Interview with The Loved Ones - Podcast 21

What's up everybody, this is Mike from The Loved Ones, rig-a-gig-a-goo, you're listening to Sound Scene Revolution, podcast, hell yeah. Hey, thanks for tuning in to Sound Scene Revolution, I am Rich, before we get started with the whole interview thing, I want to announce we have the winner for the 8-Bit Contest, her name is Trisha H, and I'm assuming she's from North Carolina, that's what the email said, so, maybe South Carolina, it's one of the Carolinas, there's two of them, Trisha's from one of them, so, congratulations, this week we don't have another giveaway, so we're just going to continue on with the loved ones, with the Teenage Bottle Rocket Red Scare one, so if you want to enter that, send us your name, address, important information, soundscenerevolution.gmail.com, and just put Red Scare or Teenage Bottle Rocket Contest in the subject line, so we know what to do, and we'll enter you in that, we got two winners who we're going to kick over to Toby at Red Scare, and hopefully he will hook you guys up with some prizes, though he has not disclosed any details to us, so my guess would be something along the lines of naked photos.

Alright, moving on to this week's interview, we have a wonderful interview with Philadelphia's The Loved Ones, you guys may know these guys were in a couple of different bands, Trial By Fire, Paint It Black, Dave was in another band, and I'm blanking on the name, but they were also good, so you should check them out, but we got to interview them before the show in Santa Cruz with Paint It Black, it was a good show, good times, good interview, they have a van, which is something like a tour bus made out of a rental van, it's pretty badass. So, before we kick into the interview, we're going to play a track off of their first LP, which is called Keep Your Heart, available on Fat Records, if you're interested, we're going to play the track Living Will Get You Dead, it's a pretty badass little number, and so listen to that, be sure to stay tuned for the interview, and all the fun antics that go along with that.

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Alright, so thanks for tuning in to Sound Scene Revolution, we are here today in Santa Cruz, in the back of the truck with members of the loved ones, if you guys can say hello. Howdy. Hello. Uh, excellent, uh, would you guys be able to introduce yourselves real quick, just so we can differentiate? Yeah, I'm Dave, and I sing and play guitar, I'm Michael, and I play bass. Alright, fantastic, um. You sing too, sometimes. Yeah, he. I chime in from time to time. You had a mic in front of you, that counts. Yeah, he sings, it's a melodious voice. Melodious? It's an adjective we don't hear enough, it's nice. Um, do you want to just start off, I guess, by giving me a brief history of the band, how you guys, or the band, how you guys got started and everything?

No, not really. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, we're going to skip that one. Our other bands broke up, and, uh, I was working in D.C. for Brian McTernan, working, doing construction on his house, and both Spider and, uh, Mike, our drummer, were living in D.C. at the time, Spider still lives there, but, um, and Spider and I had talked about doing a band for a long time, he, he was in The Curse, my old band, he was in Paint It Black for a little while when we first were getting started, but none of those things ever materialized for him, but we decided to, like, really go, go ahead and do a band together, and Mike was our first choice for drummer, and he was available, and Spider coerced him into being in the band, and, and that's pretty much it, I mean, we rehearsed, uh, a couple times while I was down in D.C., and then I would come down to D.C., or those guys would come to Philly, and, and then Mike moved to Philly, so.

That's cool. That's pretty much it. So it hasn't been too hard with, uh, Spider still in D.C., then? Spider still in D.C.? Yeah, so it hasn't been too hard and everything? I don't know, man. Is it hard? That's what the Chinatown bus is for. It makes it easy for me. It's $15 to Philly. Really? Really. How long's the trek? Two and a half hours. That's really not too bad. It's not bad at all. Dude, we need a, uh, mass transit around here sucks. That's, that's another issue. Anyhow, um, so I guess one of the questions that comes up is, you guys were in, like, a lot of different bands, I mean, I'm not going to bring up questions about the thousands of older bands you've been in, but. Thousands? Thousands. Not even a dozen.

More, more than three. We'll say the more than, the more than three old bands that you've been in, but, um, it comes up a lot that the music in a lot of your older bands was really different from this, like, this is a lot more melodic and stuff. Is there, uh, how did that come about? Was it just something you felt like doing, or? Well, I mean, I would think that, uh, Mike, Spider, and I were the guys in those bands that were more interested in, uh, melodic music. You know, for instance, in Paint It Black, Yeeman is a huge fan of, like, raucous, raw punk rock. And, uh, I mean, we're fans of that to a degree, but I think, like, me and Spider and Mike are definitely the, the guys who are into a lot of, a lot more pop-oriented stuff.

So I think it doesn't seem unnatural to us, because we're sort of reflecting our rock and roll influences or whatever. Yeah, definitely. But it seemed, a lot of people have mentioned that because it's not strictly hardcore punk. Yeah, because you come from bands like Paint It Black and Draw By Fire and stuff. Right, right. But, uh, it doesn't seem weird to me. What do you think, Spider? It doesn't seem weird to me. I, all my favorite punk bands were melodic bands, like the Buzzcocks, or, to give an example. So, it feels, it feels, it feels pretty natural to me. Right on. Um, one of the things that comes up, again, one of the frequently asked questions, I put this out and people asked a bunch of weird questions and I tried to get the ones I thought were good.

Maybe they are. But, uh, a lot of, uh, there's two tracks from your demo work, one from the EP, and I think a cover song from The Curse on your full length. Is that correct? Yeah. Uh, is there any particular reason that you chose to re-record those songs? Well, I mean, the songs that we put on our demo, it was just a demo. You know, it was just a way for people to hear what we were all about and we always intended for those songs to be used on proper releases. Yeah. Um, we used 100k from the EP on the record because we felt like, um, we had moved up to a larger label and we believe in that song and felt that it was a good song and, and actually, uh, Mike, the guy who owns Fat, was, uh, was, uh, really, uh, really pushed us to put that song and said, look, you know, your EP really didn't get around the way that I think you wanted it to.

And, uh, it would be important for people to hear such a great song. So he and Brian McTernan, the guy who produced our record, were, were both encouraging that. And then as far as the Curse song, I mean, that's a song I wrote when, um, Curse was still obviously together and I just felt like it never saw the light of day either enough and we felt like it was a good song. And as soon as we played it, it felt like a loved one song. I mean, it was one of the first songs we rehearsed. Wasn't it, Survivor? Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, you know. No, no, definitely. It just is, it seemed a lot more natural than, uh, you know, oh, let's find all these gems or something, you know. Yeah. It was just a natural progression.

That's cool. And yet, you didn't play Arsenic tonight. A little let, a little let down by that. Oh, sorry. Oh, it's all right. You guys played enough songs. Yeah. I'm not going to complain. Yeah. All right. I'm sure every night you get off, someone's like, you guys totally should have played this. And you're like. Well, Arsenic, we hear a bunch and, um, Odds, we hear a bunch. We should probably put them in, but you know, we're playing with Paint It Black, so. Yeah, I know. We're playing with some fast tracks. Come to the show tomorrow and, uh. The show tomorrow is in, like, Bakersfield, isn't it? Yeah. We're not happy about it either. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, Bakersfield, sweet. You guys are playing, uh, Jerry's Pizza, is it?

Yeah. That's where everyone plays in Bakersfield. Yeah. It's not bad. Cheap pizza. That's cool. Not a, not a, it's, it's Bakersfield. It's California pizza, though. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. It's, I said it was cheap pizza. I never said it was great pizza. But as far as vegetarian burritos go, California has a beat. That's true. That's, that's the, if you want Mexican food, we, we can do that. Yeah. Pizza, yeah. It's a little more of an East Coast thing. You gotta be in Jersey, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, we do what we can. Um, where was I going with this? I had a serious question. Oh, okay. Um, I keep hitting on some of the things that struck me, uh, about you guys' LP. And one of them is that, in a couple of songs, you guys use clips from, uh, older songs or different songs, like, within, I'm like, uh, I think it's Hurry Up and Wait, you guys use part of Massive at the end of that.

Is there, like, a particular reason for that? Well, lyrically, um, that block of songs, uh, especially Hurry Up and Wait and Sickening are, um, songs I wrote sort of reacting to my mom dying from cancer. And Massive also was, was, um, certainly in, in the thick of that, of her getting sick or that song. And, um, we had a piano version that my sister played on, of Massive that we were considering putting on the record and we weren't sure if it quite fit and it turned out really well, but, um, we just, we found that, like, using that as an interlude made a lot more sense than putting a, you know, the Massive, the piano version. On the record. So, it just kind of made sense and I really wanted to get some snippets from that song because I think it, that song is, is good, but, um, that's kind of the, the story there.

Definitely. Do you have the piano version, like, recorded somewhere? Yo, yeah, yeah. Yeah, with vocals and everything. Oh, wow. So, who knows, it might see the light of day. That'd be cool. There's a couple, there's a bunch of songs from, from that session that we still have that we're holding. There's a piano version of Massive, there's a Billy Bragg cover, a Bruce Springsteen cover. Oh, wow. And two hardcore songs that we, like, really hardcore punk. Wow. Fast track. So, you guys cut, like, out of the 14 you ended up using, how many do you think you cut all together? Well, there's 13 on the record. We recorded almost 20? Damn it. I think so. 19, 19, 19, I don't know, somewhere up there. So, you'll probably see some of those songs on a, on a split.

We're thinking about doing a split. Wow. With some friends and we're trying to sort out. That'd be cool. Who. Who and where and when and all that stuff, so. That'd be great, dude. Like, Massive is probably one of my favorite songs you guys did. Oh, cool. Thank you. So, thank you guys if the piano version ever comes out, I'm on that. It's pretty intense, yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. My sister killed it. That's awesome. So, again, hitting up on the album. This is kind of over all of your guys' work. I noticed the key in the keyhole seems to be a reoccurring theme in the artwork. Is there a particular reason behind all of that? Yeah.

My friend Kate suggested that to us as a logo because she always said I had an uncanny ability to pick people's locks, you know, get into their, so I don't know, it seems kind of weird to explain it, but that's kind of where it came from and it's a cool emblem and we just sort of roll with it, but that was the original suggestion was from our friend Kate. She actually is, she manages the Bouncing Souls and sort of has been, has added some guidance to our, our walk through the, you know, getting our band together and getting our shit together and, and, um, so. Cool. When she made that suggestion, we took it to heart, so. Yeah. Well, I mean, it works out. I mean, all of the artwork is probably one of the things that stands out most in my mind about your guys' albums.

Oh, cool. Just visually, it's really cool to look at. Yeah, our friend Dave Klug, um, he did the artwork for the album and the EP, and, uh, you know, I had a concept for both covers, but it's hard, you know, like, I don't know how to draw. Yeah. Do you know how to draw, Spider? Nope. No. I can't paint or anything. That's why you're in a band. Yeah. You can't draw. We can sort of hack together a show, but, but as far as making an album cover, he, he really was able to figure out what it is that I was trying to get at and put it, put it out there, and he did a great job. He's a great designer, really talented guy. I'd recommend his work. All right, we're going to take a little break, uh, from me kissing the loved one's ass.

I like them. Great band, but man, I just, I'm like, tongue in their asshole on this interview. I just, it's a little sickening, but they're good guys, so I'll let it slide. Uh, before we jump back into the interview, we're going to give you another cut. This one is going to be off their EP, which is available on Jade Tree. I believe it's self-titled. Um, I don't know, but we're going to play the track Massive off of that album, which I can't recall. We may or may not have talked about that track in this interview. If we haven't talked about it, stay tuned, because there's some cool details about an alternate version of that track, and if we have played, if we have talked about it already, I just sound retarded.

Eh, that's how it goes. Anyhow, so we're going to play Massive, and then we're going to go back into the interview, so check it out. You've played with some pretty good bands, good-sized bands, including like Lifetime and the Balancing Souls. I mean, has that been hard for you guys, from like, tonight you played for, you know, a smaller crowd, to playing, you know, sold-out shows with 800, 900 kids? Yeah. Is it difficult at all, or is it kind of nerve-wracking? Anything like that? No, it's, I don't think it's nerve-wracking. Do you think it's nerve-wracking? No, I don't think so. I think it's important to be able to have a good show no matter what, and what we're doing now is really exciting, kind of going out on our own, and sort of building our own thing.

And so, I kind of value this time. Yeah. That's cool. I don't think it's nerve-wracking, just in the sense that we've all been on stages for years, you know. It's not that we're necessarily owed being on those big stages, I'm not saying that, but I guess there's a certain amount of, like, we're comfortable playing our music to whoever's listening. You know, I think, like, playing the big stages, there's a different excitement, but playing small shows are more intimate and fun. You know, either way, like, we're here to push what we're doing, you know. That's cool. And now, Mike, our drummer, is here. I know, we've been joined by a third. Can you say hello, Mike? Hello, this is Mike. Sorry, I took the mic away just a little earlier.

Glad you can join us. Thank you.

Now, when you guys, you guys recently, I mean, your last album was put out on Fat Records, was there any particular, like, I keep saying any particular reason, but, eh, it comes up. Was there any one reason that you guys jumped from Jade Tree? I shouldn't say jumped, but moved from Jade Tree to Fat. No, we jumped. Jump shift. Well, what do you think, Mike?

I would say that as much as we love Jade Tree and they're our friends, there's an amount of resources that are available to a record label like Fat that can take us a lot farther than, see, the thing is, we're from Philadelphia. Jade Tree is almost a local label. Yeah. And we're trying to reach a wider audience, I would think, than Jade Tree typically targets. And, um, first, the first thing would probably be a geographical difference where, now we have a label on the opposite coast that we're from. And, um, so that gives us a little more exposure on the west coast and we've come out to the west a lot more, I think, because of it. And that's great because, you know, we don't just want to be an east coast band.

I mean, we'll always be an east coast band, but, like, you know, we want to have a presence on the west coast. And the first step would have, you know, would be having a label that's going to have the record in west coast stores. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, definitely just getting records in stores. And, I mean, there was a lot of things with Jade Tree that they were going through a rough patch when we put our EP out. And there were just certain things that they, we were, I mean, we were on some enormous tours, you know, with Against Me and Rise Against and, and, uh, feeling like we were, yeah, we were really rising up and revolting. You were against a lot. I mean, it was just, we were on tour with bands that were bringing tons and tons of kids to the shows.

We were selling lots of our EP on our own, but we felt as if Jade Tree wasn't able to kind of keep up with what was going on. And, you know, as much as they're good friends and we respect them and all that, it was just kind of time to move on and wanted to get to as broad an audience as we, as we can. Yeah, makes sense. Now, uh, Dave from Paint It Black works with Jade Tree. Was it, like, weird at all when you guys started touring together? Was it like, so? Well, he's also in, he was also in a fat records band. Yeah, that's true. I couldn't really hold that against him. Yeah, but Good Riddance was on fat beforehand, so. Well, no, not at all. Dave believes in what we're doing and he thinks we should take, uh, sort of take the horse as far as we can take it.

He said he had no, he said he was bummed when we decided not to stay, but not because he didn't understand, just because he liked working with us and he's our friend. Yeah, I imagine a label, especially, I mean, Jade Tree, which isn't hundreds of people, they probably sign a lot of bands just because they personally like the band, you know, like, music-wise. So, it always sucks when someone you like isn't on your label. Yeah, I mean, well, Fat does the same thing, they just, I mean, it's kind of luck of the draw. Fat Mike got lucky with Flag Wagon and all those bands a while ago and is able to put out records that he loves, so. Yeah, well, definitely, I mean, from some of the bands he's put out, I mean, some have sold hundreds of thousands, some have sold, you know, 15 albums, but, yeah.

Either way, it's his business plan. Is there a song that you guys have right now recorded that's your personal favorite to play live? What do you think, Spire? I like playing all of the songs on our new record. Fair enough. My favorite live would probably either be Sickening or Lemming Will Get You Dead. Lemming. Lemming. It's in Z. Will Get You Dead is my favorite. Lemming. Yeah, I think I agree with Lemming Will Get You Dead. Yeah, that one, and Hurry Up and Wait, I like playing them all. Well, I mean, it's always good if you like to play your songs as far. Yeah, it's nice to be able to play songs in front of people and know what they are. Yeah, definitely helps. All right, one question that I don't know if you guys have encountered this, but I was trying to research you guys beforehand, and I was Googling the name Loved Ones, and a bunch of different bands have come up with that name.

Have you guys had any, like, legal problems with that at all? Nope, nope. We did some homework. Mike worked very hard when we were getting the band started to sort that out, and there was, especially in the Bay, there was a band, well, there's two big loved ones. There's sort of big loved ones. There was one in the 60s, I think, right, in Australia? Yeah, that was one of the ones that came up, and I was... And they did pretty good. I mean, they were, like, pretty big pop band. They're a good band. Yeah. Or they were a good band. They were, um... But they obviously weren't together anymore, and then there was a band with this guy Bart from the band Cake. Oh, okay. And they were a Bay Area band called the Loved Ones, and they, um...

I feel like I should know that, but I don't. Yeah, well, it was funny, because that guy myspaced us, of all things, and said, hey, I'm in, uh, my name's Bart, and I was in this band called the Loved Ones in the Bay, and I see that you're playing at, you know, at Slim's with no effects. Don't be surprised if the guys from Green Day come out thinking you're someone else, because I guess they had, like, a big following in the Bay of, like, a lot of punk rockers liked him and stuff, and he said, I'm in Cake now. So it doesn't really matter. I just thought it was... I like your music, and I think it was... It's cool that we had the same name. He was really cool about it, but... That's cool. All the legal shit was no problem.

It was... We were able to get the rights to the names. Oh, it's always good to know. I mean, I've heard of, like... I guess most fat-related would be, uh, Smoke or Fire, who were Jericho beforehand. Yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah. Having to change your name is kind of like... Oh. Having to slate the road. Well, yeah, because, I mean, 90% of what bands do is name recognition and all that, so... Yeah, exactly. Luckily, I'm really glad you guys got to keep the name. I think it works out pretty well for you guys. Yeah. All right, so I think we're going to wrap this up. Is there anything you guys like to add? Websites you'd like to plug, shows, things you'd like to sell, anything like that. We just want to sell a record to people who are excited about it.

I mean, we're on this big deal tour. When is this podcast thing airing? Um, I don't... We don't know. It could air either Tuesday or next week, depending on... Oh, okay. Well, I mean, we're playing a bunch of California shows. We're going to be in Southern California. Yeah. Uh, middle of the week, and then we'll be back in the Bay Area, uh, Saturday and Sunday. So, uh, we're playing Gilman Street on Saturday, the 29th, and Bottom of the Hill, the 30th. Excellent. And we're in, uh, you know, whatever. But, uh... Ever played Gilman before? Yeah, we played it once. Wear gloves. What's that? Wear gloves. Oh, it's all right. We've got... Good shoes. We've got... I mean, we've got Seabees on the East Coast. Yeah, that's true.

We're used to it, but, uh... Yeah, we played Gilman. It was fun. Yeah. It's a good place. Definitely. All right. A little few too many rules, but... Hmm. You know, fuck it. It's all right. All right. Well, fantastic. I want to thank you guys so much for taking the time to, uh, sit down and talk with us. Right on. Thanks a lot.

All right. So that concludes this week's interview and show for the most part. I hope you guys liked it. Hope you guys thought the loved ones were as cool as I did because I was, like, all up on. So, to conclude, we're going to play one last track off of their album. Before we jump into that, be sure you guys can always hit us up. Remember, we got the Teenage Bottle Rocket slash Red Scare promotion going on. We're going to pick two winners for that next week. Be sure to email us. Uh, your name and pertinent information to SoundSceneRevolution at gmail.com. Uh, or you can drop us a line at our MySpace site. I wouldn't recommend putting it up on our message comments section just because I don't think you want everybody who reads this site to have your information.

And that would be me and my mom. So, you don't want my mom with your address. Before we, uh, kick out today, we're going to play one last track off of the Loved Ones LP, Keep Your Heart. We are going to play the last track, which is Player Haters Anthem, because I just like the phrase Player Hater. Uh, so be sure to tune in next week. We got another great interview. And next time, next week, we'll have additional free shit to give away. So, check it out.

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