Lovvers - Interview - February 2008
By: Yousif Nur
Moments before heading on stage at North London's Barfly venue, Shaun, lead singer of Nottingham noise-mongers
Lovvers, joined Rockfeedback for a few words. But not without the unwelcome disturbance of the billionth fire alarm to be set off in Camden in a number of days - in between the high pitched wailing of bells, these words were exchanged...
Shaun: Is that a Liverpool scarf?
RFB: No, it's a Man. United one. Frankly, I'm grossly offended.
Shuan: Oh well... I'm an Evertonian anyway.
RFB: Could be worse. Anyway, following the demise of The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg and your other respective bands, how did all of you meet one another, and what's different about this newest band to rise from the ashes?
Shaun: Well we didn't really rise from the ashes as such. We all lived in Nottingham, I still live there, and I knew Henry (guitar) from back there. I wrote some songs, just started playing some music, and then it became pretty apparent that we ought to do a band together. I was playing in a band called Kamikaze at the time and Michael (bass) was involved with that. We met Steve (drummer) pretty randomly and started this up. We made sure we had the songs, got it together and started playing some shows.
RFB: So when was the Lovvers thing conceived?
Shaun: Henry and I had just been playing music and jamming for a while. We got a bit more serious about after a few weeks and we just decided to form a band. It was pretty nonchalant really. We decided to play some gigs with the songs that we'd written and it kinda went from there.
RFB: Releasing three singles on Jonson Family in quick succession, how important is it that acts keep their own songs via copyright control rather than labels?
Shaun: We kept the copyright because we paid for the recording. We wrote the songs, so... I don't know if it's that important for bands, or for us really, it's just something that we recorded and paid for. For us, it's because we want what we do. For other bands, I don't know. I think it's a good thing to own your own music isn't it? It's kinda cool if you can afford it. All the recordings that we've done haven't cost us anymore than about £200 max. So it's like £50 from each member of the band. It's also like a hobby in a way. If you put some money into something you enjoy and you can get a record out of it in the end, great. I don't know if it's really important though for music. I think it really depends on the people in bands. For us, it just means that it got released, if we didn't own it, that'd just mean it'd be released but the label would've had to call the shots. If anything, owning the songs means you have the control. If someone suggests something you don't agree with, one has the power to say no to it. (Fire alarm rings.) The good thing about doing seven-inches is we're able to do that.
RFB: Is there any use in traditional record labels nowadays, when artists have the opportunities to do it all by their own means?
Shaun: Yeah, it's pretty funny how the internet seems to rule the roost these days, but when you're putting out a record, you want to own it, hold it... but maybe all kids in ten years time will want to download our stuff. From our point of view we want to put our records out so you can hold them. But I think it's important that people have access to music, so downloads are cool. People want to check it out so they can stream it and that's fine, I have no problem with that. But I still think that it's good to have a product, something you can touch and feel. I listen to loads of records, I like putting them on, I like them skipping, and I like having the artwork. So yeah, labels exist for that reason. But major labels exist to make money. Simple as that.
RFB: Run by accountants who'll only buy one record a year..
Shaun: But if they want to buy one record a year, then that's fine. If they're into that and it makes them happy, so be it. If there's a kid who has spent a thousand pounds a year buying records, it's what makes him happy. But you can't put your own thing onto other people, you really can't. You have to do what makes you happy and live by your own rules. Don't worry about what some other guy is doing, only worry about what you're doing. The fire alarms gone off again... I think we'll be alright...
RFB: Yeah, and this time it wasn't me, I swear it.
Shaun: I know. It was us.
RFB: I never much liked the Hawley Arms anyway. How big an influence are bands on the likes of SST and Dischord on Lovvers?
Shaun: For me, the music I started listening to when I was younger was a lot of that stuff really. So it kind of came full circle when I started the band. I'm interested in that, but I don't think we just like the old atmosphere that those bands created. I think it's lost on a lot of today's music really.
RFB: The reason I love what you do so much is because of that very reason, almost in homage to acts in years gone by...
Shaun: I think a lot of the cool things about that music are lost in modern day music. I think it's cool to go back and say 'hey, this is a pretty great time that's been lost'. Modern day music is so fickle and so bad, that if you could bring all that to the attention of people... the fire alarm is still ringing... I think it's important that those bands are an influence, and we can't deny that. We do sound like a lot of those bands. Those bands are good reference points to our band. I don't think we sound a whole lot like those bands, but they're obviously reference points. That whole scene was really cool and it said something... I wonder what started that fire alarm off...? So, on the whole, this band is influenced by what I generally love and we operate and sound in a certain way as a result. We just play music and we know what we like and know what we do. It's as simple as that really.
RFB: Succinctly put. Although there is that Nirvana comparison...
Shaun: I think that's probably because I dyed my hair blonde! (laughter) I was saying that today that if I dyed it black we'd be compared to the Misfits!
RFB: I don't know if you're as theatrical or make-up laden as Glen Danzig?
Shaun: I don't even know if we sound like Nirvana. We all like them, but they're a good reference point if you're fourteen and you're listening to Nevermind.
RFB: It's better than being compared to Bush, or Nickelback...
Shaun: Do we sound like Bush?
RFB: What do you think?!
Shaun: I don't think we sound like Nirvana anyway. I think you could say that they also wore their influences on their sleeve though, like The Melvins, Black Flag, Scratch Acid and all those bands. I don't think we'll be the next Nirvana and we're not going to release a Nevermind. We just do what we do and people always want to pigeonhole things, especially in the media - they want to say you sound like this or that band.
RFB: It's the age we live in.
Shaun: Everyone's still looking for the next Nirvana. So everyone wants to say it. They want to market something in a certain way. Like The Vines, they can take something from it and Nirvana is a pretty good reference. Like any new band coming out and saying they're the new Strokes. People can write what they wanna write. We do something a little bit like Nirvana, but I ain't no Kurt Cobain! (laughs) I ain't lying, I'm really not!
RFB: You're touring at the moment with some pretty great high profile support slots - I Was A Cub Scout, Blood Red Shoes and Biffy Clyro... How's it all going so far from your perspective, seeing as you've not been together for a great deal of time?
Shaun: It's good to play gigs to people, I don't know if they're high-profile... Biffy Clyro are pretty high profile I guess. But at those shows there are going to be people who don't really get or understand what we're doing. But we just want to play shows all the same, and it's good to be put in a position where you can play to people who don't necessarily get what you're about, but we can come and try to say 'hey, this is what we're about' and then they can take what they want from that. Playing to people that get it all the time can be dissatisfying really because y'know, what's the point? They get the message. You might as well try and play to some people to whom you can say 'this is a different way of doing things'. But we just like playing shows, if we get asked to play to twenty people somewhere, we'll play it. If we play to around a thousand Biffy Clyro fans, one or two people are going to really dig it. If you're going to rally against something, or say something, it's better to say it as loud as you can rather than not. So, every opportunity you get to play in a band you might as well do it.
RFB: You've been called one of the hardest-working bands at the moment. Any truth in that?
Shain: Really? I've not heard about that. We work pretty hard, we play a lot of gigs, but it's what we enjoy so why wouldn't we do it? Take horse-riding, if you try to ride a horse every day, or running, by getting up early every morning for a run... you have to enjoy it. I enjoy playing, so we're trying to play as many gigs as we can. I enjoy being in this band, so we take this lifestyle. You're only young once so you might as well enjoy it. You might as well do what you can whilst you still have the capability to do it. But hardest working band? I don't know, we have fun, so I don't feel we're hard working... We did a hundred shows in the last year and we don't know any different, my whole mentality has been 'You want to play in a band, you go and do it.' Cut out all the bullshit and go and play some shows and have a good time and have fun!
RFB: If the masses permitted it, would you like to see yourselves in right in the limelight, or take a more underground route to success?
Shaun: I don't think we have a set goal. If people are into it, they're into it. We're never going to change our style of music to suit people. We just keep doing what we're doing and if people get into it then they do, and if more people start coming to gigs, then they do. We haven't really got anything to sell out for because we didn't really come from anything. There are very few mainstream bands that we like. Tonight we're putting on stuff that we do like (Cleckhuddersfax and Tropics are in support of Lovvers). We play by our own rules, if people find it cool, la dee da, then great. We're not going to change to suit people. We're just going to keep writing songs.
Artists in this article: Lovvers