A Q&A with Leaving Eden

New England rock quintet making waves – here’s Leaving Eden founding member Eric Gynan…

How did you get the title of your latest release, and what does it mean to you?
‘Fable’ is one of the tracks on the album. The song was co-written by myself and Alyssa White. It talks about being chained to the past which in fact is a “dead washed away place that exists no more with the dreams you lay to waste”.

What was the hardest part about putting this release together, and why?
I think it’s always the painstaking time one has to really put into a production like this. Since we were in lockdown we had nothing but time. You really end up using a fine tooth comb in production sometimes going down to the 64th beat. I think it’s pretty intense. Everything really has to be as perfect as possible.

What do enjoy most about producing your own material?
I am the recording engineer, producer and co-mixer for the album. Grammy award winning Bob St. John Co-mixed and mastered the album. I think the best thing about being able to produce our own albums is obviously the fact that you get to do what you want and I think artists have a certain vision of what they are looking for in any recording. In the past when using other producers you just had a long list of things you wanted done and then you try to put these things into words which becomes very difficult. I utilise some of my own effects and techniques that I created myself.

What do you want the listener to take away from listening to your music?
I think like any artist, their songs do mean a lot to them. Our songs are based in reality. Some of the songs are quite prophetic meaning when they were written a lot of the things have actually come true.

How does a track normally come together? Can you tell us something about the process?
I always say that I simply tap in to the universal mind, so to speak, by listening. This can happen while you’re awake or while you’re dreaming. So I just listen and the song is there. This happens so often that I literally have to shut it off because I can’t just be writing music 24 hours a day. This works for anybody. I’m not special, I’ve just learned how to listen. Then you have to try to put that down into some kind of recording. I am writing all year so that when it comes time to put an album together most of it’s already done. We also take songs that we have not recorded yet that have been written years ago so that’s why I say a lot of the stuff is prophetic.

What band/artists have influenced you the most since you started this project, and why?
I think like a lot of artists if you’re so busy you don’t have a lot of time to just listen to everything out there that is new. I’m always influenced by bands like Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel. Not that I can say I love them as bands or the music for that matter, I just like the way the songs are put together and the way the lyrics really speak out. Though we can be a quite heavy band, we also do some acoustic stuff. I think that Leaving Eden is a very eclectic band.

When the world is back to normal where would like to tour, and why?
It would be nice to see the world go back to normal. I think it’s going to take quite some time to really see normalcy in a world that’s lost. It’s nice to find kindness in such a world. With that said, I do have family in Italy and would love to play some shows over there we have toured in Europe and really love the people over the pond. I miss them too. We made some really good friends.

If you could pick one track for our readers to listen to in order to get a taste of your music, what would you pick, and why?
I think I would pick the song ‘Out of the Ashes’ on our Out of the Ashes album. My friend Johnny K who is a Grammy award winning engineer and did Disturbed, 3 Doors Down, Stained, Megadeth and so many more always does a great job. I think the song itself again is prophetic and was written years ago. “Out of the ashes I climb, now I can see the sky. Out of the ashes I am free and you can’t hold me down”. I think we’re all at this point trying to rise out of the ashes of a crumbling world and economy. Especially in the music industry.

What ambitions do you have for the band/your career?
We always have high ambitions and I think that’s important, but at the same time it’s more important to be happy in what you’re doing now. I’m happy when I get one gig. You can spend your life saying man I’m better than them why are they so successful and I feel that you would then be living a frustrated musicians life as the years go by so just be satisfied in anything that you’re doing. Make it real.

Finally, as you leave the stage, what are your parting words?
We, like everybody else, hope that things get better and although we’ve never seen anything like this in our lifetime, we’ve always been able to pull through and move forward. I feel for a lot of people especially here in New England and the North where the cold winter is coming. I feel for people like my Tour Manager Bryant Jenkins who lost his mom during this, and we couldn’t even go to her funeral because we were in lockdown. Hope is the word of the day.

For more info visit facebook.com/bandleavingeden