LoveLikeFire : Interview

LoveLikeFire are the Californian quartet who won over Austin at this years SXSW, subsequently encouraging a storm of praise here in the UK with the atmospheric debut single ‘William’ and more recently the LP Tear Ourselves Away. 

Originally the brainchild of frontwoman Ann Yu in 2006, LoveLikeFire has been something of an unsettled entity, experiencing numerous line-up changes and transitional periods bringing them up to the present day.  The current membership of the band has stood since last year when joining Ann and fellow founding member, David Farrell, came long-time friends Marty Mattern and Eric Amerman.  This has finally brought about a harmonious and newly collaborative quartet, who thrive on the intricacies and energy of live performances and the potential their future recordings already have in the wake of Tear Ourselves Away and the recent tour that has taken them throughout the UK.

Fusing together rich sounding shoegazing-indie, with glorious and emotional melodies that have conjured up comparisons to the Canadian Arcade Fire and, dare I say it, mainstream lovelies The Killers.  Add to this Yu’s personal lyrics and her compelling vocal delivery and you have a breathtaking and at times atmospheric 11-track debut record and a superbly bold live show.

We caught up with Ann and Marty from LoveLikeFire after their instore performance at Pure Groove in the heart of Smithfields Market, where they explained in depth the seamless shift into the new line-up, their hopes for future recordings and how those comparisons don’t sit well within the group.

4TR: LoveLikeFire, welcome to the UK, how has the tour been going so far?
Ann Yu: It's really good. We have been playing pretty much everywhere in the UK so we've seen so many beautiful cities and everyone is friendly and it's been really fun. I actually feel like people are friendlier here [laughs].

4TR: LoveLikeFire in its original formation begun in 2006 but since then you have lost some members and gained some new ones. What is the story behind the origins of the band?
Ann: Yes well the band started with Dave and myself when we were also in different bands at the time, but came together from very similar places in terms of influences. We had a handful of songs and to us it was like this sounds like something that could be a very different project for us and so over time it became very evident that it was growing, so we both quit our other bands to focus on LoveLikeFire and then came the line up changes about a year ago.

4TR: Your debut album Tear Ourselves Away was released in September of this year - was that recorded before the line-up changes occurred?
Ann: Yes, so half of us were involved in the recording and then half of us recorded some additional parts over what was already laid. There was quite a significant transition period but it was seamless and very easy for us. I mean it was a huge transition coming out of the line-up before, but actually coming into the new line up it couldn't have been better. So the band is perfect the way it is now and I feel like we are the same band but even better in the way we are working together. Its much more democratic which is amazing and takes a lot of pressure off of me, because everyone gives a lot of great feedback when we're writing new material which really helps. The whole point of a band is that you have a democracy working together otherwise you are just a singer/songwriter fronting as a band, and with that in mind I feel like we are the purest form of what LoveLikeFire should be now.

4TR: In that case it must be very exciting to think about future recordings with the collaborative stance now in place.
Marty: Yeah it is; its like Ann said we are all participating and writing not only our own parts but having influence over each other's parts. Bringing different material to the table inspires everyone in its own way, so its not always the same person bringing new music and we not afraid to mess around and see what comes out of something not necessarily having a preformed idea beforehand. Because 50% of the band has changed it's going to be very different considering that approach to writing songs, rather than with Tear Ourselves Away, which is Ann primarily. The next album will be almost equally split between the 4 of us working together.
Ann: There's something very different when you create songs together as a band and I think it's very apparent on some of our newer material, which is a great thing.

4TR: So as well as the change in how you write, have you noticed a progression or evolvement of the LoveLikeFire sound yet?
Marty: There has definitely been a shift already certainly from the album, but there is no direction properly established yet because we are a year in but we have only really been writing for about 6 months or so. The first 6 months were spent nailing down what already existed and what we knew we were going to tour on to promote this album, but more recently we've started writing new songs to establish the way we work together as a band, laying that framework first and then building upon it in the future. Soundwise it's been a little more mellow recently, but I think that could definitely shift and blend into a completely new sound and even more aggressive sounding music.

4TR: With the music contained within Tear Ourselves Away you have already received comparisons to the epic sounds of bands like Arcade Fire. Was such a big sound intentional?
Ann: No it was definitely not intentional. Personally I like things that are melodramatic but not necessarily epic or anthemic sounding, but with Dave strumming and everyone putting the pieces together it came together in a big sounding way. I feel like if you rip the songs apart and strip it back to just guitar and vocals it could go the other way, so it was a symptom of the production of the album. It wasn't a premeditated thing, but we do get so many comparisons to people like Arcade Fire and other big bands that I won't mention [laughing].

4TR: Because it was a symptom of the production do you agree with any of the comparisons made?
Ann: It doesn't feel good to be compared to bands that are modern and happening right now or in the last few years, because as musicians it would be nice to have people dig deeper and see the subtleties that are more of what we are going for. I can understand that as reviewers its easy to read what someone else has written and think oh that's what I want to find in the songs instead of making their own judgment on the song and part of the reason that we are doing a cover song during this UK tour is sort of to shed light a little bit on the fact that we are not listening to modern bands.
Marty: We wouldn't cover the Arcade Fire for example. Everyone needs to compare you to someone to give you an idea of what the music is but usually its not that band that we listen to or a band that we are into or take direct influence from. You just end up getting compared to bands that are a blended influence somehow, its like people just pick a big band and say you sound like them, for example the killers, or you sound like Arcade Fire.
Ann: [Laughing] you said it, you said the K word.
Marty: [Laughing] Its like they need to give a name that everyone knows so they can say to themselves, if you like The Killers you will like LoveLikeFire etc, it doesn't work like that at all.

4TR: It's surreal because of all the bands you could be compared to, The Killers are one which I don't think you sound a bit like.
Ann: [Laughing] that's good, neither do we.

4TR: Recording this album was clearly a transitional time, but despite that do you feel you got everything out of it that you intended?
Ann: I think we got what we wanted out of it but it took a lot longer than we anticipated before the mixing stage started, so it was drawn out and for the next album we are definitely going to keep it simpler. Alot of our favourite recordings aren't perfect or over produced and involving long epic processes, so I think next time we will keep things more organic and about the message that we are conveying and not all the different bells and whistles to convey the message. It will be about what is at the root of the song because I think that's what people hear when they listen to music.

4TR: So that change in production will inevitably show a change in direction.
Ann: Yeah, I mean I'm very proud of our album but I think as an artist with every album you want to grow and explore different directions and experiment more. Writing the same album would be boring for us and for our listeners, and because we've got an extra gift now with 2 new talented musicians putting their own input into the writing process we can grow and challenge ourselves without going crazy.

4TR: Would you consider producing your own recordings in future?
Ann: Well we worked with a producer for Tear Ourselves Away but we're toying with the idea of doing it ourselves in the future. Between the 4 of us there's enough talent, creativity and production abilities there that we don't need a producer. I think a lot of bands are going that way actually; they are trying to keep costs down and to be frank its a lot more comfortable keeping it within the band and just have it be the 4 of us working on the whole process. It's like you spend a year writing songs together and then at the end of it you bring in a stranger, which is kind of a foreign process if you're not ready for that and the changes you know.

4TR: With the current trend for synths, samples and laptops it's really nice to hear guitars and the music contained within your record. But it must be quite nerve-wracking releasing something that is outside of what is considered popular at any given moment musically.
Marty: Well we're not really interested in setting a trend or being part of one, its just about what makes us happy and putting out good music. So if people respond to it that's great and at least we are being honest with them and hopefully that is worth something. We play with lots of bands so we see what people are doing; you know bands that are really far along in a particular style or bands that are just starting and are clearly trying to jump on the bandwagon. It's not that sincere and doesn't always feel they're translating their feelings and songs into a style that suits, because it just about what they think will go over well. So we're not going to try and do that because it wouldn't be true to the music and wouldn't be true to the original inspiration. There are no laptops on stage with us that's for sure!

4TR: You guys are based in California, but music in the US must be very splintered, whereas here if there is something new happening, trends or whatever then everyone gets to know about it because its in your face. Is that a correct assumption?
Ann: Yeah, well I can see that happens even with the fashion over here, like every shop seems to sell the same stuff and everyone seems to follow trends in most things. I can see how it could kind of seep into your psyche, like for some of these bands if that's all you are hearing whenever you listen to the radio or something and there's all these different bands popping up who are actually doing the same thing, then in a small area its easier for that to spread. 4TR: The record sounds very layered and obviously there is the grand sound we talked about going on, so do you have to strip that down at all to make it suitable for playing live?
Marty: I think it's actually easier to play it live; it translates better than it does on record. But I think that should always be the case if you're going to be a live performing band, so you should do it the same if not better than the recording. Obviously its not always the case because there are some things that are really hard to pull off live and we understand that you record things with lots of layers so we don't try and do that we just play what we can play.
Ann: Right, we don't need to have every single production aspect in the live show because it's all about the raw energy between the 4 of us. You don't need the extra string parts etc that are on the album, its not important to the main point of the song and the energy that is created when you play live which I think is what people feed off of.

4TR: And finally, how has the feedback been from the reception of ‘Tear Ourselves Away' in the UK?
Ann: Its so interesting to see how it works here, like you play your show and then maybe a DJ is there from a big radio station and then he talks about you and plays your song and the whole word of mouth thing gets going. It's been pretty magical for us in that way and we are excited for the future.

Words: Francesca Strange

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