"Bruised Love" is the debut single from Tyler Elden's musical collective The Night Figures. A high energy Alternative Rock track featuring lush string arrangements, heavy droning guitars, and a roaring rhythm section. "Bruised Love" combines elements from both 90s grunge & shoegaze. The track features interweaving guitars during the verse, with a wall of sound and a hook heavy vocal chorus. The story of this song takes place in Kensington, Philadelphia and explores dissociation.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey Tyler Elden, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. How has the time gone for you since our last interview?
Hello Kamil! Thanks for taking the time to talk with me again. Since we last spoke I have done quite a bit of traveling and released a few new singles. I played around 20 shows across the United States. Seeing parts of the country I have never had the opportunity to experience and meeting a ton of new folks out on the road has reshaped my relationship with music. It is a joy to see communities out there passionately supporting original art in nontraditional spaces. With the amount of time we spend using technology these days, it’s really grounding to stand in a room and share a fleeting moment of communal exchange.
What role does the artist have in society?
The greatest artists in history have made society examine itself more deeply, face demons that are often unpleasant, and connect the common thread of our humanity through both boundless joy & deep sorrow.
Whether the artist has made it their mission statement to do so is irrelevant, as the people decide the value and interpret their own meaning of any artistic work. Ultimately mankind selects what story, dance, or song is worth passing down to future generations.
I am mostly living in my internal world when creating. In those moments I have very little expectations or knowledge of why a certain topic or string of words and melodies are coming to me. I’m not thinking of the external or what people are going to take from a song. Sometimes I don’t even know what it means to me until much later down the line, or the meaning changes with time.
We are all simply creating cave paintings on a floating rock. I do believe art is one of the most powerful spiritual aspects this world offers us, but I don’t want to become overly precious about what I do. If someone takes away a deep sense of meaning from something I have done, that’s wonderful. At the same time, I don’t mind if you are solely coming to a show to dance around and hear loud guitar solos blaring through the PA after a hard day at work. I’m happy to provide either service. You can love both Peter Gabriel & AC/DC if you so choose.
Your latest song is 'Bruised Love'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
“Bruised Love” was made with the intention of being a collaborative effort that didn’t shy away from making the song sound as big as possible on the production end of things. That can sometimes be a fine line to walk when you bring so many cooks into the kitchen. You are working as hard as you can to have everyone feel that their parts are audible in the final dense mix, while highlighting elements that best compliment the whole. It takes a certain maturity in the musicians you choose to collaborate with. I’m lucky to have had Matt Weber who works with me as a mix engineer and sounding board for final production decisions when I get lost in the process. That’s very easy to do on a track like this.
The most unusual thing is how quickly it came together. A few musicians on the track never worked with me before and had about two weeks to write and record their parts. Jim came up with his guitar parts during quick writing sessions and was in the studio tracking less than a week later.
I think it’s an excellent introduction to what The Night Figures can bring to the table. I love creating alone, but this song is a testament to what bringing in the collective hive-mind of your local music community can do. I feel really fortunate that I have musicians who want to spend their time working on some of the songs I write. Every collaboration brings new knowledge of the craft.
What’s your strongest memory of your childhood?
Feeling a constant sense of wonder. I think as we get older and more cynical about things while facing the real hardships of being a human that wonder can fade. As of late I have been trying to constantly learn something new. It’s easy in any aspect of life to hyper focus on your career or your favorite hobby but there’s so much more to examine. It can be really healthy to immerse yourself in a topic you have little knowledge on. I try to do that creatively sometimes as well to get my brain to go down some unexplored neurological pathways.
What’s your most embarrassing moment?
Many years ago I was headlining a small show. We didn’t successfully get through one song in the set. To say it was embarrassing doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how I felt that day.
Is the artistic life lonely? What do you do to counteract it?
Anyone who is involved in a creative process that requires hours of solitude and reflection is bound to be familiar with some form of loneliness. As a writer I’ve always been of the belief that spending a good portion of time as an observer of the human condition rather than an active participant in life, requires a certain personality. In Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography he talks about reaching a period in his thirties where he spent so much time crafting his fictional characters that his own life was lacking healthy interpersonal connections. The drive to do this is always specific to the artist. Whether it be building a world that you wished existed, creating a space to contemplate elements of being alive that you can’t fully understand, or perhaps the most healthy being simply enjoying the process of self expression. I think the most dangerous is the artist who constantly seeks validation from others and bases a great deal of self worth from the critical approval of their work as the only measure of creative fulfillment.
I counteract the loneliness by spending time with family. I try to treat writing like a job and attempt to keep the work hours healthy. It’s a balance. Sometimes you become so obsessed with an idea or mix tweak that it’s 2am in the morning and you are kicking yourself because you have to wake up early.
What is your dream project?
I'd love this project to have access to resources that allow me to stay in the creative realm as much as possible.
What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Be aware of how perfectionism will rob your joy of creating. I was so hard on myself when I was younger. I believed I had to write and produce songs as good as my favorite artists from an early age. I couldn’t accept the reality that with my limited experience and resources my goals were unrealistic. I hid work that I could have shared that wasn’t objectively as refined as my influences, but could have connected with others and had merit in its own right.
When were you generally fulfilled in your position as an artist?
When I get to the point when I can let go of a song. The journey from the initial spark to the final master can sometimes be long and arduous. You go through all the permutations of what a song can be that no one ends up hearing except you. I’m getting better at letting go. You need a deadline.
What can we expect from Tyler Elden in the near future?
More music, more shows, and working with some talented visual artists.