Eros and the Eschaton is the name of a band started by Kate Perdoni and Adam Hawkins. The two met in 2010 while touring with different musical projects, but they quickly realized the connection they shared went deeper than music. After their whirlwind relationship and the birth of their son, Lio, the two finally sat down together for the first time, recording the songs that would become “Home Address For Civil War,” their debut album, which came out in August 2013.
Almost immediately, the two caught the attention of Bar/None, the iconic label whose signees include important indie rock legends the Feelies and Yo La Tengo. Combining a myriad of influences, from Beach House (“Teen Dream” played on repeat while they recorded) and My Bloody Valentine, their music has a beautiful tension of two people simultaneously falling in love and pursuing their dreams together. I sat down with the duo to discuss Terrance McKenna, their efforts to start a low-cost recording space in Colorado Springs, and the recording of “Home Address For Civil War.”
Q: How did you guys get the idea to start a recording studio?
Adam: I went to school for recording many moons ago, and always wanted to find a way to make it actually happen, it always seemed totally impossible.
Kate: A lot of people we know, but also a lot of people we’ve never heard of, maybe a friend of a friend of a friend, signed up.
Q: What do you guys think of Colorado Springs’ music scene?
K: We moved here because we loved the music scene here and so many of our friends live here, I lived in Colorado in my twenties. When I was living in Colorado Springs last, four years ago, that’s when Adam and I met, while we were both on tour. The musicians here are really compassionate and there’s lots of late-night, pass the guitar round sessions.
Q: You guys have a song called “Terrance McKenna.” Are you firm believers in the “Stoned Ape” theory of evolution, or are you just fans of his in general?
A: I had no idea who he was until I met Kate, and then she just continually jammed lectures down my throat. I remember the first road trip we took we had this little cassette player in the car, and we listened to one lecture over and over.
K: Adam just kept making fun of his voice at first.
A: At first I just thought he sounded hilarious, especially on this little cassette player running on batteries. (laughs) But then actually listening to it, I thought he had some pretty interesting ideas.
K: The way he ties together all these different aspects of culture and art and science and history and weaves them together, and in all the videos I’ve seen it’s all just off the cuff.

Q: How long have you been playing music individually?
K: Individually, like our whole lives.
A: I’ve been making recordings since I was 9 or 10, taking two cassette players, recording on one of them, singing along, then bouncing back and forth on them.
K: Yeah, I started recording little songs since I was really young, I had a tape recorder too. On keyboards, I don’t really know if I learned to play, I just always liked to mess around with sounds, which is still exactly what I love to do.
A: I took guitar lessons for about a month when I was ten, but I hated it, because I was learning like one string at a time, and I just wanted to pound away on it, so I quit. But my grandpa loaned me his guitar when I was probably 13, and I picked it up again.
K: I stated playing guitar when I was 13, my dad has a few custom made Martin guitars because we lived by the factory in Pennsylvania. Pearl Jam and Neil Young and Crazy Horse made me really want to rock out, and I think the first songs I learned to play were the Nirvana “Unplugged” songs.
Q: When did you first start playing together?
K: We basically started recording “20 Different Days” after our son was born. We didn’t actually play a show until a year later, so we’ve only been playing shows together for like two years. It’s weird, because it feels like a lot longer.
A: I don’t think we played our first show until we were three-quarters of the way through our first album.
K: “20 Different Days,” I just kind of whipped that one out one night.
A: I think we just decided to start writing songs together, so we just picked up a guitar and started going and got the idea, and you just pounded out the lyrics.
K: I just came up with the riff, and it reminded me of that song “Secret Agent Man,” I just remember having that song stuck in my head for a week.
Q: Where did you guys record the album?
K: In our various houses, yeah. (Laughter) It kind of blew our minds that a record label put out an album that we recorded ourselves in our house with really shitty equipment.
A: Part of the whole thing was we didn’t want to spend a ton of time on the recording, we didn’t want to spend hours getting the perfect take.
Q: I saw that you guys posted about an upcoming Yo La Tengo show in New York. Are you big fans?
K: They’re definitely the band that Adam and I bonded over most as far as music that was instrumental in our love of music and recording and stuff, kinda the band we fell in love to.
A: When we saw them in North Carolina, I requested “Center of Gravity,” and they played it. Afterwards, I went up to Georgia and was like “Thanks so much for playing it.”
K: It was kind of our couple song. I was freaking out, like, “They’re playing it!” and Adam was just trying to play it cool.
A: I was just trying to take it in. (laughs)
Q: Where did you come up with the band name?
K: It’s a Terrance McKenna-ism. It’s the name of one of his lectures, one that I particularly really love, and the epitome of what he does. We also got a cease and desist for our former band name, so we had to come up with something else.
Q: What was your original name?
K: The Golden Hearts
A: The former guitar player for Four Non-Blondes now has a band in San Francisco called The Goldenhearts, and they are terrible.
K: They were just big giant douchebags about the whole thing.
A: The first thing they sent us out of the gate was a letter from a lawyer. We were just like, “That’s not very golden hearted of you! Wouldn’t it be in the spirit of the name to let there be multiple Golden Hearts?” (laughs)