[Editor's note: This story previews Eyes For Higher's album release show, Saturday, Feb. 8 at Vega with Mime Game and Burning Down The Villager. Cover is $5, and the concert starts at 9:30 p.m. RSVP here.]
by Sean Holohan
Nate Roh remembers the day his band lost everything.
Lincoln-based Eyes For Higher had been writing music since the day they formed three years ago. In January 2013, they went to Confer Music House to record their first-ever release.
The band had 11 songs ready to go, and intermittently over the next eight months, laid down each song onto the studio’s hard drive. Roh, guitarist and vocalist, says that by August 2013, all of the instrumentals were recorded. All that was left to do was record the vocal tracks and the album would be ready to go.
Lead vocalist Alex Comte was warming up to record on that August day when the band got the news: The album was gone. No longer on the hard drive. All of the work the band had put in over the last eight months was gone, as if it had never happened. They had to start all over.
“Obviously, at first we just said, ‘What the hell?’” Roh explains over the phone with the other members of his band providing input. “We were pretty angry in general. All of this time that we had spent was just gone, and we had to start over from scratch.”
Roh remembers how devastated the band was upon receiving the news. Inexplicably, the studio said, their album was gone: possibly due to a glitch or a mechanical problem with the hard drive. On top of that, they had to wait until October to go back into the studio. Now they had to sit with the fact that their album was deleted for three months.
But at the same time, he says, the band thought instead of sulking, they could turn the nightmare of a situation into an opportunity. Since the band wasn’t going back to the studio until October, they could take the time to readdress all of the songs they recorded and finely tune them.
Between August and October, the band went through each song again with a fine-toothed comb, tightening up parts of each song — transitions, instrumentals and lyrics. They also took the time to write three new songs — all of which they recorded upon their return to the studio.
Roh says now that the deletion of their first attempt was actually a blessing in disguise.
“I am really glad that it happened because it sounds 10 times better now,” Roh says. “We progressed a lot as a band, and in each individual song, we figured out how to make it sound better. We took it as a way to go back to the drawing board. We overhauled every song.”
On Saturday, Eyes For Higher will finally get their chance to show fans what they have been working on for the last year as they release their new album Barriers at Vega in Lincoln with Mime Game (Kansas City) and Burning Down The Villager (Lincoln).
Looking back on their last year as a band, Roh explains that Barriers is an apt name for the title of their album. It represents the trials and tribulations that seemed to almost deter the band from putting out the LP. Between all of the times the band had planned to record their album and had just not had the time or money to follow through and the deletion of their first recordings, the band says there have been plenty of barriers from the day they formed to the day they plan to release their album.
Barriers is a 14-track musical journey. Although the album’s title can be drawn to a central meaning, Roh explains that each song follows its own lyrical story. There are no central lyrical themes on the album. The album boasts a wide range of song styles — some fast and hard-hitting while others are slower and more delicate.
With distorted, driving guitars over steady drumming chock-full of intricate, complex drum fills and lead vocalist Alex Comte’s loud, grungy vocals, Eyes For Higher runs the gamut of genres. They are equal parts pop/punk, alternative and hard rock. The band says they are collectively influenced by Taking Back Sunday, Underoath, Mayday Parade and The Used. Roh says it’s difficult for him to pin down one musical genre that his band best represents.
“Our songs are all quite different from each other,” he says. “We have never been able to label ourselves in terms of what genre we are. We have a heavier set of songs like ‘Rain’ and ‘Thief’ and then songs like ‘With Me’ and ‘Breeze’ that kind of have a more poppy chorus.”
One of the band’s favorite songs on Barriers is a track called “Through The Façade.” It was the first time they had all come together collectively to write a song.
“Normally, one member would come to practice with a song idea almost fully developed and the rest would just add to it,” Roh explains.
But for “Through The Façade,” all the members came together and wrote the song from scratch at practice. The experience actually influenced the band to change their writing style and write all of their songs now as a team instead of just as individuals.
Looking back on the last three years of their existence, Eyes For Higher say they are “blessed” to have the opportunity to be with friends and create music they truly love and believe in. They couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity to play at Vega and finally let their fans in on the album they have made. They all agree that having to start over on their album brought them closer together and made them an even better band — and more importantly, better friends.
“We all just have a unique element and brotherhood outside of being just musicians,” guitarist Tony Birkel says. “It really helps bring everything together and makes it fun for everyone.”
Sean Holohan is Hear Nebraska’s editorial intern. His band played a show with Eyes For Higher once and loved it. Reach him at seanh@hearnebraska.org.