These Eyes will soon be roving.
Brooklyn-born pop punk outfit Big Eyes will head out of town to support its new album “Stake My Claim,” following a kick-off concert at Alphaville in Bushwick on Aug. 16. But its new record is a tribute to returning home to Brooklyn, inspired by a three-year exile in Seattle, says the band’s founder and frontwoman.
Kait Eldridge, originally from Long Beach, Long Island, first moved to Brooklyn at age 19, chasing the rock ’n’ roll dream with two previous bands, Cheeky and Used Kids. When those bands broke up, she moved to Seattle, Washington, but found little inspiration in the overcast skies of the Pacific Northwest. Returning to Kings County in 2014 led to a creative re-awakening.
“I had a bit of writer’s block,” she said. “Once I moved back to New York I took myself out of a bad living situation, stepped back, looked at everything, and wrote all those songs.”
Several tracks on the new album, including “Just Not Right” and “Leave This Town” convey her frustration with her sojourn in Washington State.
“A lot of it has to do with moving back home — I was frustrated with how my life was going,” she said.
Now that she is back in the borough of Kings, Eldridge says that it feels more comfortable than the town she grew up.
“It’s my home at this point. I was in Long Beach earlier today, and even when I was a kid, I never felt like I belonged there — I was never into the beach,” she said. “But when I moved here I thought, ‘These are my people.’ ”
Other songs on “Stake My Claim” deal with Eldridge putting her foot down and “owning up” to her role as band leader after years of rotating band members, some who wrestled too much control, she said. For this tour, she has put together a four-piece lineup that she says is “rock solid.”
Big Eyes will play with Teen Vice and Pox at Alphaville before heading out on a two-week tour, visiting most of the Midwest and get as far west as Fargo, North Dakota.
“Big Eyes” at Alphaville [140 Wilson Ave. between Willoughby Avenue and Suydam Street in Bushwick, (347) 508–5006, www.alpha
