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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Love Inks
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 20 April 2011
Hailing from the buzzing hive of alt-band activity that is Austin, Texas, dream-pop trio Love Inks united under a collectively strict, no-frills attitude to making music. The band self-recorded their debut LP ‘ESP’ at home, working with basic analogue equipment and painstakingly feeding sounds through eight-track reels, before pulling in a favour from a friend for the post-studio mixing.
Their CMU approved debut single ‘Blackeye’ came out earlier this year via Italian label Hell, Yes!, a wry, lo-fi number full of undulating melodies and raw, tinny beats that showcases the band’s careful recording craft in a positive light. As the album’s release date of 2 May grows ever closer, we posed our Same Six Questions to bassist Kevin Dehan.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I started by sitting at my parents’ piano when I was three or four years old, just hitting keys, and thinking I really needed to get started on this songwriting thing. It was a great feeling, “OK, I’ll sit there for a little while, knock out some songs, go look at the clock maybe”. I liked looking at the clock and telling people what time it was. Then I came up with some crap about a dog or something and realised how hard songwriting was and that I needed practice. At that point in time I was really into becoming a musician, sitting in the corner of the house, blasting the monkey’s theme song, getting inspiration. Things didn’t start panning out until much much later.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Wanting a change in life and in music… Getting out of our hometown together… Really making something we were proud of and getting it to as many people as possible. In a more literal sense, Adam got the idea for the name from his “fringe sciences”, as he calls them. He came up with a weird things called ‘Emotive Simple’ and something for the P too (the album title is ‘ESP’). I can’t remember, Powerful maybe? Anyway, he came up with the title and I think we were all on the same page on how we wanted to make the album and what we wanted to do with it.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
It’s very simple. Sometimes it starts with a beat and sometimes the beat comes later. Someone brings chords to the table, we either add more parts or leave it alone, sometimes a melody comes with the chords or a melody is made up later… and the same with lyrics. I come up with really stupid repetitive lyrics but that’s the kind of music I love most and Sherry’s lyrics are usually more intense, a story-like structure sometimes, or just not as blatantly repetitive. This is sounding more and more complicated, but really it’s just a project we all take part in, at times the songs are fully formed when they come to the band. That’s cool, too.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
We’re all very different. Adam, who plays guitar, is very sombre in his musical tastes I think, though he’s going to hate me for saying that! He likes Pete Doherty, Blonde Redhead and he listens to a lot of classical music – I think he’s very inspired by writers like Pushkin, Dostoevsky, all the Russian guys. He’s a heavy reader, too.
Sherry’s more of an Elton John, Fleetwood Mac kind of girl. I know she’s been listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell lately, which is cool but sometimes too intense for me. She has a record player by her vanity when she gets ready and I have to get away when Joni’s on! She also jams a lot of Motown. The first night I met her we dug through her records, she’s always been a huge record collector, I was amazed at how much she knew – I thought I was a nerd, haha! She’s turned me on to so much cool stuff it’s ridiculous. Also she loves R Kelly, no lie.
I’m into a lot of New York stuff – Lou Reed, The Ramones, The Dolls and The Dead Boys. One of my favourite records is of Johnny Thunders live with an acoustic guitar and a saxophone player, he sounds so heartbroken. I’m a Kerouac, Patti Smith, Jim Carrol beat generation junkie, I love it!
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Well, Sherry always advises some weed to be smoked. I guess I try not to say much, just let them take it in. If they dig it, yeah! We put our blood into this music, I feel like when I stay up to write songs I put it on the line. Sometimes I know what I’m working on will never be used or heard but I feel like it’s essential to get what’s there out of me. One night I just kept hitting the notes to that song ‘It’s The Same Old Song’ by The Four Tops, I couldn’t get past it. So I knew I had to record a version of the song just to get past it. It’s kind of cool I guess.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We want to get it out there, let people hear it and really back it up 100%. We’re super excited about it, we feel like it sounds great, we just want everyone to hear it. We feel lucky that people so far have really given it a chance, so we just want to run with it. For the future we want to tour more, get out of our hometown and win Grammys!
MORE>> http://www.loveinks.com
