With Way Out, Winnipeg’s Eagle Owl delivers his most personal and cinematic work yet. Fusing alt-pop, alt-R&B, and hip-hop, the track balances melodic hooks with raw, confessional lyricism. Co-starring Jaydi, whose haunting vocals add depth to the track’s duality, Way Out feels like a dark yet hopeful self-portrait of an artist wrestling with faith, resilience, and the desire to break free from toxic cycles.
With production rooted in both his local community and global collaborators, Eagle Owl is shaping a sound that’s uniquely his own—vulnerable, menacing, and powerful. We sat down with Eagle Owl to talk about the inspiration behind Way Out, the role of faith in his music, and what’s coming next in his evolving journey.
Interview with Eagle Owl
Eagle Owl: It’s hard to recall the exact moment for way out, for creating songs for myself, it just depends on the right mood/mindset or the idea I’ve been thinking about for months, maybe even weeks or maybe it just pops out of this idea right away when I find a beat. For ‘way out,’ it was basically a mixture of ideas and thoughts that reflected how I was feeling that day, built up from accumulated emotion.
E: I feel like the chorus very much brings that ‘way out’ part for me. With the lyrics “I wish I was something, never had a way out, on my way out, try to shut it out, that it’ll, never will, work out” I’ve had times where I’ve been shut out from relationships, from friends, the church, the people closest to you, who knows. You wish you meant something right. Everyone has a different idea of their “way out“. Even with this track with myself, I sometimes go back and listen to it and be like, Oh yeah, today it means this now. I never had that happen for a song for myself, which is pretty cool.
E: All my life, I’ve been Christian. I’ve had many ups and downs over the years with the church, from people I thought were friends, to trying to help a church grow in different avenues, to helping volunteers in different communities, and the list goes on. There are for sure things that should be fixed in different avenues when it comes to that, but being able to tell my story from those experiences through music is pretty cool to finally be able to share that. With Music, like many people, it’s my therapy/little part of my story or journey for the odd thing. I always love finding new bands & artists to listen to and even creating music, as trying to hire a therapist to explain your problems, very much costs more than making a song these days. So, for having this upbringing from the church, that’s why I’m like, let’s make a song about it instead.
E: The female feature is something I’ve been wanting to do for years. I’ve reached out to countless female artists for a while; a lot of the ones I reached out to were just not doing features or were under label/contracts and couldn’t do features at the moment. This track, though, I wanted to get that Female feature because it felt like it needed that, especially how the lyrics and the idea are. The last year or two, I’ve gone down this rabbit hole of yes, female dark pop/r&b artists on Spotify. Jaydi, I found, like the last month or two, from that “fans also like” tab off Spotify from one of those many artists I was finding. I listened to a few of her tracks, loved her voice, I reached out to her, she loved the track and then sent me her take, and I loved it! It was perfect.
E: For the beat, I just found something online on one of those beat stores, and I’m like this is perfect. As for engineers, bringing someone local to this for mixing was great. I’ve worked with a few people locally before for tracks/demos, and it just didn’t work after sending off the masters. But Cailen went to school for it, and we did have to tinker a bit for the final mixes, but he nailed it to similar to other mixes I’ve had before in my catalogue. He’s also a very good friend of mine; he has his own band called SeventhString, so he knows how to mess around with music for sure! For reaching out to Travis, that was another thing, with someone who grew up watching Big Time Rush, and for him to work on a track of mine, it was like wow, almost a full circle moment, right! He got it back to me in like a week or so and said he liked it, and he nailed it right off the bat that I’m like, this can totally be a radio hit!
E: As someone who likes the rock/metal side of music on a day to day, going into this dark/alt pop realm like Billie, 6LACK or older G-Eazy, it very much resonates with my sound for that style, and I enjoy listening to it when I’m just in my room or on a car ride. Like, for someone who does yes Christian lyric themes and that in my music when I do, I don’t see many people in that Christian world doing that kind of music, which I’m surprised about. That’s why I’ve been trying to go into this idea/realm to see if it can work, and if it does, I hope it can maybe be on someone’s Car radio then!
E: For me, way out is really about resilience, about refusing to stay stuck in the same cycles that were handed down or forced on you right. I wanted to create something that speaks to anyone who feels like they’re on the outside looking in, or searching for a place that feels like freedom, a way out, right. The message I hope people carry with them is that even when things feel heavy or impossible, there’s always a way forward.
E: Winnipeg is an interesting market for upcoming artists. It goes into waves; sometimes people would like to collaborate, and other times people want to stay in their corner and not help each other. But also, it’s a city that’s very cutthroat when it comes to your sound. They very much would like to hear that fast rap from you if you’re in this hip-hop market, whereas I do this hip-hop/alt pop r&b thing, and they don’t like that sound cause it isn’t this fast rap similar to like Tech N9ne or Eminem. I’ll always be grateful for where I started, and being born and raised here, but it has shown me that this market really can’t go into this global reach if they can’t support the up and coming new age of Hip-Hop/R&B artists.
E: Yeah, with working on the EP, I’m very similar to Noah Sebastian from Bad Omens, where I’m always tinkering with it, it has to be perfect, you know, sometimes I’m like: Oh, this song would be great on it, and then the next day I’m like, Oh this doesn’t work on it now. It’s going much a very similar direction theme as ‘way out’ sonically for it as of right now, as well, I try my best to have those catchy choruses for my new music, even when I go about my day I’m sometimes humming when the odd track here and there from this EP.
E: Think of me as Nemo from Finding Nemo in the ocean, I’m just trying to find my way to my home in a large ocean. We might have a bumpy road getting to that home but hope you’re along for the ride as we have some gems for you to check out hopefully sometime soon.
Closing Thoughts
With Way Out, Eagle Owl doesn’t just release a single—he opens the door to his world of struggle, resilience, and truth-telling. Dark yet empowering, the track marks the beginning of a new era for the Winnipeg artist, setting the tone for his upcoming EP.
Way Out is available now on all major platforms. Stay tuned for more music and updates from Eagle Owl as he continues carving his path from Winnipeg to the world stage.
