Music Bugle Exclusive – Q & A – Light By The Sea

By Nicholas Jason Lopez

Ride the (new) wave.

Dainty duo Light By The Sea – comprised of Davy Knobel and Eszter Anna – recently debuted the music video for their snazzy new single “A Feather Of A Pigeon In The Cave Of The Wisdom Of God.”

Inspired by a trip between magical dimensions during the writing process, they worked on the track with Bert Vliegen (Whispering Sons, Teen Creeps) to secure their desire for a “nasty new wave” sound and needless to say, their efforts came through.

Recommended for fans of Dead Can Dance, The Mission, Wolf Alice, The Cure and The Chameleons, the act has gained momentum and more fans along the way of their 2023 European tour, which included stops in the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Belgium and France.

The Music Bugle had the chance to talk with them about how they decided on their name, what they enjoy the most about their musical style and much more, which you can check out below.

Music Bugle – How did you decide on the name “Light By The Sea”? 

Eszter Anna – That was a whole experience. We were watching a movie called “By The Sea” with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Fun story, Davy is always recognized as Brad Pitt, mainly in France. After watching this pretty intense movie, we got inspired and we had the feeling we should do something with “By the Sea.” In that summer, we traveled to Croatia and we found ourselves “by the sea.” Then, it was clear we wanted to call ourselves, “something” By The Sea. We felt something was missing, so we were on the hunt for that one word that would make our artist name complete. As we were traveling to Texel, a small island in the north of The Netherlands, we where having a coffee next to an old lighthouse. As we’re both not speaking the language, since I’m Hungarian and Davy is Dutch, we sometimes have a language barrier. Davy was asking me how that thing with the light was called. It was a lighthouse. Then, something came to us, it should be “Light By The Sea.” In our music career, this is the most expensive band name since we had to travel to Croatia, an island in the Netherlands and we had to watch a movie.

Music Bugle – What was your creative mindset behind your latest material? 

Davy Knobel – Our latest release called “Feather Of A Pigeon In The Cave Of The Wisdom Of God” got a completely different creative approach. Since our first record ‘Only Death Makes Icons’ and our singles that were released shortly after the debut album were truly songs, from A to Z, we’ve wanted to do something completely different. In this case, we got completely inspired by an event in our lives. Since we were on our Honeymoon in Crete, Greece, we were trying to see the beauty and history of the island. We went to the Cave of the Wisdom of God. It wasn’t easy to get there since it took a huge stairway to the cave. When we finally arrived, we got two things – a stunning view over the island and a dove feather. When walking down on the steps, Eszter’s sandals made a noise with uptempo BPM. On that rhythm, we sang the following words, “A Feather, Of A Pigeon, In The Cave, Of The Wisdom Of God.” We quickly recorded the sound of the sandals and our voices and once we were back home, we built a track upon this event and vibe and that’s how our latest release came together. Also, with this release, we wanted something completely different regarding the production/sound. That’s why we recorded everything ourselves – with the band – and it was produced by Bert Vliege to get a crisp, new wave-inspired sound. Fun fact – during that Honeymoon, we also shot our music video for “Pisces Moon.”

Music Bugle – What do you enjoy the most about your musical style? 

Davy Knobel – That we can do whatever we want. Production and song-wise, you might hear inspiration of acts like The Chameleons and The Mission with an extra flavor of alternative rock, but we always like to dive in to psychedelics as well, with inspiration of acts like Dead Can Dance. This is what makes it a lot of fun for us, especially live. We can send our sound and minds towards the audience, but the audience can also get sucked in to our psychedelic sounds, so they can trip with us and then we feel a mesmerizing connection.

Music Bugle – Who are you listening to right now, music-wise? 

Davy Knobel – At the moment, I’m listening a lot to acts like Killing Joke, Sisters Of Mercy, Dead Can Dance, Live Skull, Vacant Lots, Golden Hours and the Haunting Youth. 

Eszter Anna – I’m currently listening to Faithless, The Cranberries and Enya. 

Music Bugle – Where do you go when you need a break? 

Eszter Anna – My home country Hungary, or to a nice warm place such as Crete, Greece or Croatia. 

Music Bugle – What do you wish happened more in today’s music industry? 

Eszter Anna – Appreciate the artist and the route an artist has to take to eventually write a track. No bad words about all the possibilities to get discovered, it’s amazing, but it’s so easy to release something and use the standard formula of songwriting with some basic plugins. We believe in the art of creativity and getting inspired by sounds, people, events, etc.. We write a track out of this inspiration, so everything we do has a unique story – and many artists with us, of course. For me, that’s the beauty of a track, since you can have a little look into the mind and heart of the artist. That’s what I’m missing a bit in the current Spotify Top 10 and just simply get rid of this AI stuff. 

Music Bugle – That being said, what’s your stance on the use of AI in music? 

Davy Knobel – What Eszter Anna said. It’s fun, I do believe that, but when I see Freddie Mercury released a new track, I’m a bit done with it. 

Music Bugle – What show are you currently binging on in your free time? 

Eszter Anna – We’re watching “The Office” and “Gilmore Girls” and a lot of old French movies.

Music Bugle – What do you feel is the next step for you guys going forward? 

Davy Knobel – As we just did our last European tour of this year, since Eszter Anna and myself become parents this Fall, we’re currently planning our upcoming releases. Recently, we released our new single and we have one more single to be released this year, including a remix. Besides that, we’ve recorded a live set in the studio. No cuts and edits, just a true live performance. The live set is going to be the first next step, since we want to show our connection as a band an musicians to the world. This will be released later this year. Also, we’re currently looking into the festival season of 2024 and we’d love to do a support tour of The Chameleons and The Mission. 

Music Bugle – What’s a quote that motivates you to keep doing what you do? 

Eszter Anna – It’s not really a quote that motivates us. It’s our love towards each other and our combined creativity brought to live in combination with an amazing group of friends, which we may call our band. Creating our music and recording and performing it live with this band is the biggest motivation we could ever wish for.