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As with a lot of bands before, Love and Bullets have not escaped the
trials and tribulations of almost every rock band before them however
some bands fall at the first hurdle. Hopefully Love and Bullets is not
going to be one of them as they are all very talented musicians in
their own right and I think the London Rock Scene could certainly do
with another brilliant rock band!
Komodo Rock's Tazz Stander talks with lead guitarist Dave Playboy about the bands recent reformation, inspired by a Charity Concert in aid of Sophie Lancaster.
Tell me a bit about love and bullets history since forming in 2006
I was on a train to Nottingham for a gig with my band, The Renegade Playboys and with the exception of Seb's, the rest of Renegade Playboys weren't on the train. He decided that he wanted to get off the train at Leicester and basically I ended up doing this show in Nottingham that we were meant to play where people were turning up from Scotland and Brighton to see us play - all over the place in the Midlands really and I didn't want to let people down! So I ended up doing the show with two of the original band members from Love and Bullets, Dek and Steve. They came up and jammed a couple of songs with me that night, we did songs like Shout at the devil and 20th Century boys, the kind of songs, you know, a riff and a couple of chords that you can pick up pretty easily and we then decided to put a band together.
We then got a singer called Ashley and then Lee, who came into the rehearsal room and literally blew us away - we wrote a song with him in an hour. Dek and Steve were jamming this song and Lee put this bass straight over it and it became a song called "Sweeter than Honey" which at the time became a centre piece. We went through a lot of band names and at one stage and we were called Psycho Circus which is slightly dodgy and then Ashley decided he wasn't up to staying with us as he wanted a solo career which kicked off the search for a new singer.
Through Myspace and his girlfriend Lottie, I found Lakis whose first audition was ok so we called him back a second time which was awful. I don't know why we called him back for a third audition but it turned out to be awesome and he totally blew us away. We weren't sure how he was going to fair up as a glam-rock front man because he had never really done that sort of thing as that is very much what was happening with Dec and Steve in the band. Lakis agreed to join on the condition that we weren't called Psycho Circus so we went through about 127 names and none of them were love and bullets - I think one of them was blood and bullets which is fucking awful.
So Love and Bullets name has nothing to do with the 1979 movie of the same name then?
No, I found it online and thought it was a really cool name.
Like you said, the band was originally formed by Steve and Dek. Stevie has been quoted as saying that, "He left the band because the ethos of the band somewhat changed after almost getting a record deal and the working practices, organisation and musical direction are on a totally different path to when he put the band together". Can you elaborate on the changes and were they positive changes?
Steve and Dek were jamming for a while when I joined the band and we became whatever we became after the Renegade Playboys split up. I'm the one that found Lee, Lakis and the Millionaire (him being my ex girlfriends current partner) so whilst Steve and Dek were original members and were jamming together before I was jamming with them, I wouldn't say its pretty accurate that Steve put the band together.
That's interesting as it's on his Myspace blog.
Looking back, we annoyed Steve quite a lot as he would always show up to rehearsals before the rest of us and we would tend to show up a bit late so from that side I can see he had a problem but if he had communicated a bit better about it, I think we would've done more about it. I don't hold that against anyone but you learn from situations. The direction kind of changed when Lee, Lakis and I would come together and start writing songs and come to rehearsal with semi written songs as Steve very much wanted to write everything as a band together and most of the time, that's not the way I write. If Ive got an idea and it's burning inside me, sooner or later I'm going to finish it off and Steve didn't want to work that way. There were issues with what Steve could and couldn't play and so that was the situation when he left.
Love and Bullets have just reformed for 2 gigs, 1 in Nottingham and 1 in Birmingham, a charity gig for Sophie Lancaster - How did the gigs go?
The Wildside gig in Nottingham was brilliant, it exceeded all
expectations particularly as a warm up gig. It was a lot of fun and we played a lot better than I thought we would on one rehearsal in 9 months.
When you have a rhythm section like Lee and Flow the ground work is pretty much done as they are both naturally very solid players and even if the arrangement isn't entirely planned, they are totally solid so people wouldn't even notice. Lakis is a great guitar player and he was really taken aback that he could still sing because he's just been playing guitar and shouting with Nemhain. He had only done a few vocals in the studio for another project of his but people have said that it was one of his best performances. Unfortunately the charity gig was very haphazard. The whole thing with Pete Burns wanting £1500.00 to appear at the event didn't bode well for a charity show.
New Lips, New Boobs ....... what was he hopping to get paid at a charity event for?
Apparently he wanted £600.00 for travel .....
But he doesn't even live too far from there does he?
Unless he lives in Japan or something someone suggested but apparently he offered to do it so I'm not sure how much he was told about it being a charity event. The drum kit was off stage and there were only 2 microphones with us having to borrow a microphone stand off one of the other bands. It wasn't a set up for live bands and they had three live bands on the bill.
Are these the same promoters that have organised all the other S.O.P.H.I.E Charity Events? Some of which have been really massive.
I don't think is was. Allegedly some of the family were meant to be there but quite a few people pulled out because they exchanged dates which you can't really do with gigs. We were lucky that Love and Bullets were still able to do it as we all have other commitments.
Any chance of a S.O.P.H.I.E Charity coming to London?
I would love that to happen and we would definitely be up for taking part in it again. I would even consider helping organising one if someone else was passionate about putting something together and getting other bands together and stuff but I think a venue would have to be chosen properly to cater for the bands needs.
It was a bit of a shame that it wasn't so well organised as that was the reason of reforming Love and Bullets. The good thing was that we were in a situation that we had to keep reminding ourselves that this is an event for someone who got beaten to death in a park basically and we couldn't hear our bass player or our drummer but none of us had been beaten to death in a park so what did we actually have to complain about? I have had text messages from friends in the crowd saying that we should keep doing this as we still sound great.
Well, that leads me on quite nicely to the next question. Your current line up is You, Lee, Lakis and Flow [Eylash]. You're all involved in other projects so what's the chances of Love and Bullets reforming again?
With the current line up were looking at Love and Bullets now and not Love and Bullets then. Lakis, Lee and Flow all have different
influences to what Steve and Dek had so the plan is to write a few songs together and have a few rehearsals and see how it goes. There is a possibility of us doing a show in Nottingham around Christmas though.
Why Nottingham, what happened to us Local London Fans?
(laughs) Nobody has asked us.
As far as talks of reforming, is Flow going to be considered as The Love and Bullets drummer? I know you're in another project with a brilliant drummer so what's the chances of using another drummer?
Bruno Agra [Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction / Timo Tolkki]
is probably busier than Flow is as he is off to the States and then to South America with both bands respectively. I would love my project with Bruno to go somewhere but he is really busy. It would be awesome if Flow were to be our drummer as he is a fantastic drummer but it's worth talking to him about it. I would love to take Love and Bullets to a heavier level to satisfy everyone but still keep the melodic elements with big hooks and choruses with a funkier edge.
Thanks for taking the time to come on down to the Devonshire Arms in Camden to talk to Komodo Rock but I think we should leave things there as were finding it increasingly hard to compete with the Prodigy's ‘Smack my Bitch up' on the sound system!
Thanks
Since the Interview, it has now been confirmed that Love and Bullets will be the main support band for the King Lizard Annual Christmas Bash at The Underworld on the 28th November 2008.
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