If you’re an artist, musical or otherwise, a five year gap between projects is a lifetime. This holds true for the apprentice setting the foundation for what is to come, to a calloused veteran filled with battle scars from years of honing their craft.
Five years after their debut album Watercolor Days, Eggy has finally released their sophomore art project, the appropriately named Waiting Game. Not only does the title perfectly capture the gap between albums, it equally captures the gap between the recording the of album and its release. That was well over a year.
Leave it to the old souls parading in the young bodies of Eggy’s Jake Brownstein (guitar, vocals), Dani Battat (piano/keys, vocals), Michael Goodman (bass, vocals), and Alex Bailey (drums, vocals) to throw several curveballs at what their uber engaged fan base was expecting for their half decade wait for fresh Eggy.
One of the band’s greatest strengths is all four members can sing. And do so very well. They showcase that skill over a hundred times a year in front of a rapidly growing audience. Their youthful exuberance allows them to fearlessly attack a wide range of musical styles. From vocal legends Crosby, Stills, and Nash to modern bands such as Fleet Foxes or Fruit Bats, Eggy is always up for the challenge of filling their music with the flavors of their favorites.
As Eggy’s fans patiently awaited the release of the band’s second album, visions of each member taking vocals for a song or two seemed plausible. The album would surely cover the wide range of their musical influences. With their insane roster of covers and a unique synergy creating their original music, that’s been the band’s modus operandi the last few years. But this is Eggy. They don’t do things like others.
Once again, the wise four put Team Eggy ahead of individual acclaim. And once again, the resulting Waiting Game further cements their spot right in the middle of the music scene they dreamed of inhabiting since they were kids.
The biggest curveball from Waiting Game is the fact Bailey sings every song. Given their vocal abilities, that’s an incredible sacrifice by Brownstein, Battat, and Goodman for the good of the group. Bailey didn’t bring in ten of his songs and the band chose them over their own. Brownstein and Battat handed the vocals of several of the songs they had created to Bailey. Because for Team Eggy, that’s what was best for the group.
Another curveball is the tightness and intentional modern sound of the recording. There are no extended jams and solos which are commonplace in an Eggy concert. While Eggy has never identified as a jam band, their nightly 20 minute plus excursions have justifiably landed them in that category. Eggy specifically set out to make Waiting Game a “bizzarro” jam band record. One you can listen to from start to finish with each song standing alone. Yet, still fitting into the overall puzzle that is Waiting Game.
Slide&Banjo sat down with Bailey for a deep dive into the making of the album and their Eggy-esque way of bringing the new music to their fans. He also looks forward to a long list of what everyone can expect from Eggy in 2025.
Bailey, who’s responsible for the band’s numerous audio releases, begins by discussing how those skills led to the band making a bold decision to have him sing all the songs on Waiting Game.
“It was mid recording process. Jake and Dani write most of the songs. They wanted to have a bit of a shootout in a way of who could sing the songs in the initial phases of writing. I recorded my vocals on the demos. I’m proficient with pro tools and running a session. I can record my vocals quickly. I can add harmonies and help flush out the song with whoever wrote it.”
Bailey continues, “We started to have a collection of demos that all had my voice on it. The initial plan was to try out each of our vocals and see who fits each song. More and more, Jake and Dani started to realize there was a sound starting to form with this collection of songs with my voice. The idea started to form for me to sing on everything. There were a couple of songs, Jake was going to sing one and Dani sing one. During the recording process, it felt strange to change up the singer for one or two songs. So, it landed on me. I’m happy with the product and it seems like the rest of the guys are happy with it. It seems to be received well.”
The band worked with White Denim’s James Petralli who produced the album. Bailey reflects on how the band’s busy schedule dictated how they recorded Waiting Game. “It became increasingly hard to record music ourselves when we’re on the road. Trying to fit in a couple of days of recording, then be gone two weeks. Come back and try recording for a few days. When you leave something you’re working on that long, you lose a connection with it.”
“That’s why we decided to do three weeks straight in California on this album.” Bailey remembers. “We wanted to live inside of it. We didn’t want to go away and come back. Three weeks was the perfect time to not get sick of the songs. With ten songs we could dive in on one song. Then be like, let’s come back to that. Let’s go to a different song. We could jump around tracking different things on different songs. That process worked so well. When we decide to do our next album which will be sooner than later, we’ll probably do something similar.”
The band spent the three weeks living together while recording the album. Finding places to sleep on couches or wherever they could fit. Nothing new for the band who used every second they allocated to recording. “We were used to sleeping in close quarters. At that point we had been living together for five years. On the road we share the same hotel room. Nothing new for us. One for all and all for one.”
Bailey adds, “We recorded everything up to literally the last minute we had in the studio. We stayed up until 4 a.m. the last night trying to finish everything. Three weeks was the perfect time. We didn’t have any songs that got cut. We recorded the ten songs and that’s what it needed to be.”
With their recording sessions in the can and an album that wouldn’t be released for over a year, the band had a big decision to make. How were they going to introduce these songs to an audience ravenous for new material? The common practice is to play the songs live letting them slowly take shape before recording them in the studio. Another method is to not play the songs until the album is released. As usual, Eggy took a different route as only they can. Bailey explains.
“We felt so close to the original recordings. We wanted that to be the first thing people heard from this music. At first, we weren’t going to play these songs until the album came out. Once we realized how long it was going to be until it came out, we were like ok. We were excited about the music and wanted to play something new and exciting. We decided to play the songs live, but the middle ground was we’re not going to release them. If you were there in person you would hear the song. If you were at home you couldn’t be like let’s check out the new Eggy song. There’s a difference between living in the moment, being in front of us playing it versus being at home judging the song for the first time based on the live recording. We put so much effort and detail in the layers of the recording. We really wanted to let those shine before having everyone’s opinion. We talked about it after the fact whether it was effective or the right decision. I don’t think we’ve come to a solid conclusion. No regrets.”
Ready to introduce their new material into their live shows, Eggy had to figure out how to translate the multi layered studio recordings into something the four members could tackle on stage. “There’s a couple of things that go into playing them differently on the road. Our producer James Petralli had a plethora of gear and crazy synths from the 60’s and 70’s. There’s a certain sound when you try to recreate it with digital keyboards or digital sounds it doesn’t hit the same way. In Laurel there are certain keyboard sounds we tried to recreate and got really close to it. Certain sounds in other songs it felt better energy wise to have Dani lay on the organ or go to the clav to add a little bounce. There’s only four of us. In the recording there’s up to 92 tracks. There’s 92 members of Eggy on the recording. We have to make sacrifices that end up leading to cool creative decisions.”
Coming up in part two, Bailey gets to the heart of each song on the album. He also discusses how the band’s Google Drive is ground zero for all things Eggy. On a personal level, Bailey looks back at 2024 and the numerous bucket list items he crossed off. He’ll also look forward to what Team Eggy has in store for 2025. Stay tuned.