Cold Cave Breaks Down ‘Full Cold Moon’ Track by Track

Wes Eisold isn’t just the fiery frontman behind Some Girls and American Nightmare, you probably also know him from hims solo project Cold Cave. Using a punk ethos to drive the synth-pop / darkwave project, Cold Cave has been insanely prolific in the past years, releasing eleven LPs and EPs since inception in 2007. His latest release for Deathwish, due tomorrow (June 16), is Full Cold Moon, a compilation of EPs released in limited numbers via his own Heartworm Press. We had Wes break down the release track by track, the results of which are below.

Track-by-track:
“A Little Death To Laugh”
2012 was all transition. I was coming down from the Cherish record cycle, in a few ways, and landed in LA after a couple years in NYC killing off the last of my dead weight. I was trying to decide what to do after I had failed to become “the next Interpol” as the label I was on had mentioned. My idea of my music differed from the people selling it. Maybe thats just how it goes. I don’t mind though because I never meant to start this band… I just wanted to make something, anything, by myself for once. Everything else was a bonus. I played with synths and pedals and computers because thats all I really could. For the Cherish LP I went all out with hired musicians, strings, time and money. I was mostly at Electric Lady. The Beasties were there which was cool but so was John Mayer ripping Hendrix solos with his studio door open. “A Little Death” was getting back in to the groove of that early singular boneheaded freedom. It’s probably my favorite CC song. I like different synth-based music, but a lot of it is just so weak or sexless and I’m a brute.

“Young Prisoner Dreams of Romance”
This song sums up sitting on my front steps half-heartedly smoking cigarettes… wanting more but having no idea what more was supposed to be. I decided that I would write a song on guitar and play it with my one hand. Then do the same with a one string bass. There’s this scene in Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour where one prisoner is swinging a bouquet of flowers to the cell next door. I always liked that. I always felt there was a web or box around me keeping me from making real human connection. It’s circumstantial to how I grew up. That’s why I like music… If you can’t say what you mean, sing it. You have to stand by your flaws ‘cause nothing else in the world is as original. I’m proud of these emotions and of playing bass and guitar- something I never thought I could do missing a hand. I first went to see Rocky Horror in 8th grade. ‘Don’t Dream It, Be It’ stayed with me.

“Tristan Corbière”
Everywhere I go, people try to bore me with a conversation about LA traffic. What is there to say? Traffic sucks everywhere. I’d rather be stuck on a highway in a car in LA than be walking around almost anywhere else. When I arrive, I will be rewarded. The vehicle is a wonderful place to be alone and think and listen and electronic music goes great with cars. Around 2005 I was visiting the poets Charles Potts and Jeremy Gaulke in Walla Walla, WA and got turned on to the late french poet Corbière. He’s not really well known but is fantastic. When he was 18 in the late 1800’s, arthritis deformed his body, supposedly so much that he was denied sexually by prostitutes. This is a sentiment I can absolutely relate to.

“Oceans With No End”
Originally this was called ‘Song for Disenchanted Boston Youth’ and it’s an ode to where I came from, how those years felt, and how important they were in shaping me… American Nightmare, friends, all that. Boston in the late 90’s to early 00’s was a cool place but you always have to know when its time to leave a party. As dark as it ever got, I felt this underlying urgency of love that got me through to the next day. I bled for that band and lived every word I wrote. Seeing so may people relate to that was unreal and I love that the sentiment has carried over to Cold Cave. As an ode to that era of hardcore, I wanted to release a 7” on Deathwish and use more guitars. I couldn’t play chords so I made the synths emulate them.

“People Are Poison”
I saw that we accepted mediocrity in our lives and decided I didn’t want that. So many people I knew would talk shit on someone the second they walked away after smiling and asking how they had been. Changelings, man. I like standup people. Real motherfuckers. That’s why I don’t have many friends.

“God Made the World”
Music for the summers of my youth. All I remember is headphones in the back of a car or bus and always moving too much. Growing up a military brat that relocated every two years, I just wanted to stay still. I was so shy for so long and music was my refuge. I loved bands like The Cure, The Smiths, New Order, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, etc. I was too young to be a part of those worlds but knew they were happening. I never minded family errands because I lived places where no one knew about the bands I liked, and they were at least a chance to see someone else who may be into cool music. In 6th grade at a random car show with my parents, this girl with a dyed red devilock and Samhain shirt came strutting down the stairs laughing with a guy in an In Between Days shirt and I was never the same. This song evokes all of that in me. Since it came out, different people have emailed asking me to speak at or play their church or bible camp. It’s cool if you want to go that route, but I don’t know.

“Dandelion”
The ARP Solina String Ensemble is my favorite synthesizer. It’s pure angelic beauty with a built-in Chorus effect unlike any other. Joy Division, New Order, the Cure and David Bowie used it on some of my favorite songs. I wanted to make a simple instrumental using the Solina at the forefront because it evokes so much feeling by itself. My main attraction to songs is lyrical, but music itself can be a love letter to the world or a thought like, Carry Me Off to Heaven. This is how I feel on my best days.

“Black Boots”
My soundtrack to browsing through Whole Earth Catalogs, or a runway song for Cold War era futuristic fashion. When this 7” came out, the Cold Cave aesthetic was all there. Black on black. By this point I was performing live with Amy Lee and really liking touring as a two piece with someone that I loved. We wanted more minimal music to suit the live show. I always loved touring but hated dealing with other people’s insanity. So now we went for it and toured all over. Japan, China, Thailand, Nepal, Russia, North America and Europe a few times. It was really cool to see Cold Cave grow organically. When we were releasing music with larger labels, it sometimes felt like people would show up because they were told to and maybe thought they were supposed to. Now people were coming because they wanted to.

“Meaningful Life”
I had a strong suspicion that if I didn’t make a change in my life, at the end I would feel I had wasted it all. There is a sentimental and kind beauty in us that can be difficult to access in the heat of all our daily drama. It’s hard for me to be as direct as these lyrics are. Surround yourself with people who inspire you. And if you can’t get to those people, surround yourself with no one.

“Nausea, the Earth and Me”
I was feeling sick of Everything. Sick of me. Sick of people eating animals. Sick of drugs. Sick of culture. Sick of talk. Sick of art students who photograph cum in their palm and use words like ‘challenging’ or ‘transgressive’. I turn inwards because the more I try to get away from the things I don’t like, the more I find other things that I also don’t like. When my friend and former bandmate took his life, it didn’t make me feel closer to anyone who knew him… I had an urgency to get away from people. I had a different perspective on it because I had to clean up after him and it was really hard on me. They say talking about your feelings can make you feel better so I hit record and sang what came out.

“Don’t Blow Up The Moon”
Just had read how the US had a plot to put an A-Bomb to the moon to flex on Russia during the Cold War. Love and war and a terrible taste in men. It’s all just different levels of desperation but without that curious disregard none of us would even be here. It seems like everything comes back to sex and death.

“Beaten 1979”
Manic. I don’t even really know what else to say about it. Sometimes songs just happen and its best not to question them. Open your mouth and see what falls out. I maybe wouldn’t have released this song if I thought about what Cold Cave was supposed to sound like, but I started this band to fulfill a void I had and never cared too much about anything else. I love music and feel that I owe it for all it’s done for me throughout my life. This compilation is that testimony.