ION INDIE MAGAZINE October 2015, Volume 17 | Page 9

Dagda: What about your awakening? Have you always been this awake and aware of the energies you describe? Eric: I am amazed when I look back on my life and the stupid things that I have done. I am amazed that I have survived. Being awakened means that you are being guided and not that you are listening. That’s why I say in one of our new songs, “Listening sharpens my sight, just as the demons tear at your life” (This lyric is from their new album “Pinnacle-Pure Evil”). That song speaks to negative energies; Satan, devil, unbalance. So many names, it is the same--the darkness. It’s “Pure Evil”. People don’t realize that they will walk around and feel cool about being a partner with the dark forces. They don’t realize that the dark forces are responsible for the bad, all of the bad, murder, the worst possible things that the human mind can imagine. The bad stuff comes from the dark side. When you are in cahoots with these dark forces, it might seem cool. We are all immortal, we will all have debts to pay. We become bound to that energy (referring to one of their first albums “Tied and Bound”). In what form we don’t know, we exist. That song “Pure Evil” is about getting away from that: “Get thee behind me. You can go to hell, back to where you came. Just get away from me”. The sad truth is that there will always be the light and dark forces in your life. We all have negative thoughts about things, and people, and you want to act it out. We all have the choice, to act or not. The reason I wrote the song “Fear Is Not An Option”--aka “Going Down” (from the album “Welcome to My World”), is because it talks about being in a fight. The meaning is, the root of all evil is fear. You can connect fear with everything. Would a billionaire fear being broke? Imagine that--if you can get rid of fear, you can get rid of evil. I believe this because I am not a religious person. I am a Universalist. Dagda: There have been a few personnel changes recently. Can you tell us a little about the new and old faces that have played in Leaving Eden? Eric: I have been thinking about that question. I think what you can say is that there have been many special people that have come and gone from Leaving Eden, which led me to the lyrics from the song ”Tied and Bound” (from their album “Tied and Bound”), a song about the music industry; “People seem to step aside, how could they know. Because you had to have faith, you had to believe, you had to have strength; you had to conceive.” (Eric often speaks using his lyrics--most of this information is new to me, even though I have known him for quite some time. I have heard this song--and screamed along with Eve--it now means so much more to me.)