Get an exclusive first listen to Love Is Noise.’s boundary-obliterating debut offering, and read our chat with the band to find out how they came to be.
We are incredibly proud of delighted to present an early listen to ‘Euphoria, Where Were You?’, the debut EP from Love Is Noise. before it’s wider release this Friday (October 28).
The brainchild of Cameron Humphrey and Tom Mellon, the band have been spending the last year developing a unique and intense sound and ethos which has culminated in these six incredible compositions. Ethereal, intense, beautiful and brimming with unbridled energy, it is the first piece of what is sure to be a fascinating, furious and fantastic voyage into the unknown.
Here it is, dive in:
To celebrate, we sat down for a chat with Cam and Tom to talk through the band’s origins, what it represents to them and what hopes they have for the future…
So let’s go back to the start of this journey. When do you feel the band changed from being an idea between the two of you into something that made sense and you knew you wanted to pursue?
Cam: “For me, Tom’s original message asking if I wanted to do something was exactly what I needed. I had been writing my own stuff, but Tom felt like this bright light that was taking it to the next level. Literally, from the get-go, I knew Tom was into it. I knew that he had years under his belt of writing his own music and was doing it for the love of it. He wasn’t writing and making things to show off or his ego. It was for the thrill of it. I also wanted to do that because I had been so locked into the ego side for so long. I wanted to do something where I didn’t have to impress anyone after only trying to impress everybody. I wanted to enjoy the ride again, because music should be fun, but it wasn’t for a long time. From the get-go, this is what it should always feel like.
“The first thing we did was I went to Tom’s house for two days, and we just wrote two songs from front to back. I have always wanted to have freedom. Writing just for fun rather than with a target in mind. That’s able to happen because of the relationship that the two of us have. For a long time in the UK, it has been about the image rather than the music. Love Is Noise. is about music being a vessel for healing because that’s what it did for me.”
Tom: “I started writing again in lockdown. In my last band, I felt like I was playing music to which I had no emotional connection. I like a lot of modern metal, but it always felt like something was missing, so I was just setting out to try and put my own take on that. I worked with so many vocalists over Facebook trying to find the right fit, and Cam was the only one who matched the energy and vibe. I also knew that he would be somebody who would push me as well, because I’m quite introverted, and Cam is very much the opposite. We make a good team in that aspect. And since we have been going with our foot on the gas.”
To be in a position where you are able to express yourselves in whatever way feels right, perhaps, shouldn’t be as much of a blessing as it is. But it allows you to be as honest and vulnerable as you need to be without worrying about all the other things that have clouded creativity in the past…
Cam: “And for Love Is Noise., honesty is key. We want the music to be as honest as possible. Our image is as honest as possible. This EP was about finding ourselves and finding who we truly are. That’s what we want the listeners to have as well when they listen to it. It’s all different vibes, but it all works together, and every release that we do as a band will feel like that. We are going to do it in whatever way feels right, and it will never be the same twice. We’ll change the game as often as possible because so many different things influence us. There’s no formula. We’re not going to release something just for the sake of it. We’re going to release something in hopes of it healing someone else in the same way that it healed us. And I want people to feel like they can do this themselves if they need to. Honesty plays a huge part in that.”
And that honesty and vulnerability has to go not just into the music but into how you treat each other and all of the other parts of your lives. How do you feel as though the band has affected those parts?
Tom: “A problem I have had throughout my whole life is that I never really put myself out there. To even contact Cam in the first place was putting myself in a position that I wouldn’t usually. It has helped me to become a more confident person. Cam bigs me up all the time. It’s great. It has improved my life so much in so many ways. I can speak up in ways I never thought I could. Three years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to string a sentence together in a conversation like this. I would have just said back and sat in myself. It’s even made me less formulaic than I already wasn’t in how I write music. It’s opened my mind so much more.”
Cam: “The bond that me and Tom have is a brotherhood. I know that if you work hard and are honest in your work, the right people come around, and Tom was one of them. But it also shows in the whole crew that we have around us and sorts of people that they are as well. It just shows so much, and for it all to come out of something like lockdown and the pandemic is amazing. Lockdown changed a lot of people, but it definitely changed me for the better. I needed a refresh in my life, and I needed something to make me slow down and think about how much I still have to give. This EP, in particular, is the culmination of Tom and me searching for the happiness that we know we deserve, and it charts that journey. In many ways, this whole period has been about connection and the power of that connection. How two people can have different opinions but come together and bond over music.”
And when you have the space to make those connections, you start to see how other people feel the same way as you. Much like Jason Aalon Butler, what has it been like working with him?
Cam: “He is amazing. He has backed us every since he first found us, which was totally organic. He just saw an Insta post, and he messaged us. That shows that we are doing the right thing. But even that shows that it doesn’t matter who it is that is finding us. We want it to be because of the music, not because of who we are. We always want to work alongside people who want to push things the same way as us. Taking it to the next level in whatever way is possible.”
Harnessing your craft, and using the care and consideration that every artist should, is a part of this that often gets lost in the static. But coming out of the other end of something and knowing you have only scratched the surface, that’s what this should always feel like…
Cam: “We are doing this mainly because we love music. Everything else is just an extra. To be as genuine as possible, you need to do this because you want to do it. You look at bands like Depeche Mode, Turnstile, Deafheaven. They did things they wanted to, no matter who was paying attention or appreciating it. It’s a longer process, but it’s a lot more real. That’s what we want to be a part of.”
Tom: “There is a thing now where musicians are expected to be content creators, and I have never thought of myself like that. Back in the day, some bands would take three or four years to write an album, and they would end up being ground-breaking. How can you expect a band to progress their sound more than just chucking a few different chords in when you want them to have something ready in the next six months? It’s mad, really. Bands aren’t even given any sort of lifetime. There’s also the same when it comes to bands trying new things. We’re trying to break that mould.”
Cam: “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we know that. But we are moving into places where we want to have an orchestra on stage. We want to have a million computers on stage. We want to find out how to do things that make music exciting, and that is what we will do until the end of time.”