Australian indie-pop duo LOVELOVELOVE pushes the genre boundaries
Australian indie-pop duo LOVELOVELOVE pushes the genre boundaries, blurring the complexities of emotion & feeling into uniquely written records. 2022 marked the beginning of the project, with two strongly anticipated singles, “smalltowns" & “holding on” released early in the year to kickstart the project.
Alongside Lukae, LOVELOVELOVE released their first collaborative single “Break Your Heart” in October, marking the return with a focus on a more indie-rock/indie pop sound.
“ULTRAVIOLET” was released on the 18th of November as the first single from their upcoming EP, earning a premier on Triple J Unearthed national radio program TOPS. Following release, the music video for “ULTRAVIOLET” earned a premier on MTV Hits as well as being added to ABC Australia's iconic music video programme Rage. The follow up single from their EP “CLOVER” released Feb 10th. The pair will play their first headline performance at Brisbane’s iconic Black Bear Lodge on May 17th to launch the album.
Our team at SUBCULTURE? has been working with LOVELOVELOVE for the last few months across Publicity and Marketing, and more recently Management. We are super excited for the rollout of their brand new EP "Ultraviolet" due for release in May, so we caught up the lads to have a quick chat about their upcoming plans for our readers to listen to Den & Jared from the band expand on the process behind the Creative, Music and the future of LLL.
IN CONVERSATION WITH SUBCULTURE? FOUNDER JONNY BLACKWELL
Hey Guys, How are you today?
D: Going super swell
J: Very well thank you!
What are you working on this week?
D: Just plodding around finishing up some small little demos, and then playing a few shows down in Byron alongside David McCredie later in the week, should be dope!
J: We’ve got a shoot coming up for the music video of our latest track Sweater. Super excited for that. Then we’ve got another photoshoot on the weekend for the EP.
Where are you based?
J: We’re both North Brissy, along the Bramble Bay/Moreton Bay coastal region, bouncing between Sandgate and Newport. It’s a beautiful spot near the water, not much goes on here and there are lots of old people so it’s very, very mellow and slow. We love it.
How did LOVELOVELOVE come together? Give us the story!
J: The way I remember it, one day, maybe 2-3 years ago, Den came over to my place. I was working on a track that I thought was a throw away because I didn’t really know where it was going. Just before I went to close the session, I listened back to it one more time. Then Den, sitting on the couch behind me, starts singing this melody over the track. I remember thinking ‘holy shit, this dude can actually sing, he’s the perfect thing to bring this track to life’. A few weeks down the track, we’d completed our first track called ‘Salt Lake City’ for our project ‘East London Arcade’, which we soon after that changed to ‘LOVELOVELOVE’. I think that was the moment that sparked the idea that we could do something big if we joined forces.
D: I remember it pretty much the same way, I know a few times after we had become mates, I kinda felt maybe we could do something together, but it just never seemed to lock in organically until that night on J’s couch – and from then on its just been this incredible collaboration where we both bring such different, but valuable things to the table, think Yin & Yang.
How did you come across SUBCULTURE?, and start working with us?
J: We were in search of some PR assistance and came across Jonny who seemed to understand what we needed. That set off a really healthy relationship between us and the team. SUBCULTURE? have been the reason for our consistent growth over the past few months and we’re super grateful.
D: Yeah, I remember we had this DM sitting in our inbox one day, and in this industry, you treat that kind of thing with a certain kind of caution – but after a few messages, it seemed clear Jonny and the team were the real deal. It took us a few months to consider a few different PR options, but after a conversations and planning, we felt Jonny and Ash understood what we needed to grow – which is something that can be hard for new artists to find.
With Ultraviolet, Clover released now, How has the response been?
D: The response has been so good, having our songs on MTV, Rage and Triple J has really helped us grow both in social media presence, and on streaming. Beyond the numbers, its great just to feel our music is getting to corners we wouldn’t have been able to get it to – and having new fans send really kind messages is a huge mental boost.
J: Its been great! Not much more to say, I’m stoked with it!
I know we are looking forward to the release of Sweater, and then the full EP! What can everybody expect from the Ultraviolet EP pre-release?
D: We’re working hard to bring everyone some cool visuals, both with a music video and some cool touch-design audio stuff – J’s all over it! It’s always hard to find new and interesting ways to promote music, but we’re stoked that we’ve built this kind of local reputation for having interesting videos, which by the time SWEATER drops will be ready and people should be anticipating that some dope stuff is coming.
J: I hope we’re able to make some happy pre-release content that makes people smile. We're just keen to push a positive, happy vibe. We’re also going to have a tiny sort of private listening party pre-releasing as a thank you to everyone who’s been involved, should be sweet.
What was the process behind creating these songs for the EP? Where they written together, or seperate as singles, then fell into this EP?
J: I guess you could say that they were written separately, without really going ‘this is for an EP’. We both went through various phases of just writing, recording, and producing as much as we could, both together and separately and then always come together to finish things off. After a year or so we found ourselves with a whole lot of music of different vibes/genres. We found that some tracks were inherently similar in meaning, sound and vibe and so we picked out those ones and for EP– it wasn’t until after we began piecing it all together that we thought it ‘wow, this is really a snapshot of the last few months’.
D: Totally, I feel like this EP is the product of us really trying to find our sound, and it’s really cool to reflect on the songs knowing we found some sort of process or method for making what we feel is ‘us’. It might not be a traditional EP or LP where we set off with a theme or idea and went ‘okay let’s write and record’ but in a way it’s the story of what we were going through whilst finding our feet – and that feels super special.
What were you listening to during the writing of these releases?
D: Man, over the course it/s changed so much, I guess the constant artists would have to be, The 1975, COIN, Del Water Gap, The Beatles, Hazlett, Akurei, and probably some Novo Amor and Bon Iver too. Such a mixed bag!
J: I can’t really remember. I’ve always loved house music and there hasn’t been a time that I haven’t listened to house - deep house, tech house, afro house, all of the houses. I also like sticking to the olden golden songs from artists and bands like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Bob Marley, Fleetwood Mac. So I was probably listening to some of these artists in between the house music at the time of writing our own music.
I know you guys write a bit of music for other artists, who have you been working with outside of LLL?
D: At the moment, mostly working with This New Light. Main focus has been both producing his latest EP and then working on a separate collaborative EP with a more dark indie-folk vibe. We’ve also had some collaboration with Lukae, another great Brissy based indie-pop artist, mainly in the form of some mastering, mixing and some writing too.
J: I haven’t worked on music with other artists for about a year now. Outside of LLL, I’ve been focussing on my solo project called Mapimpi. It’s a house music project that I plan to announce soon and start releasing tracks mid year 2023. Apart from the collaborators that have worked with me on Mapimpi such as Michael Dae and CuttyBeats, I haven’t had much interaction with other artists but hoping that’ll change soon.
What's the process of getting a potentially great LLL song?
J: I don’t know if there is a process to getting a great song.
I think we’re constantly chasing a feeling that’s sparked by various different things - like a nice melody that we come up with, or a sick drumbeat, or even something external to music like a good story told by someone or a movie. So many things can trigger our musical inspiration and when you get it right, that inspiration kind of unfolds in its own way to become a groovy/beautiful LLL song.
D: Yeah, I feel like we’re both always kind of ‘storing’ ideas and then we’ll hit an spark and song will come out of the woodwork in a few days – it’s usually a slow start that comes from my writing ideas, or J’s production ideas, but it could be anything. To give a more methodic answer, it usually starts with a song idea/lyric, then I lay a demo and send it to J, and he sends back the craziest drums or synths. From then on if we’re both vibing we’ll hit the studio together and just get things a little more dialed. Weirdly enough we always leave the lyrical idea until the production feels more like the finished product before we commit to final lyrics. I think we both feel like it leaves room for cool production or lyrics to happen without the pressure of having to record straight away.
What are you up to when you aren't making music?
D: Mainly surfing, or just hanging around our neighborhood, we have an amazing group of friends and community that are always down for a games night, or stuff like that. I also always have some weird thing were I go through deep obsessions with things; guitar restoration, fixing film cameras or nerding out on coffee gear, so also that keeps me busy for sure.
J: Surfing, chatting with my girlfriend, catching up with friends, simple but wholesome.
What's your favourite thing about being a part of the Brisbane / Queensland Music Community?
J: It’s quite a small music community. Everyone knows everyone and they stick together nicely. We feel like everyone’s quite relaxed and chilled too which is nice and keeps the whole ‘glamour’ or like ‘persona’ element in check.
Any Projects or Creatives you want to give a shout-out to real quick?
D: For sure, currently, loving the Yb, Felivand and Hazlett albums all originally from Brissy artist which is so sick! Also, a general shout out to our boy Luke Jenkins!
J: Doug Clarke of Future Classic LA. He’s our mixing engineer who’s helped us out heaps. He’s also jumping on a few of our new productions too!
With your upcoming EP Live Show, What can people coming along expect?
D: We’re looking to really go full circle with the live thing, and we’re trying to achieve that by bring our ‘A-game’ both with the whole band sound and general performance. We’ll be playing pretty much our entire released catalogue, and there’ll be a bunch of cool re-imagined covers too, maybe even a few unreleased songs too if the crown is right! We just want to promote a fun comfortable experience for everyone.
J: Ya, just a fun time, hopefully a mix of high emotion and authenticity. We just want to bring people together at the end of the night.
What's the future hold for LLL?
J: I think we’re both keen to get back into writing, recording and producing more consistently. After the EP drops and the hype mellows out a bit, we’ll focus on that for sure.
D: For sure, hoping for a few more shows later in the year. We’ve also started working on the new few songs so also keen to dig into a bunch of new sounds and bring out a more indie rock flavour for upcoming songs.