Making career strides during an unstable few years, Easy Life’s time in the spotlight has been anything but easy. In creating a surprisingly introspective record, the Leicester-based five-piece have been grasping at the fruits of inspiration in countries around the globe and taken life’s curveballs straight on the head. As we speak, the band are busy rehearsing for their steady string of record store shows; something they’ve been longing for.
Frontman Murray Matravers can’t help but gush on the former. “I love performing. I love when people who haven’t seen Easy Life before, but have heard our music, are shocked because our live shows are mental,” he begins. “I think, because of the chill nature of our music, you don’t expect people to go crazy but it happens. People go nuts.”
—
—
Whilst fans were pestering the group for details on their debut ‘Life’s A Beach’, Murray confesses that their sophomore album, ‘Maybe In Another Life’, was under development in secret and the band had already begun to move onto more expansive ventures. “It’s hard to figure out when everything was done because I started the project in secret,” he begins. “I was nervous about having to make another album after putting so much time and effort into our debut but yeah, this one came out relatively quickly.”
“I think starting it in secret doesn’t help me with remembering the time frame. I’m pretty sure I started the process in 2020 and now we’re in 2022 so it’s all just a blur. My secrecy has led me to forget.”
Cutting their non-stop climb to success short with yet another lockdown, Easy Life took stock of everything that had happened and the result was an amalgamation of experimental sounds that mashed genres and moods with the unshakeable uncertainty of your twenties. “With lockdown, and having time off from constantly touring, I just had time to reflect,” he recalls. “Not being on the road for the first time in a few years tended to bring up these slightly darker ideas in which I realised this whole journey, not just within the band but within my own life in general, feels a bit like when you leave school and have no idea what you’re doing”.
“The forced time off allowed me to reflect on all of that, whilst touching on experiences going back to my childhood which also influenced the album, and it was really cathartic to be able to do that,” he openly shares. “I feel like, where ‘Life’s A Beach’ is about cruising through life in an oblivious sense, ‘Maybe In Another Life’ is about realising it’s time to get your act together.”
Coming to terms with the fact nobody ever has a real clue with what they’re doing in life was a pivotal moment for the band. “I think it’s around this age where you evaluate all these things,” Murray notes. “You compare yourself to other people’s success and feel like you haven’t got anything sorted. You almost feel like you have been lying to yourself because you’ve been pretending most of your life,” he adds. “I realised I don’t need to lie about it anymore and that being honest about it emphasises how you can’t run away from yourself. You have to face your fears. Maybe I’m making it sound deeper than it is but I don’t know, I feel very introverted most of the time and that’s where most of my writing comes from.”
In making this record, Matravers set out to find where Easy Life fits in the world which is yet to come to a conclusion. “The world is constantly changing and I don’t think anyone in our generation really knows which way to go,” he begins. “It’s a crazy time to be young and, in the bands instance, as long as we keep evolving and getting better then we can be happy with ourselves. Finding where we fit in the world is an ongoing search because we never want to stay in the same place musically or thematically. We want to continue to grow. As long as we’re constantly trying to find that position and push through barriers, I’d class that as progress, wouldn’t you?”
On first listen, the bouncy production masks the darkness underneath. “I’ve always been super surface level when talking about things but I think I had to go deeper than that this time round,” states Matravers. “I’m constantly on the search for new ways to manage things such as anxiety and finding peace with the world and I’d say music is the main outlet that really helps me,” he admits carefully.
“Discussing anxiety isn’t a new phenomenon for me, we touch on it a fair bit in ‘Nightmares’, but I will say, with the way we put it across on this record, it feels a lot more in-depth,” he points out. “I feel like music is a form of therapy in that sense. If I can dive deep enough to get to the root of my problems by using music then it feels like I get to know myself a little bit better. I feel like you’re halfway to figuring your problems out when you can’t say them out loud but can articulate them on a creative level.”
Despite the absence of external stresses, undeniable mental turmoil meant everything else could become more complicated and the need to check in with oneself more apparent. “I’ve always felt the need to step back or to check in with myself,” says Murray. “Recently, I’ve realised I need to address a lot of shit in my life otherwise it’s just going to build up and constantly be there”.
“You’ve got to stop and think things through which is something I’ve been working on a lot. I’ve been experimenting with different remedies to try and become a better human with music being my first port of call,” he openly admits. “I only ever write music when I feel anxious, even the upbeat happier, sounding stuff. I turn those anxieties into a way of trying to feel happy so it’s rarely about me celebrating those true feelings.”
—
—
It was with escapism that taking such feelings and twisting them to fit their genre-blending sound that the record began taking shape. “Take ‘Beeswax’ for example! I’m portraying a cocky and arrogant character in the song but at the time of recording, I felt nothing like that,” Matravers notes. “The song enabled me to escape myself,” he expresses. “I think that if you can embody a character that’s way more flamboyant and more extroverted than yourself, then it helps you unfold new elements of your creativeness and helps expand on any feelings or emotions in a new way.”
Bringing in characters to convey different feelings and emotions allowed for further experimentation and spills over into the future of Easy Life. “One thing I want to explore further going forward is how we’re made up of these tiny little pieces, or characters if you must, that come together to form our identities,” begins Murray. “I want to use the different versions of myself to write and produce music and recording ‘Beeswax’ the way we did was one step in that direction”.
“Drawing on the idea of a character allowed the anxious and introverted version of myself to leave the room for a few hours and, through pitch shifting and voice alterations, the character had its own voice,” he points out. “With Easy Life, we always have to be a little bit terrified and introverted or it doesn’t come across very authentically. Skewing the vocals, going between my own voice and an altered version, kept both aspects alive and helps the song feel less boring. It gives it variety and is something I want to do more of.”
Part of the records magic, however, is highlighted through the features within and how those people influenced the band themselves though it remains Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract who has made the biggest impression on the group. “We’ve been fans of Brockhampton for as long as we can remember,” he recalls. “We’ve looked up to them in the sense that their music is provocative and different each time which is something we’ve always aspired to achieve”.
“Getting the chance to work with Kevin was insane. It’s still a bit crazy to even think about how it came about,” he elaborates. “I had pretty much finished the album at this point, I was just doing the last few mixes, and I was hanging out with the group in the studio. Kevin was playing me his latest project and in return, I played him some of our record. He reacted most to ‘Dear Miss Holloway’ and within twenty minutes, he put a verse on it”.
“I was super inspired by the rate at which he can work. If anything, witnessing his work ethic made me realise how lazy I am. He’s always working,” he exaggerates. “Having him on the track with us is so special. He’s a really good dude too! He looked out for me a lot when I was in LA because it can get quite lonely. He was a really good friend so I owe him a lot.”
The upcoming year promises to be a big one for the band as their future plans consist of embarking on their ‘Maybe In Another Life’ tour but that’s not before a well-deserved break. “For the rest of the year I’m going to rest,” Matravers exclaims. “We were saying recently how it felt like we were on tour for ages because we were doing so much,” he expresses. “We still have our record store shows to do but, to be honest, we need to chill out after this. I’m looking forward to spending some time at home, playing the PlayStation and maybe writing new music again.”
—
‘MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE…’ is out now.
Words: Shannon Garner
