Last updated on October 14th, 2024 at 06:56 am
Early success in the music industry can be complicated. While many artists strive to make music that connects with a large audience, there are plenty of acts that hit it big early and never recapture their initial magic. Sometimes trends shift away from their genre, sometimes there is too much pressure to replicate early success, and sometimes making hit records is a very difficult thing to do.
For California indie pop trio Lovelytheband, success came very quickly when the first song they ever recorded became a triple-platinum success. Fortunately for the band and their fans, “Broken” proved to be the beginning of a strong career, rather than a mere flash in the pan. While they haven’t had a single reach the same commercial heights, they’ve honed and expanded their sound over four formidable albums, while steadily building a loyal fanbase.
The latest of these albums, a self-titled effort released in August, gives fans the expected hooky and lyrically vulnerable indie pop, while incorporating more acoustic and organic elements. These elements keep the sound fresh, in a welcome step forward from a band that has carved out a distinct identity.
The record features a number of slower and midtempo tunes as well as several of the catchy, high-energy anthemic numbers they’re known for. (“Nice to Know You” will likely satisfy many longtime fans in that regard.) All of these elements will be in play Sunday night at First Avenue, a co-headline with Mod Sun that should be high-energy and lots of fun.
The following interview with Lovelytheband guitarist Jordan Greenwald has been edited for length and clarity.
Music In Minnesota: At this point you guys are veterans. This is your fourth full-length. I’m curious what your creative process looked like for this record and how that has changed over the course of your career. Has that shifted album to album or remained more or less constant?
Jordan Greenwald: It’s weird. There are consistencies throughout every album process, but how they all start to come together in the first place is what changes. I think as we’ve all gotten older, and come into our own songwriting voices, we’re able to work with different producers and different people while still maintaining and growing what we love to write about and the songs we like to make. It’s always evolving. I feel like once the songs are written, and we go into recording and making them sound like Lovelytheband, that’s really when it starts to sound like us.
It’s been a really rewarding process. Especially with this fourth one, I feel like we’re all at the top of our game as far as how hard we’ve been working. We really enjoy working together and are really excited about this new batch of music.
MIM: One thing you mentioned is growth. Are there any areas where you feel like you’ve really grown from album one to album four? Or even album three to album four?
JG: Yes absolutely. I think our biggest growth is our knowledge of where we best play our roles. As a band, you learn everyone’s wheelhouse, what everyone does the best. You spend so much time together touring, and we’ve created so much music that we all kind of know where to go. If we want this type of thing, Sam crushes it, if we need this type of sound on tour we can go to me, if we need to crack a lyric, Mitchy is a lyrical genius. That’s the thing about being in a band, the sum of its parts are greater than the individual.
MIM: You talked about how much you guys have toured. You have worked hard not only on the music but bringing your music to the world and to fans. What are you most excited about as far as bringing this music to the world?
JG: I’m just excited to play! Our last tour was last summer so we haven’t played a lot of new music to our fans in a while. We’re super amped up to bring our new show to the fans and play the new songs, especially on this upcoming tour with Mod Sun. It’s a co-headline, which we’ve never done before. The energy around it is super exciting, and he’s such a great guy. We’re great friends with him, so the energy in the room is just gonna be amazing. We don’t really even know what to expect, but we’re super excited about it.
MIM: The album and the singles at times touch on a more acoustic sound. I know you’ve done a little bit of that in the past, was that a deliberate focus for you with this album?
JG: It’s definitely something that organically happened. As the band has progressed over the last few years, stepping away in certain moments from synthesizers and leaning on more organic instruments has been a progression that we’ve stepped into. There’s no rhyme or reason other than it’s worked in the moment of the song. It’s a strain that has been running through a lot of these new songs.
It’s always fun to explore new ways to make the storytelling of the lyrics and the song come out, and lately it’s been a lot of acoustic. Mitchy and I both love to write music on acoustic guitars, so the fact that so much of it stuck in the final recording was really cool.
MIM: I want to shift gears a little bit. This album, like the last, was released independently on your own label. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on taking that route. What advantages does that give to you?
JG: If you really want to touch on the current scope of where music is, that is the future. Putting your music out independently, and creating business for yourself. Completely marketing it by yourself with your team. It’s been super rewarding.
But it is hard. It’s a hard thing because it’s all self-funded, everything goes back in. You have to learn how to allocate, you’re not having someone else do it for you. But the payoff is you own what you make, and that is everything. The fact that we own it, and we’re proud of it. We’re excited to promote it, and put that hard earned money right back into it and keep the thing growing. That’s where it’s at, especially where we are in our careers. It just felt like the right move, and it’s paid off for us, and we’re very grateful.
MIM: On a very practical and creative level, does it give you more creative latitude in the music you make?
JG: We’ve honestly been very fortunate in Lovelytheband’s career, retaining a majority of creative decision making, which has been great. Of course as the band grows, and as the team grows, more opinions come in to play. We’ve learned at the end of the day our gut feelings on decisions, whether it’s the sound or picking the single or marketing, usually is the best instinct and the best foot forward.
MIM: In addition to your albums, you’ve had success working with other artists, be it with remixes, or collaborations. Is that something you look for? Is it something you envision doing more of in the future? I’m also curious if you have a dream collaboration.
JG: Absolutely. I think features, and working with other artists, is now engrained in the Lovelytheband DNA, personally. It feels like, as a band, we have a really fun time working with other artists. Whether it’s writing songs with Mark Foster from Foster the People, or our features with Dillon Francis or Bryce Vine, we love collaborating. I think as creatives and as songwriters, we like to switch it up.
When we go to write a song with a new artist, it’s sort of like adding a new member to the band. It’s fun to see how the dynamic changes, and then it has new ways of making music. I think we’ll always do that.
As far as a dream artist, I feel like it would be a different for all three of us, but I feel like there are some we could all agree on. We all idolize The Killers, we all idolize Phoenix, we idolize all those huge bands. I’ll say for right now, The Killers featuring Lovelytheband or Lovelytheband featuring The Killers would be a dream feature.
MIM: I do want to ask about ”Broken.” It’s so rare to have any hit that big, let alone one so early in your career. What is your current relationship to that song, and did that success create pressure for you guys? It’s such a game changer in so many ways to have something blow up like that.
JG: That song was created when there was nothing going on, no intention of “I want to write a hit song.” That song was just created out of Mitchy going into the studio and writing. He was in between projects and organically creating music. So the fact it became so big speaks to the authenticity of what it is, and why people connect to it so much.
Our whole career kind of feels like we’re just playing catch up to the success that “Broken” had. That pressure has manifested itself in a lot of positive and negative ways. But overall, it’s very positive. You play guitar in your room, looking at the mirror and only dream of having a song as big as we did. It’s amazing. It’s brought us around the world multiple times and we’ve gotten to tour with some of our favorite people. We’re just doing our best to give the fans the best music we can make. For the future, we’re just making songs that we like, and we hope other people like. That’s really the only thing you can do. It’s been a wild ride that’s for sure.
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