Cooking Coconut Shrimp: an Interview with Etai from LAUNDRY DAY

Watch the Full Interview here! (Video Credits to Camilla French)

“I think shock is an emotion that I like to bring out of people, not like fear but a good shock”

On October 2, 2020, drummer of rising indie-pop band LAUNDRY DAY, Etai, released his first solo album “Chef Bless” written, produced, and mastered by Etai all in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Many of Etai’s followers know he loves to cook, hence the album’s name. Consequently, Etai taught Unpublished how to make his favorite coconut shrimp recipe during the interview. The recipe was inspired by track 11 of the album “Roller Girl,” in which he chants stories of whims and romances into the listeners’ ears: “We’ll walk across the Grand Street Bridge/ I’ve got some coconut fried shrimp”. Etai had a bit of technical difficulty at the beginning of the interview; he had to peel and devein all of his shrimp which prolonged the interview significantly but gave Unpublished more time to get to know the emerging artist. Fellow band member, Jude Ciulla, and LAUNDRY DAY’s creative director of the band and “mom” of the group, Camilla Ffrench, dropped into the kitchen a few times to aid Etai in cooking and answer some questions while making sure that he did not burn down their house. 

Friday, October 2 emerged with much anticipation and speed for Etai. To promote and tease the album, Etai and Camilla collaborated to create a video game series, Chefbless.com,  for the fans to interact with and to make the release more engaging. 

Etai shared that “the idea [for the game] came from the fact that as I was making the album, I was painting a lot in New York and by the time the album was done I had all these pieces that I really liked and I had no idea what to do with them. Obviously, you can't really do an in person gallery these days, which is what would have been ideal. So, I was talking to Camilla and I was like ‘we should try to do a virtual gallery for all the paintings.’” Etai then shared that the gallery displayed in the teleporter in levels three and four was the original idea for the game. He wanted people to “be able to walk around and look at the paintings and hear about how they were made. Then the idea just kind of spiraled into an entire game. I'm happy that it did. The game really came out of nowhere, it wasn't even a thought in my mind until the album was done for a while, but it became my favorite part of the process and I'm just so happy with how it turned out. And I'm so blessed that Camilla could execute the idea.” 

Camilla stepped in and shared that “making the game was really fun, learning how to code it. I think it was cool teasing the album with background music and the GI BOPS for the coins.” “Which was Jude’s idea,” Etai adds. 

UNPUBLISHED: Did you code any of it, or was it all Camilla?

ETAI: Oh that was all Camilla; I could never. To be honest with you, she is a queen and she just learns that shit instantly, and I would be hopeless without her.

Throughout the game and the album, there are various mentions and examples of Etai’s art that can only be described as joyous, just like his music. He explains with nostalgic whimsy that his interest in painting started “one of the last days before the world really shut down. Sawyer came to my house after school, and we bought a bunch of canvases and we just decided to make some art. We made that one piece that is in the game, and afterward I was kind of just stuck at home and I had all these canvases so I was like, ‘let me just continue on and keep going’. And I just had so much fun with it that by the end I had 12 or 13.” At the end of the interview, Etai showed Unpublished around his room where his video game sketches covered his walls, loosely stuck to the beige paint with wide gray duck-tape. Looking at the drawings Etai’s walls perfectly reflect the frenetic undertones of “Hex Bugs” combined with the poetic lyrics “I love what you bring out in me/ Now I wanna see more/ Reach down and pull it out of my throat.” It’s hectic and beautiful all at the same time which encompasses Etai as a whole.

Etai and Camilla mention that each level of the game was finished minutes before release. Camilla said that she “pulled an all nighter for level two and for level three I tried to pull an all nighter, but fell asleep by four, in front of the computer.” The all-nighters being pulled in the LAUNDRY DAY house are incomparable to the all-nighters that some eighteen-year-olds struggle through. While Camilla immerses herself into the universe of chefbless.com, her friends are trying to navigate the challenge that is being young in the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the long nights and challenges that coincided with creating the video game, the fellow band members and fans alike all love the game and the innovative way it was able to get people involved in the album’s release. 

The album opens with bright optimism in the track “Ring On”. The song is perfectly produced to put the listener into a trance to dance their heart out no matter their location. The song features the GI BOPS that fans may have noticed while playing the video game. Etai tells Unpublished that “Ring On” was the first song that he made for the album. “It was April, I was kind of stuck at my crib with my parents and my sister. I was looking for something to fill my time with. I was like, ‘I should really make an album.’ So the first day I sat down and I made ‘Ring On’.” This song was the first that Etai had ever made truly for himself. In the past, Etai had made instrumental tracks for LAUNDRY DAY, but he had never put his vocals on a track that was exclusively his and not the band's. It is immensely impressive that Etai could produce such an outstanding, innovative, and creative album considering that he had barely ever heard himself sing before. 

Etai and all of LAUNDRY DAY’s other members are fresh off of their 2020 virtual High School graduation. Having been stuck in Manhattan for all of quarantine, the boys (and Camilla) decided to move to an undisclosed country-side location to decompress, make music, and live for the first time without their families. Before they escaped the city, however, they were all making music on their own. Obviously, Etai stepped out of quarantine with “Chef Bless,” fellow band member Sawyer Nunes emerged with “Throwing Up,” and the other boys experimented as well. 

UNPUBLISHED: How different is making solo music compared to collaborating and making music with the band and getting ideas from everyone else in the group?

ETAI: The process could not be more different and more total opposites. Making music in a group, I have to say is much more fun, because you're with the homies, you're just sitting around, everyone's contributing. What comes out is usually a melting pot of what everyone put in. But when you're by yourself, it's very different. It’s quiet and everything has to come from you, but it's cool because the result that comes out just sounds exactly like I made it. It feels gratifying to make an entire song on your own. It yields a super different result. In my opinion, the process is not as fun or lit, but the outcome is really unmeasurably fun.

UNPUBLISHED: When you were making your music and the album itself, did you get the guys’ feedback and advice?

ETAI: It's funny because in a period where we couldn't really all be together, we were all kind of on our computers making shit on our own and we would constantly be sending it to each other. I know personally as soon as I made a song I would send it to all my boys and just see what they thought of it, which is the best part because if they liked it then it would make me feel better and if they didn't then you know I respect and value their opinions. They are the people besides myself that I'm making music for so I want to know what they think; I want to know what they like. And I love talking about it with them. I love hearing the shit that they made on their own as well.

Now that the band is all back together, living under one roof, they are experiencing their first year as legal adults to the fullest potential. They are continually experimenting with living on their own and learning to rely on themselves while embracing each other’s company. Etai mentions that they “have a system in place in this house where every night two people cook for everybody for dinner. So the real elaborate meals happen that way. But when we're all in the kitchen together twisting stuff up is like breakfast and lunch. And we'll do more simple stuff; we're big fans of just Hebrew national hot dogs.”

ETAI: Around a month ago, we moved into this house together. We’ve been cooking each other food, making delicious music, just trying to learn how to be a family in a more close way. We're probably gonna be here for the next couple of months at least, just honing our craft, having an amazing time. It's been so fun already we just do absolutely nothing and it's amazing.

UNPUBLISHED: It sounds like a frat house. 

ETAI: I hesitate to say a frat house. 

Etai goes on to tell a story that Sawyer’s grandpa recently told him about a frat house that his dad was in that was very unsanitary--moldy cake on the counter unsanitary. So Etai adds that “there is none of that going on here. We are very neat, we clean our kitchen, our rooms clean, we clean our clothes.”

UNPUBLISHED: A sanitary frat house. 

ETAI: Exactly. It's our first time living alone without our folks and I'm fresh out of high school. But, I feel I feel like an independent adult already. 

Making a solo album was pretty nuanced to Etai, but despite only being eighteen and Chef Bless being his first solo project, his eccentric production style, and meaningful lyrics makes the listener think that he has lived a hundred lifetimes; constructing stories through song that leave the listeners yearning for more. Etai also reveals a new side of himself on the album. In the tracks “Ring On,” “Land on my Tongue,” “Miss America,” “Hex Bugs,” “Rollergirl,” and “If We Had Our Own Crib,” the amorous themes are unmistakable. From a listener's point of view, it was as if this romantic side of Etai had been hiding for years and when it was finally let out, it ran at full speed, to the fans’ delight. When asked how it felt to be so vulnerable in a song, Etai responded by saying, “Everything about writing those lyrics and singing it was pretty uncomfortable, but it felt amazing by the time I was done because that's just so out of my comfort zone and I had never really done something like that before. When I was doing it I was like, ‘Ooh, this is weird’. It's kind of scary even. But just to be able to admit some of those things to myself not even thinking about who would hear those words, felt really good. To be honest, when I was making those first couple songs it was not with the intention of them being released, it was just for me.”

UNPUBLISHED: Are the lyrics about a specific person, and if so does the person know about them? 

ETAI: Yes, the person does. She was by my side when I was making a lot of it. And I owe a lot to her about the way the album came together and what it's about and stuff. And I'm eternally in debt to her. 

Unpublished Magazine asked about how it feels for Etai when he meets fans or people that he does not know who tell him that they like his music. Jude, who was sitting in the living room adjacent to the kitchen, chimes in and helps Etai explain all of the unusual emotions that occur with releasing music. 

UNPUBLISHED: How does it feel when people tell how much they like your music or how they may look up to you? How do you react?

JUDE: When someone you know and someone that knows you enjoys it because they see you expressing yourself and they kind of appreciate that side of it. With Etai’s album that was so key for me because I knew him, but to see him blossom into that was so special. But for somebody that doesn't really know him to have a connection with it; it's kind of weird. Because then you look back and think ‘who do they think I am?

ETAI:  Yeah, that's the thing. When it's people that you really don't know and have never met listening to your music and giving it high praise, it's an amazing feeling, but it feels really weird because it's like I made these songs like knowing myself so well and this is the only impression you have of me so it's just like, Whoa. It's weird as an artist but it definitely feels amazing.

JUDE: But it's also what we signed up for; at the end of the day it's hard. As weird as it can be. It's just what we subscribed to. And by putting it out like you're putting a version of yourself out there, you're telling a story about yourself and so you can't control what you get out of that. 

ETAI: It’s not yours anymore after you put it up. You have no authority to say what it is or what it isn’t. 

UNPUBLISHED: If you are making music with the band and you guys get in an argument or a disagreement, does that ever carry over into your friendships or are you guys really good at separating the music and friendship? 

ETAI: It's funny because, especially here in this house we have a studio in our living room, so those two things are very very intertwined. And it's hard to tell when we're in music mode and when we're in just like chilling mode. But definitely, over the years since we started as freshmen, we've gotten better at arguing over the music and stuff. It's not really full-blown arguments anymore. We definitely have disagreements, but I think we're more mature and we settled them in civil ways. 

JUDE: So we've never really had a full-on fight. But I think because we care about it so much that there's definitely tension when there are disagreements. Just tension and frustration, just because you like the idea so much and someone else doesn't. 

ETAI: When you have five people who care about it just as much as the next brother, it can get complicated because not everyone is gonna get something that they like and at a certain point we just kind of learn to not be precious with our ideas and our preferences and just trust, trust your brothers. Because whatever comes out will be amazing no matter what because we're all amazing people.

As these individuals emerge from the closely-knit group of friends that makes up LAUNDRY DAY, their description of conflict arising only stems from each individual's deep passion for their art. This is clearly demonstrated in Etai’s music and art which further proves the immense future for the band and for the individuals that make LAUNDRY DAY so successful. Chef Bless is just the beginning of the journey of self-discovery and understanding that Etai is on, and everyone at Unpublished cannot wait to see what he cooks up next.