When Eliza & The Delusionals’ single “Just Exist” first landed last year, it was a single ray of somber sunshine, peeking through a crack from a then-unannounced gateway of sorts. The golden beam allured at thousands of watts of starpower, somehow obscured in the distance.
Today (March 20), the Australian band’s full inferno reveals itself in A STATE OF LIVING IN AN OBJECTIVE REALITY, their sophomore EP out via Cooking Vinyl. Digging into the art of lead singer and guitarist Eliza Katt’s “pull apart heart,” the five tunes put a soaring, radiant spin on the unglamorous act of clawing through mental health ruts. When the group funnels out on the other side, they don’t just “exist” — they prosper as they tear down the restrictive confines of that very “objective reality.”
Before Eliza & The Delusionals take the metaphorical “stage” for Australia’s Isol-Aid this weekend, Vanyaland chatted with Katt about the worthwhile struggle of assembling her new, healthier reality. Read on below to learn more about her working relationship with guitarist and longtime friend Kurt Skuse, the unexpected locale where their EP art was snapped, and why Katt feels this is the band’s best work yet.
Victoria Wasylak: You have mentioned that you felt “stuck” emotionally when you were going into this record. How did you get “unstuck”?
Eliza Katt: When I was able to build up the courage to get myself out of a bad place. It was definitely a process of dealing with bad mental health and making the realization of what I needed to do to remove myself from a bad situation before it became worse. It took a really long time, but I definitely am glad that I was able to get out.
What can you tell us about the inspiration for the EP title, A STATE OF LIVING IN AN OBJECTIVE REALITY? Is that where you were when writing this? I think it’s an interesting name considering that so very little feels truly “objective” these days.
The title was actually the last thing that came when we were putting everything together. We were in New York, and we had just finished editing and designing the artwork (which was from the laundry room in our hotel) and we wanted something to wrap the meaning of the songs in one sentence or word. We were throwing around titles that we liked, but we didn’t really feel like any of them stuck. Kurt actually came up with ‘A State of Living in an Objective Reality,’ which I instantly connected with. A huge theme of the EP is the state of my mental health and how I wasn’t able to live the way that I wanted to. I felt really controlled, like living in an objective reality. I think it’s such a cool title because so many people have already had their take on what it means to them.
You have mentioned that this EP is your favorite work as a band so far. Why is that?
I think it’s because everything we went through before we got into the studio. We had each gone through some really big changes in our personal lives and as a band, so it was really refreshing and a massive release to finally get those songs into the studio and onto a collection to be released. We really felt like we had a lot of creative control over everything, and we are really proud of it as a whole work.
I had seen you comment that you don’t connect with your older songs much anymore since you’ve grown a lot as a person and a musician since then. Is that a scary feeling?
Not really. I think it would be more scary if I still felt the same as I did when I was 17 and 18 writing those songs. I think that disconnecting with old material is a way of moving on and growing as a person. I still love a lot of the songs and I love playing them live, but I definitely look back on the songs as a reflection of my past. I kind of hope our songwriting and music never stays exactly the same, and it always progresses to reflect us as a band at the time we wrote or recorded it.
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You and Kurt grew up together as kids, living down the street from each other. Does that connection affect your relationship in the band when it comes to working and writing together?
Not really. Even before Kurt joined the band and was doing his own thing I really wanted to write and collaborate with him because I think he’s a really talented singer and songwriter. I think it makes it easier to collaborate, because there’s no ice to break if that makes sense. We already know each other so well, and personally I can find it difficult to open up straight away, so it’s just really comfortable to write music with him.
On the same name note, what has it been like with a new-ish band dynamic, now that Ruby has joined?
We were super excited to have Ruby join. She was playing with us for our Pull Apart Heart Australian tour and we just all connected really well. It feels super tight, especially after we just spent 2 months on a tour bus together across the states. It’s really cool for me to have another female member in the band, and to have someone that’s so musically talented and someone that shares the same passion as myself, Kurt and Tex.
Which song on the EP is the most emblematic of where you are as a band right now (mentally, musically, or otherwise)?
I guess what I was talking about in a previous question was moving on from older songs is kind of relevant with this EP, as I am very far from the mental state I was in when I was writing a lot of these songs. But I think I still connect to them in a different way, especially the song “Just Exist.” The song has done so much for us and our music career so far, so I think all of us feel really warm towards that song. It’s probably our favourite one in the set right now, and playing it every night on tour in America and having people sing the words back was one of the best feelings ever.