Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A (Eleanor): Joel grew up overseas in remote places like Myanmar and Mozambique, where he wasn’t really exposed to music. At age 11, the family moved to Malaysia, and that’s where he first experienced music played on the radio. It was love at first sight – Joel asked for a guitar, and the rest is history! It’s also worth noting that he had no access to a left-handed guitar as a child, so despite being left-handed, he plays right-handed guitars to this day.
I grew up in a very musical family – my great auntie loved to sing and record family events, my dad would drum on any available surface, and on my mom’s side there were several generations of poets (although she prefers prose). They were all young during a very oppressive time (communism) in Transylvania, so no one got to “make it”. But I got all these valuable influences from my family – learning Hungarian folk songs from my great aunt, the greats of rock n roll from my dad, and literary classics from my mom.
Q: Can you describe the musical style of Joel X Eleanor in three words?
A: Melodic, Vibrant, Loud
Q: How do you stay connected with your fans, and what role do they play in shaping your musical journey?
A: Any way we can! A lot of younger fans are not very active online, which is understandable; there’s a lot of noise and danger online. It’s quite difficult to stay in touch, but then sometimes we get a comment from someone we haven’t seen in months, and it makes it feel so worth it!
Q: You have just released your new double release, ‘Garden Plot – Something Strange’. Is there a story behind it?
A: They’re 2 love songs that are quite different from each other, so we thought they’d fit well together.
I wrote Garden Plot back in 2023, using a French cafe jazz style tune that Joel was fiddling around with – it was the French Song draft in my notebook for quite a while! The inspiration behind it was Joel asking me to give him flowers. I thought that cut flowers wilt and die, so digging a garden plot and putting in the effort to plant flowers was a much more meaningful and permanent way to show love. The lyrics were meant to express that loving feeling. But Joel took the song and made the music dark and heavy, revealing this sinister obsessive subtext to the lyrics!
Something Strange is our only song where Joel attempted to write lyrics. He wanted to describe the feeling of confusion and disbelief that he had when I first moved in with him – waking up in the middle of the night and being surprised that he wasn’t alone anymore. I also love to paint, and I loved the theme of colors in the chorus (“I see colors, orange and black”), so I came up with this very emotional bridge following that theme.
Q: What is your favorite part of the two songs and why?
A: The bridge in Something Strange! Also the twinkly guitars at the start of Garden Plot.
Q: Can you walk us through the creative process of producing this release?
A: With this release, we really reached a point of maturity in how we approached the project. We started in a more structured way, knowing what we wanted to bring out of the song, but we also allowed ourselves the freedom to add something unexpected into the mix, like the aluminium Christmas tree we used as percussion on Garden Plot!
Q: What has been the most memorable concert or performance for Joel X Eleanor so far?
A: Our first performance with our new drummer Flora! She comes from a jazz/soul background, so it was really nice to expose her to a rock jam at the Fiddler’s Elbow! We played our set, then one of the guitarists at the jam asked to play Back to Black by Amy Winehouse (coincidentally, Flora’s favourite artist!). Joel handed the guitarist the distortion pedal saying the song can’t be played without it, which was strange but he sounds very authoritative, so everyone accepted it – we found out later he thought the song would be Back in Black by AC/DC!
Q: Reflecting on your body of work, each song holding its unique significance, could you share a particular track that stands out to you personally? What makes that specific tune special, and why does it hold a place of pride in your musical journey?
A: Did I, without a doubt. It was the first song where we really learned how to work together, and where our style emerged. It’s funny because it’s a song that started from a poem, and a basic rhythm, to which Joel came up with a tune and arrangement, but the majority of our songs start from a tune and arrangements, followed by the lyrics.
Q: Exploring the diverse creative processes within the music industry is always fascinating. Could you provide insight into Joel X Eleanor’s unique approach to crafting music? From the initial spark of an idea to the finished song, how do you navigate the creative journey and bring its musical concepts to life?
A (Eleanor): Most of our songs start with Joel fiddling around on the guitar. Sometimes he’s got a tune to go with it, sometimes I fill in the blanks. Once the tune and groove have taken shape, I try to figure out what the song feels like, what’s the major theme, what images can I pick up straightaway? Have we been singing a silly line over this at some point, could it make sense with the emotional context of the melody?
Then I get to work on the words – first, I figure out where everything is (verse, bridge, chorus, etc.), what message I want to convey, any lines that are already in my head, then find the right words for each line. From there we keep refining the song, sometimes up until the very end, when during recording we may decide to change the way I sing something, or to add another layer of harmonies.
Q: As we wrap up our conversation, looking ahead, what aspirations or dreams do you have, and what message would you like to share with your fans as they continue to accompany you on this musical journey?
A: We want to really make it, to have our music heard, to have people singing along to our songs. We want our fans to know they’re not alone.
