The Eiffels are finally finishing what they started
The LA-based duo talk digging through their own archives, and share their new single, “You Make Me New.”
For The Eiffels, the sweet spot lies somewhere between a dive bar and a glossy nightclub dance floor. Frontman Sean Ulbs and bassist Jade Michael have spent the better part of a decade making the kind of music that works in both rooms at once. With a blend of indie rock and synth-inflected pop speaks to the range of influences that drive the pair. Tracks like "Collide" lay out the harder, moodier side of the band's range, while "Spin Around" and "Body Like That" make a case for the pair as pure feel-good alt-pop.
“Growing up in the 80s, 90s, I had all that kind of peripheral music being soaked up. And I think a lot of that 80s influence seems to make its way into the music,” says Ulbs. By high school, his tastes shifted to heavier sounds, leading to stints in other bands. “I think I always leaned towards groovier punk rock, so there was a natural progression into late teens, early 20s to more rock.” By the 2010s, after meeting Michael at a recording studio, the earliest versions of the band would start to take shape.
“He was friends with the owner of the studio I was working at, so he'd stop by from time to time, and he knew I was kind of writing some music,” Ulbs explains. “He really brings a great energy that kind of reminds me to be stoked.” That energy is critical for their creative process, which always starts with a strong foundation of drums and one of Michael’s bouncy, signature bass lines and ends with lyrics and a plethora of synths. Being surrounded by L.A. club culture in their early career, striking that balance between depth and danceability was crucial. By their first EP, those two sensibilities found a workable middle ground. “Rockers wanted to be part of that club world, so all these bands were like, let's put some electronic drums and be party music,” he explains, but it’s a compromise he doesn’t mind. “I don't feel like it's difficult because I've always loved pop music, so it's fun trying to think of fun, dancy songs.”
When their song “More” served as the opening track in the Netflix film The Kissing Booth 2 in 2018, it opened them to an even wider audience—despite being from their first EP released three years earlier. “That was a lesson. For artists who have older material, you never know what might blow up,” says Ulbs. “To this day, it remains on all of these Spotify Apple Music playlists now.”
Playing on stages from Vans Warped Tour to Firefly Music Festival and opening for the likes of X Ambassadors and Plain White T's, Ulbs credits platforms like BandLab and ReverbNation with giving the band the kind of exposure that opened a lot of those doors in the first place. “As independent artists, we're always looking for new tools and access to opportunities we might not otherwise have. We've been using BandLab since the beginning,” he explains. “I don't know what it is that has made the Eiffels resonate particularly well on those platforms, but they've been instrumental in our development over the years.” Having that foundation has only mattered more as The Eiffels have shifted into fully independent mode.
With new music on the way, which Ulbs described as decidedly more rock but still danceable, the pair have taken the reins on production this time around, something that’s been liberating while inviting a new host of challenges. “Before, I'd bring in a demo, and it becomes [producer Ethan Kaufman’s] problem to finalize it,” Ulbs says. “Now I have ultimate control and final say on everything, but that makes it a lot tougher to just put a stamp of being done on it.”
Knowing when to let go is something the duo is learning to navigate, but the process has also pushed them to pull from their creative past, with many of the lyrics written as far back as high school. Assembled from what Ulbs calls the “cream of the crop of unfinished work,” it's work that connects directly to where they started. Their newest single "You Make Me New," premiering above, started as a poem Ulbs wrote as a teenager. “I'll often use fragments of old writing, but for this song, the lyrics were taken pretty much word for word, from beginning to end,” he explains.
While it might seem daunting to release music you wrote as part of creative writing assignments at 17, Ulbs doesn't seem fazed by the gap. “There are a lot of the lyrics taken straight from that point in my life, so I always liked them,” he explains. “It was nice to go back to a different era, refine them, and see them through as they were intended.”