessions in and were fortunate that it was out in the sticks so we weren’t bothering anyone going late into the night - always enjoyable but fairly intense towards the end.
The song 'Sister' celebrates the complexities of relationships between family and friends. Can you share the inspiration behind this track and what it means to you as a band?
Matt: During the more difficult parts of the last few years we’ve had incredibly supportive family and friends around us but relationships can be pushed to the absolute limit. This song is reflecting on everything we’ve faced over the last few years together as far back as losing dad so suddenly and mum being diagnosed. Me and my sister could have never prepared for any of this happening and obviously we’ve kind of shared in all these intense and stressful moments together and have had to work hard to keep our heads. There’s been anger and frustration which deep down all just stems from sadness. We found our way out the other side and this song is really a celebration of the strength of our relationship and how we managed to stick together.
The album features Moog Little Phatty and Prophet 12, showcasing Lucy's fascination with South Yorkshire synth innovation. How do these vintage synths contribute to the album's sonic landscape?
Lucy: Yeah! I just love how they sound tbh, sometimes I’d put a simple arpeggiator using the Pro 12 over some chords Matt had written and it would just instantly feel like it glued things together, the synth glue between vocal melodies and guitars. Those synths feature somewhere in pretty much every track. Our first studio synth was the Pro 12, which we’ve had for quite a few years now and I can still spend literally hours and days lost inside the many functions and oscillators and ways of manipulating the sound. A few years ago we bought a Yamaha AN1X which Dean Honer had recommended me, that’s on a lot of the second album, and more recently we picked up a Blue Marvin which I had just started messing around with when we had to pack the studio up - so I managed to sneak it onto ‘Sister’ and ‘Underwater’ before it had to get packed back up into its box, I am excited to get to know that one a bit more next.
The album concludes with the track 'Underwater' described as a moving and meditative set-piece. Can you share the story behind this song and its significance in the album's narrative?
Lucy: This track feels like a kind of storm and then the calm and eerie feeling after the storm. It’s a song about letting go after you lose someone. It’s about our particular experience of Matt’s mum deciding to withdraw treatment after a long illness. It was a special one to record together – the outro in particular was just an unspoken moment between the three of us.
Matt: When mum died we had a shared family experience that’s almost indescribable. It was like there was a feeling or charge hanging in the air, connecting each person. Time stopped. I felt like I momentarily entered an alternative dimension that was just the moment between life and death. Days and weeks later I’d look around the family home, looking in each room and seeing my family in every corner of the house, all of the reminders, all the ghosts, all the memories – and then preparing myself for a new life and embracing moving on from this house and my amazing parents.
What do you love right now?
Lucy: Sipping a Lidl Excelsior beer whilst listening to Dreamer by Nabihah Iqbal.
What do you hate right now?
Matt: Pasty stealing seagulls.
As you continue to evolve and embrace change, what are your hopes and aspirations for Pale Blue Eyes in the future? Are there any specific themes or concepts you would like to explore in the future?
Lucy: To be honest when we were cruising over to Bristol in our Berlingo for a support slot and the promise of a £50 fee and some free pizza I could have never imagined that a couple of years later we’d be flying out to Sicily to play in front of a few thousand people, and doing our own headline show at Village Underground later this year - we’re already living some of our dreams with this group so we hope to just keep building on this and keep on making music as a response to whatever life throws at us!
