Heard It Here First

An authentic merger of psychedelic rock, homegrown jam-groove, and funk-infused bass lines, Eggy rocked the Spirit Lake stage late Friday night in their second year performing at Suwannee Hulaween. Hailing from Connecticut, the four-piece band consisting of Alex Bailey (drums, vocals), Jake Brownstein (guitar, vocals), Mike Goodman (bass, vocals), and Dani Battat (keys, vocals), provided the late-night crowd with a sonic journey consisting of long-established Eggy classics, one-of-a-kind renditions, and brand new hits off of their recently released ten-track album, Waiting Game.

Opening up their set with their feel-good jam, “Smile”, Eggy enticed festival goers like moths to a flame with their latest ear-candy of a tune. In the meat of their seat, the band fueled off of each other’s sonic chemistry to hypnotize the crowd with twenty-minute-long jams that exponentially intensified riff after riff. Eggy never shies away from dipping into the sentimental side of their discography, as the band exuded warmth and love through their standout Waiting Game track and my personal favorite, “Must Come Down”.

While the Eggy project was established when the band members were in high school, the band is as fully aligned today as they were in 2016. Their recent Waiting Game LP is an unmistakable benchmark in their sonic and professional development as a band and acts as a testament to their polished studio approach detailed by organic songwriting and intentional instrumentation.

Aside from their insatiable hunger to bring their music to a live setting in their national headline tours, Eggy has recently taken the stage at Electric Forest, Bonnaroo, Red Rocks, and many more iconic venues just over this past year. Our HIHF team had the honor of sitting down with the boys prior to their Hulaween set to discuss the band’s mission, their recent full-length project, and bringing their creations to life in a live setting here at Hula.

HIHF: What’s up guys, it’s Ty from Heard It Here First coming at you live from Hulaween 2024 with Eggy. Eggy, thank you so much for being here today, how does it feel to be back at Hulaween for your second year?

Eggy: It’s really great to be back here, we’re really excited to be playing the late-night spot. I think we’re going to have a really good crowd this year — I know we’re playing right after Tipper, so I think we’re going to have great funneling of the populous.

HIHF: Everyone’s happy to have you back! Although Eggy has been together as a band since high school, you have been experiencing some serious exponential growth over the past few years. For fans who may be unfamiliar with Eggy, how would you describe your project to them?

Eggy: A perfect mix of lighthearted, heartfelt, loving, and a touch of ridiculous.

HIHF: What is the largest disparity between your festival sets versus your club shows?

Eggy: I think every place that we play, whether it’s a club or a festival, we try to think of the vibe of where we are and who’s coming out to the show. We’ll take in our surroundings, so every show ends up being different for that reason.

HIHF: What has the experience been bringing your latest album, Waiting Game, to life?

Eggy: It feels like a big release of energy. The whole process, from writing to recording, to finally getting to put the music out, feels like you have this big secret that you wanted to share with the whole world, and now we can finally just shout it from the rooftops. We love this music, and we’re so excited to be sharing it and to see fans’ reactions to the music and really resonating with different songs is always interesting because there’s a big mix of emotions throughout the songs. Sometimes, they’re vibing with our song, “Smile”, where the chorus is “all ya gotta do is smile”, to some of the more heartfelt, tearjerking sides of our songs; to hear the response from our fans as well and to know they’re listening with deep intention is all we could ever ask for when we put something out like that. We’ve been feeling it on stage. Seeing people sing along is the greatest feeling in the world.

It’s cool to see it all take a life on, outside of ourselves, and I think that’s the special part about music — is that now that it’s out of our hands, it belongs to everybody else and their experiences and it’s really special seeing people resonate with the music.

We have this album out, but it’s not really a proper “album” tour like we’re still playing music from when we were in high school together, so it’s like introducing new songs to the family and it finds its place at the table. Now, some of these new songs are taking on some of the big moments of the shows, giving them the “improvised” treatment and taking the three-and-a-half minute song from the studio and blowing it out to twenty minutes and really taking it on an adventure. It really starts to take on a life of its own, and it’s been an exciting part of the process.

HIHF: I think that’s a great answer, it has been a “waiting game” for sure. If you guys (our readers) haven’t checked out the album, it’s a serious showcase of Eggy’s sonic growth. So Eggy, we want to know a bit more about the album – What was the first song completed and what was the last?

Eggy: I think the first song we finished was “Come Up Slow.” We had a pre-production session before we went in for a full three weeks. We went and visited our producer, James, in California and had some preliminary pre-production sessions that ended up turning into recording that whole song, which was a cool experience to be able to come home before going back out and actually have something to listen to.

I think the last one we actually completed was “Gentle Clown”, which is the last song on the album. We were scrambling and literally had hours left of our last day in the studio and had a checklist of all of the things we needed to finish — all of the little vocal tracking and overdubs and stuff. I remember a group vocal was the last thing we recorded for that song and then we got to put our hands down and say “it’s done”.

HIHF: That is super insightful and we are so glad we got to share more about Eggy and their processes live from Hulaween festival. Well, thank you guys so much for sitting down with us, you guys just Heard It Here First with Eggy and Ty from Hulaween 2024!

Eggy: We love you Ty!

A personal note – I had the immense honor of working and touring alongside the Eggy team for about two years of my professional music industry journey. To firsthand experience a band that you have invested so much time and belief in flourish to the scale that they are is a beautiful, full-circle moment and I couldn’t be more proud to call myself a close friend of the Eggy team as they reach the new heights that they have worked so hard for.

What were your thoughts on Eggy’s Suwannee Hulaween 2024 set and their new album, Waiting Game? Check out the album below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Want us to keep covering more Jam acts? Let us know down below in the comments and be sure to check out our interview with The Disco Biscuits as well. We can’t wait for what’s next from Eggy, they clearly have a massive future ahead and we are absolutely ecstatic to be along for the ride.

Photo Credit: Chris Quinn

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