Four years is an eternity in today’s music industry, especially when algorithms reward content, not creativity. When streaming services punish silence, at the expense of artistic evolution.
In this disconnect, some artists race against trends, abandoning the search for truth in their music. Other artists dig in, recognizing that our interior lives are inherently irrational. They embrace that uncertainty as an elemental part of creation, trusting that the truth will emerge as we look for peace in our own contradictions.
Richmond singer-songwriter Deau Eyes has spent the last four years proving exactly that. As she prepares to release her first full-length album in four years, To Grow Instead, she reflected on that process: “There’s been a lot of evolution. Sometimes it takes four years, because life influences the music. That’s what art is about… a reflection of life.”
Photos by Matt Shofner
That’s not a hard sentiment to follow when you step inside her home studio on Richmond’s South Side. Instruments are scattered everywhere. Recording equipment crowds the room. Paintings, sketches, and creative projects fill every corner. A whiteboard stands guard over the studio, mapping their various states of progress. Outside, a half-pipe dominates the backyard.
In that context, the title of her new album feels less like an abstract statement about art and more like a documentary about it’s creation. Something she also observed when looking around her studio. “The record is pretty much a documentary time capsule of my life over the last four to eight years,” said Deau Eyes. “Every song has led me to the next phase of my life.”
That choice is reflected in her first single, “Woman of My Word,” released June 26. The song was written acknowledging the weight of two overlapping realities: the double standards applied to women in the music industry and the absurdity of how we interpret that truth.
The opening lyric speaks to that struggle while still leaving room for listeners to interpret their own experience: “I’m a woman of my word, clearly being with you is absurd.”
“When it comes to misogyny, there’s been a lot of evolution,” she said. “But it’s so firmly rooted in our identities that people have only recently started to acknowledge or understand that.”
She also explained there’s a deeper honesty beneath that double standard. “I can tell you the truth, but you’re not going to hear that truth, because you’re only going to hear what you want to hear.” That’s why she said “Woman of My Word” is ultimately for anyone who’s paid the price while choosing themselves.
Over the years and across her catalog, Deau Eyes’ music has been defined by a sense of movement and progression. Each record feels like a testament to a different chapter of life—from the Nashville sessions that shaped Let It Leave to the methodical experimentation behind Richmond-made Legacies, featuring DJ Harrison and Scott Lane.
And in many ways, To Grow Instead seems like the natural culmination of that journey. Co-produced with Ryan Gary, the record became a deliberate experiment in collaboration, sound, and arrangement. However, that process wasn’t without an artist’s frustration, beginning with the pursuit of a feeling she could see, but not quite hear.
“You have all these visual identities with your music, but you can’t get the sound,” she said. That willingness to discard work, begin again, and break through self-doubt became an essential part of her creative process, which she hopes will give the new album it’s emotional gravity.
“I felt like the songs were very vulnerable… There were times where I would spend days recording versions of them and had to completely scrap them. The songs were so precious to me that I knew I needed to treat them the right way.”
By the time the record arrives November 13th, Deau Eyes won’t just be introducing a new album, but also her first child—a daughter. The timing feels especially poetic for an artist whose work has always been concerned with documenting the evolution of life, rather than its completion.
When asked what it’s like knowing that her daughter will one day listen to her albums, she paused before simply saying: “I think that’s such a beautiful thought.”
Main Image by Peter McElhinney
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