Eliza and the Delusionals
interview + photos by alex free
Eliza and the Delusionals are the Gold Coast band making their own reality.
Eliza and the Delusionals started out as the solo career of Eliza Klatt, the cheeky add-on ‘the Delusionals,’ being Eliza’s tongue-in-cheek reference to an imaginary band for a solo project she thought know one would care about.
5 years later, the Gold Coast band is just coming off their first US tour with their newly-added fourth member, about to launch off on a US second tour, and on the cusp of releasing their second EP, ‘The State of Living in an Objective Reality,’ out March 20. The album, out via Cooking Vinyl, centers on that feeling of having no control, no voice that Eliza felt at the time of writing the music, even while Eliza in real-time keeps weighing her daydreams against the world and watching them play out before her eyes.
Their songs are reckless and relentless serenades of youth and feeling, unaware of being jaded or apathetic, stalwartly combatting feelings of being defeated. And they are occasionally, as is most apparent on the track ‘Swimming Pool,’ sidelong love songs: the presence of someone close, someone maybe even to cling to is palpable, even in the mix of loneliness and fighting to be heard and understood.
‘I’m just a girl in a rose-colored world / maybe that’s all you’ll let me be.
I’m just a girl, I know how this goes / you see the loneliness in me.
I’m just a girl in a rose-colored world / you see the loneliness in me.’
The music is well-balanced and full, an artful blend of wavering and warm guitar tones, even drumming, arching melodies, aching guitar riffs full of nostalgia; Eliza’s voice clear and bright.
And the band of the Delusionals is flourishing—their live set is flush with motion and high-kicks, spontaneity and camaraderie, a blend of showmanship and fantasy that will leave you flushed and almost glowing in the dark afterwards.
Catch Eliza and the Delusionals on tour with PVRIS in May and June throughout the US. Read below as the band talks their first tour through the US, the forming of the Delusionals, ‘The State of Living in an Objective Reality,’ and creating a cinematic experience for their fans.
// Interview with Eliza and the Delusionals //
Alex Free: So this is your first tour in the US. How’s it been?
Eliza Klatt: It’s been so much fun! We just finished with Silversun Pickups, and they’re the best people in the world. They were so nice to us, and I feel like they’ve ruined touring for us, because they were so nice and everyone with them was really nice as well.
And we played the biggest venues we’ve ever played. Like the Wiltern in LA was amazing, and the Fox Theatre in Oakland was really gorgeous as well. It just couldn’t have gone better for us. We had so much fun; nothing really went wrong, which is weird for us, because things always go wrong [laughs].
AF: Has the US been welcoming?
EK: We get here and every person has been so nice. Especially at the venues, everyone has been so helpful and kind to us. We’ve visited before on holidays and such but I think going more into the central states, where we didn’t know what to expect, was really really cool. It’s different from our home; we have so many different kinds of fans here. Even doing our first-ever headline shows, we’ve had probably more people then we would get in Sydney, or Melbourne, in these cities we’ve never been.
AF: Any tour highlights?
Ruby Lee: Kurt never missing a shot.
EK: Yeah, Kurt throwing everything into the bin every time.
I think playing at the Wiltern Theatre was a highlight because we were so excited for that one. Just getting here was a highlight as well, because the visa process from Australia to America is so difficult. Especially for a working visa it’s so hard and expensive. And every time we got to spend with Silversun Pickups was so much fun.
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Kurt Skuse: Every day was the best experience; we didn’t come with expectations of anything, and then we were just blown every day. Like they gave us their hotel accommodations one night to stay in because we didn’t have any, and that was so nice. Every day there was a different thing.
EK: The last show we played with them at the Fillmore Theatre, actually that was the highlight. We were playing ‘Just Exist,’ that’s our last song on the set. And I saw Chris, the drummer, in the corner, and he had a tambourine and he held it up. And I was like ‘come out’ and he was like ‘one sec,’ and then all of the band and all of their crew came out on stage with like..
KS: Cowbells..
EK: ..and different shakers. And it was so, so cool. I don’t know, we all had tears in our eyes. I’ve been listening to that band since I was 15. And we invaded their stage when they were playing ‘Lazy Eye.’
KS: I rode in on a little pink Charles moped scooter onstage, and he [Ashley] had like Wayne’s World outfit.
Ashley Martin: I raided the Wayne’s World cupboard and put on a hat and everything and had a foam guitar, and jumped up on the drum stage with Chris.
KS: And Chris jumped off the drum kit into our arms.
AM: We practice in a venue where we were getting him to jump into our arms. And with no rehearsal he just jumps into our arms and is like ‘catch me, catch me!’ and then just jumped off.
AF: Can you tell me your story? How you got together as a band.
EK: I started the band in like 2015, as Eliza and the Delusionals, because I didn’t think that I would ever find band mates that gave a fuck about the songs that I was writing as much as I did. Tex [Ashley] I knew through University, through a mutual friend, and someone that was playing guitar sort of ditched like two weeks out before a little tour that I had booked myself sort of thing. And then Tex kindly joined. He had barely even spoken to me.
Ash: It was like a two-day thing; two days out it was like, ‘hey, we really need you to come out,’ so I said okay.
EK: And the rest is history. Kurt and I actually grew up together, so we’ve known each other since we were little kids. We separated because he went to a different high school, and then through the music scene at home we reconnected, and he joined the band. He was originally playing bass, but then we wanted to expand the line-up, and that’s where Ruby comes in. Ruby was opening for us in a different band, playing bass, and we were looking for a bass player.
RL: Tex and I kind of knew each other, we all sort of knew of each other, because the scene in Brisbane pretty small. But that was the first time we all properly met, and saw each other play.
EK: It all sort of fell into place. Over the years everything just fell into place. There were lots of ups and downs, but here we are.
AF: So it was just you, initially?
EK: It was, that’s why I called it Eliza and the Delusionals. The idea was that it was just me, but then after I met everyone I was like, ‘this is a proper band now.’
AF: What do you want us to take away from your live experience, or what do you want to give your audience?
KS: Just really massive shows. I always say [we want it to be] like a movie, like when you go to the theatres, and you’re there for two or three hours and you’re just watching that, and nothing else matters at that time, and you can go away from it hopefully feeling better than you did before. Taking something personal away from it.
EK: You know when you make eye-contact with your favorite artist on stage and you’re like, ‘oh my god, they just looked at me?’ Or you know when you go home, and the next day you get like post-concert depression? Like you’re devastated that the experience is over. That’s what we aspire to be.
KS: It’s a cinematic feeling. It’s like an energy, almost. Can be taken away from every day things.
EK: Music’s our escape from the world. So it’s cool that we can all experience it together.
KS: Whatever you can do to make things not feel real.
AF: Can you talk a little bit about making your own reality? And that with the name of the release that’s coming up, ‘A State of Living in an Objective Reality.’
KS: Eliza and I were in New York over December, over Christmas, and we had to turn around artwork really quickly, and a name for our submission. So we went around, just for a double A-side, 7” sort of thing, so we did that on Eliza’s phone. We took some photos in Central Park, and we were like cool, we need a name. We were thinking ‘what would sum up the EP?’ It needs to be a phrase that goes, ‘this is what the songs are about,’ and that’s essentially what it is. It was Eliza’s point of life where she was just living in this objective reality, where anything she would say wasn’t really coherent with anything going on around her. That was just how she had to live, and that’s how it was. And I feel like all of the songs from start to finish, top to bottom of the EP, that’s what they encapsulate.
AF: Not coherent with anything..?
KS: What the songs are about was just a point in her life where things weren’t going the way, necessarily, that she wanted them to or that we wanted them to. [They’re about] not having any control over a situation, or your life. So just an objective reality. State of living. Being forced to live a certain way, essentially.
EK: I think it’s a really cool concept, and when Kurt said it and explained I was like, ‘that’s it exactly, that’s perfect for the songs.’
AF: Do you feel, coming out of that recording process and writing the album, like you’re in a place now where you have more control over your life?
EK: Yes, so much better. My life is very different, now. I feel like before we went into the studio, I feel like all of us, the band, and our individual lives, were going through really weird times, like break-ups and weird things. And just as we got into the studio, things were starting to get better. And we went and did ‘Just Exist,’ and it was kind of a release of everything that’s been going on. And we felt so proud of it, we got out and we were like, this is really good, I feel like this is the next step for us, musically.
KS: It’s quite the opposite, it’s like subjectivity personified. It’s very much opposite to what it was.
EK: And this EP, we’re just so proud of the songs. We’ve had the songs in our live set and in our catalogue for ages, so it’s nice to finally give them a home, and move forward from that.
AF: Great. So you’re just kind of in a state of making your own life, these days.
EK: Yes. Trying to. Living on the road.
AM: One RV adventure at a time.
Stream Eliza and the Delusionals + see
upcoming tour dates below:
UPDATE: Tour Dates are currently suspended until further notice due to COVID-19. Updates will be made as soon as possible regarding new scheduling!
