Fire In Her Eyes (Credit: Callum Shaw)
Fire In Her Eyes on Scrapping an Album and Starting Over With Youth
Back in 2023, Fire In Her Eyes had a finished version of this album, and threw it away.
North London sisters Daniella and Natasha Livingstone have been writing together since they were twelve, and by that point they’d already learned to trust the shared instinct. The record had carried them through a pandemic, Daniella’s leukaemia diagnosis and treatment, and months split between their childhood home and a hospital ward, before they sat down with the musicians who’d played on it and realised something still wasn’t right. What came out the other side, once producer Youth got involved, is “Look Into The Sky”: a record that moves between psych folk, progressive rock and jazz, built on demos cut during a songwriting trip to Tenerife and artwork from 1960s visual pioneer Karl Ferris. With the album now out and live dates stacking up, Daniella and Natasha talk to Jason Barnard about how the record finally found its shape.
You must have had your own ideas about what “Look Into The Sky” was when you finished it. Has the positive reaction to it revealed anything about the album that you hadn’t seen yourself?
We always knew the album had its own character, but the reaction has made us realise just how much there is in it for people to connect with. Because we were so personally close to the record for so long, we became used to hearing all the layers and complexities. Hearing other people’s thoughts has made us appreciate that the album can mean something different depending on who is listening. It’s been reassuring to know that the more unusual, adventurous parts of the record can still connect with people.
You’ve described discovering progressive rock and instrumental jazz as what pushed the sound toward this album. Was there a specific record or artist that did it, or was it more of a slow accumulation?
It was more of a gradual accumulation. We were constantly discovering new music and listening to a lot of progressive rock and instrumental jazz, and naturally those influences started finding their way into the composing. A few artists to name would be: King Crimson, Camel, Soft Machine, Sweet Smoke, Jethro Tull, CSN, Focus, ELP, the list goes on…
We’ve always had a very broad musical palette, so we don’t really try to sound like one particular artist. By listening to a big range of artists, we absorbed different ideas and let them come out naturally in the writing, That’s probably why the album moves between psych folk, pop, jazzier passages and more experimental arrangements.
With such a broad shared musical knowledge between you, how do you actually divide the work when arranging a song? Is there a natural split in who leads on what, or does everything get made by committee?
Daniella: When we’re working together, it can start with anything, a melody, lyric, chord pattern or just an idea/ concept. We’ll develop the structure, instrumentation and arrangement together, and because we have such a shared musical language, we usually know instinctively when something is working. We also make mind maps and research concepts together, which can really shape the direction of a song.
Natasha: When we’re writing together it’s like second nature. Once we’ve got an idea down, some of our songs usually write themselves. We like to go away on our own ‘songwriting retreats’, where we switch off from the outside world and tune in. That’s how ‘Too Late to Change’, ‘He Cries’ and ‘Passers By’ came about when we were in Tenerife (after spending the week before recording with Youth). For the rest of the songs on the album, Daniella had written them during lockdown and the hospital period. When she showed them to me, I knew she was onto something. I saw the vision. So we tweaked a few bits, showed them to Youth, and recorded the album.
The album was started before the pandemic, paused through Daniella’s treatment. Daniella, you’ve said songwriting was the main thing that kept you going through chemo. Were any songs influenced through that difficult period, or did your relationship to existing ones change?
Daniella: Definitely. Music became the main thing that kept me going through the treatment. ‘Juggling Clown’ was particularly important because it came at a turning point when my blood count went up and I started to feel happiness again. The song uses the image of a juggling clown to represent our thoughts, how they can constantly move between positive and negative.
‘Sooner or Later’ came after a difficult breakup and became a way of processing those emotions. So the songs were very much connected to what I was experiencing, although not every song was directly linked to that year window in the hospital. If anything, the whole experience made music even more important to both of us. It became a way of processing things that were sometimes very hard to put into words.
The album keeps returning to clowns, puppets, birds, lighthouses and seekers, imagery you’ve said came from sitting on the roof during lockdown. Once you had that imagery, did it shape the running order, or did the songs find each other afterwards?
The imagery appeared quite naturally when we sitting on the roof during lockdown, looking out into the garden and the nature around us and writing some of the first tracks. It started to feel like there was a new world being created. Didn’t necessarily sit down and construct everything around that imagery, though. It came apparent through the songs and gradually became a thread running through the album. The songs almost found each other as the album developed.
You had a full version of the album recorded in 2023 before deciding it wasn’t finished. That’s a tricky decision to make – what was missing and how did you address it?
It was difficult because we’d already put so much time and work into the recordings, but when we listened to the album together with the musicians who had played on it, we all felt that something was missing. The songs felt unfinished, particularly in terms of production/ textural depth.
That’s when we realised we needed to take it further rather than simply release something because it was technically finished. We went back in, reworked parts, added new layers and developed the production much more. It was a lot of work, but ultimately it was worth it. That process also taught us a huge amount about production, arrangement and recording.
How did Youth get involved and what did he add to the record?
A good friend of ours, Ross, suggested we contact Youth. We’d previously recorded backing vocals at his place during a session, so there was already a connection. We went for coffee with Ross and told him that we felt the album was missing something, and he suggested Youth might be the guy.
We contacted him and he invited us over to listen to the material. From then on, we started working together. He brought a very new perspective and understood how to bring out the psychedelic side of the songs without losing what was already there. He became the missing puzzle piece for the album.
“Too Late To Change” started as one of the Tenerife demos before you and Youth revisited it in the studio. What changed in the arrangement between that demo and the version that came out?
The Tenerife demos captured the songs in a much more raw and immediate form. When we revisited ‘Too Late To Change’ with Youth, we were able to explore the production much further, e.g. adding mellotron.
That was really the approach across the album… taking the original songwriting as the foundation and then allowing the arrangements and production to evolve around it.
Beyond “Psychedelic Lighthouse,” where the ending became the new chorus and the old chorus got pushed back to the bridge, was there another track that came out of the Crescent Studios rework almost unrecognisable once Youth had been through it?
‘Psychedelic Lighthouse’ is probably the clearest example because the structure changed so dramatically, but there were lots of smaller transformations across the album. Youth encouraged us to think beyond the original arrangements and experiment with layers, textures and structure.
The whole reworking process made us more adventurous. Rather than being precious about the original recordings, we became willing to take things apart and rebuild them if that made the music stronger.
“He Cries” is written as a character rather than as either of you directly, even though you’ve said it does reflect some of the doubts you feel as musicians. Has anyone who’s heard it since release told you they read their own situation into it in a way that was surprising?
Yes, and that’s actually one of the things we hoped would happen with the song. Although the character is a musician, the message is much broader than that. There are moments when anyone can feel like they’re performing to an empty room, wondering whether it’s going to change.
We didn’t write it directly about ourselves, but we wanted the character to represent that universal feeling of struggling and trying to convince yourself to keep going. So when people relate their own experiences to it, that’s really meaningful to us. It means the character has become something beyond the story we originally created.
“Juggling Clown” marked a real turning point for you personally, Daniella. Now it’s out in the world and being heard by people with no idea what sits behind it, what’s it like performing or talking about that song in a promotional context?
Daniella: It’s quite emotional, because I know exactly what that song represents to me, but I also don’t want people to feel that they have to know the story behind it in order to connect with it. The imagery of the juggling clown gives the song its own meaning… our thoughts constantly juggling between good and bad.
It’s special being able to perform it now because we are singing it from a completely different place than when it was written. At the time, it represented a turning point for health. Now it also represents how far we’ve come since then.
What led to Karl Ferris being involved and once you saw the finished artwork, was it close to what you’d pictured, or did he take it somewhere you hadn’t imagined?
We met Karl through Instagram and connected almost immediately. His work was already incredibly important to us, particularly the Hendrix album sleeves, his work with Donovan and the incredible photography and artwork he created around the 60s psychedelic era.
He understood what we were trying to do straight away. On our first phone call, he said something along the lines of, ‘The cover has to be dynamite’, and he absolutely followed through. He captured that 60s energy while giving it a modern feeling, which is exactly what we wanted. When we saw the finished artwork, it felt incredibly special.
You’ve said the second album is more acoustically led. Is that a reaction against the psychedelic density of this one, or was it just where the new songs wanted to go?
It’s much more where the new songs naturally wanted to go. We don’t really like imposing rules on the music. With ‘Look Into The Sky’, we allowed the songs to become as expansive and psychedelic as they needed to be, and the second album is naturally taking us somewhere more acoustic.
That doesn’t mean we’ve abandoned the heavier psychedelic side of Fire In Her Eyes. It’s more about exploring another side of our sound. We’re already well into writing it, and we’re really excited about where it’s going to go.
How have your live dates gone and what have you planned for the rest of the year?
The live shows have been really exciting because they give us the chance to experience the songs in a completely different way. The record has so many layers and textures, so bringing that into a live setting is a challenge, but also something we really enjoy.
We’re continuing to develop the live show and our plans are very much focused on taking the music further.
We currently have an intimate duo night at Piano Smithfield, 30th October, where we will playing just the two of us for an hour and a half. Then on the 12th December, the full band will be playing at The Grace for a Fire In Her Eyes event.
Next March we have something very exciting in the pipelines…. a UK co-headline tour, we will announce details very soon.
We’d love to travel with the music across America, Europe and eventually the whole world, both as a duo and with the full band. At the same time, we’re continuing to work on the second album, there’s a lot happening behind the scenes.
