Keith Buckley, vocalist of the now-defunct Every Time I Die, has released the first single by his new band Many Eyes. It’s called “Revelation.” Buckley did his first Many Eyes interview with BrooklynVegan, and here’s what he had to say about this song:
This was about me wrestling with the anger that I had, but not towards anyone specifically; it was about the idea of alcoholism and what it had done to my life and that it put all my relationships in jeopardy, and that eventually it just came to identify my relationships entirely. So I kind of anthropomorphized the vice of alcoholism, and then obviously because I was reading the Bible a lot, I used a metaphor of just seeing it as the devil itself, which, the more I came to think about it, the more it actually felt true. It really was the most powerful evil that I ever faced, and it had so many different forms and it was so sneaky and it was just such a liar. I felt like I could take all the anger and re-channel it into something that I could actually control and defeat, which was alcoholism, and it’s not just beating it and moving on; it’s beating it and facing it and showing it to other people and saying, “This is what it looks like. Just because I beat it doesn’t mean that everyone can, but you have to be aware of it first, and you really just need a loving support system around you, because it’s impossible to do alone.”
So that came out and I felt like, “Man, of all the things that I wanted to talk about, or that I thought or feared that I would end up writing about that would be taken the wrong way or put under a microscope, this feels like the truest way that it ever could have come out, because it’s a channeled righteous anger into a disease that has killed too many people that I know, and almost killed me as well.” So I feel like, it just so happened that it had a nice chorus behind it, because that’s the first foot that I want to put down, that this next journey is sober.
Many Eyes also feature frequent Jamey Jasta (of Hatebreed) collaborators Charlie Bellmore on guitar/bass and Nick Bellmore on drums/bass/backing vocals, and Buckley also said in the interview that the idea for Many Eyes was to mix the trio’s love of ’90s alternative rock (naming Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Pavement, Radiohead, and Spacehog as specific influences) with hardcore, and you can definitely hear that coming through in “Revelation.” Listen below.
Elsewhere in the interview, Buckley said, “As time went on and I got more into my sobriety, I realized that I could start writing about the positive things moving forward instead of the negative things behind me… I just really feel like this is where I’m supposed to be, and these lyrics that I have that came out are all about positive change, and trying to get that across to other people who need to make positive changes.”
About Every Time I Die ending, he added, “I have no ill-will about it, and from now on, it is just the present into the future for me. But I am aware of how it impacted people’s lives, and all I can say is that I’m with you and I’m still here. And I promise we’re on this next leg of the journey together.”
Many Eyes’ first tour will be opening for Thursday (playing War All the Time in full for its 20th anniversary) and Rival Schools. All dates are listed below.
Many Eyes’ debut album will be released via Jasta’s Perseverance Media Group, so stay tuned for more on that. Read Buckley’s full interview at BrooklynVegan.
Thursday, Rival Schools, and Many Eyes 2024 tour dates01/25 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom01/26 – Detroit, MI @ The Majestic01/27 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall01/28 – McKees Rocks, PA @ Roxian Theatre01/30 – Chicago, IL @ Concord Music Hall01/31 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue02/01 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown02/02 – Denver, CO @ Summit Music Hall02/03 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot02/05 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile02/06 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater02/08 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades02/09 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall02/10 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory02/11 – Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Theater02/13 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk (Outside)02/15 – Jacksonville, FL @ Jack Rabbits02/16 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution Live02/17 – Orlando, FL @ The Beacham02/18 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade02/20 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts02/21 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club02/22 – Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage02/23 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Elevation 2702/24 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
