Youthful Eisley shapes magical imagery into magical sounds
Sherri Dupree insists that her band's songs are just love songs, a natural outgrowth of the music she and her siblings listened to in their formative years, from the Beatles to classic musicals. But the Eisley guitarist knows all too well how her band is often perceived.
''That's something people always make fun of us for: 'They write songs about fairies,' " Dupree says. ''Just for the record, we have no song with the word 'fairy' or 'fairies' in it."
She does, however, acknowledge the importance of Disney films such as ''Sleeping Beauty" and ''Beauty and the Beast," as well as C.S. Lewis. '''The Chronicles of Narnia'-- that had a big influence on me when I was growing up," she says. ''I read those when I was 8 or 9 years old, and I was so impacted by those kind of stories that I think they just ended up being ingrained into our heads and they come out in our writing still, to this day."
Indeed, Eisley's songs are full of imagery that borders on the magical, if not mythical. On last year's excellent ''Room Noises," the five-piece band (which headlines the Paradise tonight) sings of spontaneous flight, bees celebrating unexpected romance with airborne pollen sculptures, and music itself growing from seeds planted by loved ones past. All of it sways as in a sepia-tinted dream, with Sherri and her keyboard-playing younger sister, Stacy, trading off their honey-thick vocals from verse to verse and singing in fractured harmony.
The band may have only a single album to its credit, but it's hardly a debut: The musicians are practically veterans, with a handful of EPs and tours with bands as diverse as Coldplay, Switchfoot, and Reggie and the Full Effect. Bear in mind that when they were doing all that, Eisley was an unsigned band whose members had an average age of 18.
The band's roots are firmly planted in Tyler, Texas, two hours east of Dallas. When Sherri and her sister Chauntelle started playing guitar almost 10 years ago, it was only natural that Stacy wanted to join in. It was also natural that they resisted.
''She was 8 years old and she was like the baby sister who was really annoying, and so we wouldn't let her," says Sherri. ''She ended up writing a song on her own and she showed it to us, and it was so good for her age. We hadn't even written a whole song by ourselves yet, so we started writing with each other after that, and we just haven't stopped." Brother Weston soon joined on drums -- ''I guess that was just the natural thing for him to do, being the guy" -- and Eisley was born.
A decade later, their youth remains their biggest obstacle: At 24, Chauntelle is the oldest, and Stacy and cousin Garron (who turned Eisley into an all-Dupree band when he replaced longtime bass player Jonathan Wilson last year) are still of high-school age. Sherri acknowledges that audiences can occasionally be tough to win over.
''If you look at us onstage, we're a bunch of young girls and young guys, and so there's a tendency for people to not want to take us seriously at first," she says. ''I mean, I don't know if I would take it seriously at first unless I'd heard our songs."
Another factor may be the perception that Eisley is a Christian rock group. But while Sherri acknowledges her family's religious beliefs, she doesn't want to be limited by them. ''If you're a Christian and you're a painter, you don't only paint pictures of heaven and angels and stuff," she says. ''So there's no reason why we should have to write all songs about God just because we're Christians."
Whatever the preconceptions, producers have clamored to work with the band, including John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney), Mike Mogis (Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes), John Shanks (Kelly Clarkson, Sheryl Crow), and Rob Cavallo (Green Day). Cavallo, who stepped in for the final few songs on ''Room Noises" after four other production teams had nearly completed it, says the group's unique sound -- ''heavenly and sort of spiritual-sounding" yet ''dark and macabre and eerie" -- created a unified whole. ''I think there's just no one else like them," he says, ''so therefore the music is going to sound like no one else."
With the ''Room Noises" tour winding down in May, Eisley is looking ahead to its next album. Meanwhile, Sherri is overseeing construction of a house and is planning her wedding to New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert; the two met when the bands toured together. Although the group hasn't decided on a producer for the new album yet, Sherri is excited about including songs by Chauntelle.
If all else fails, there are more Duprees to recruit back in Tyler, including two younger siblings and Chauntelle's 5-year-old daughter. ''So there's plenty extra, yes," Sherri jokes. ''If anything happens to one of us, we'll just stick another one in there."
