“Five Minutes With” indie dream rock band Crystal Eyes

Crystal Eyes is an indie dream rock band with touchstones of psych, shoegaze, 60’s pop and 90’s grunge. Drawing on a vast array of musical influences, landscapes and collaborations, they craft soft happy/sad rock. Their newest album, The Sweetness Restored, described as a ‘feel-good self-help record for the age of existential dread,’ was recorded in Montreal with production/engineering from Andrew Woods (Woods Andrews/The Operators), co-production support from Basia Bulat and mixing by Mark Lawson, a Grammy-Award-winning engineer/producer.

Crystal Eyes
Photo by: Walter E. Neuman

Name:

Crystal Eyes

Genre:

Indie Rock/Shoegaze/Psych

Founded:

2016

# of Albums:

2 full-lengths, 1 EP and 1 split (with Marlaena Moore)

Latest Album:

The Sweetness Restored

Latest Single:

Wishes

Latest Video:

Favourite musician growing up:

Sonic Youth

Favourite musician now:

Literally impossible to choose. If you count the stats, Katy J. Pearson was my #1 artist last year.

Guilty pleasure song:

Anything musical theatre, anything country, and I will dance to any pop song.

Live show ritual:

Garlic fries from the Palomino. And vocal warm-ups.

Favourite local musician:

Lab Coast

EP or LP?

I love the journey of an LP.

Early bird or night owl?

Both! I am a morning person but I also love staying up late.

Road or studio?

Studio. There’s nothing more fun.

Where can we follow you? 

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp

***

Rapid Fire Calgary Qs

Favourite local restaurant:

Pho Dau Bo in Forest Lawn for best pho. Also the vegan nacho cheese and a mezcal cocktail at Vegan Street Taco Bar in Inglewood. Lulu bar when I’m feeling fancy. Cinnamon Indian for ordering in.

Favourite street in your city:

8th ave in Inglewood in the summertime, so many cute gardens.

Favourite park in your city:

Calgary has SO many nice parks, it’s one of the best features of the city. I’ll go with the slightly lesser known Pearce Estates Park — it has river rapids and lots of wetland habitat for bird watching.

Favourite music venue in your city:

The Palomino – they’ve got bands, they’ve got BBQ, it feels like a bar that would be at home in Austin, Texas. I just saw a show at the old Planetarium theatre (now an art gallery, Contemporary Calgary) and it’s a super cool space, I hope more live music can happen there!

Favourite music store in your city:

I normally hate big box stores, but I gotta give this one to Long and McQuade. There are lots of great record shops in the city too. The Crossroads Farmers Market is a good spot to fill out your collection with classic albums (both records and cassettes).

 

 

About Demian Vernieri 668 Articles
Demian is an Argentinian retired musician, avid gamer and editor for the Montréal Guardian, Toronto Guardian, Calgary Guardian and Vancouver Guardian websites.