INTERVIEW: BAD LOVE
Introducing ‘Bad Love’ - a seriously badass Australian band on the rise. Formed in the fiery pits of Melbourne, the band were inspired by 00’s emotional rock, and set out to reinvigorate the sound with a new, sharpened edge. Their recently released their sophomore EP ‘Life Imitates Art’, a journey of melancholic vocals and monstrous guitars, leaving your emotions on the rails like a My Chemical Romance song, and ready to rage like Parkway Drive. We kidnapped Alex Trail (drummer) and Landon Kirk (singer) for some words:
Something fans don't know about you?
Landon: I work as a professional body piercer and have been piercing for the last 6 years.
Shitty advice you've been given along the way?
Alex: Plenty! I think one of the biggest ones I’ve gotten is being told to wait... wait for the right opportunity to present itself... Wait for the right tour.. The right deal etc. Whilst I think sure, you can oversaturate yourself if you’re playing the same shows over and over again at the end of the day if you’re passionate about playing music or anything really you should seize every opportunity to get out there and get in front of people with it, at the end of the day that’s all it’s really about. I guess instead of wait, I’d say create. Create your own opportunities, put on your own shows, don’t wait for them to come to you... I think artists have so much more control and direct contact with their audience now through the internet and media. It’s definitely more work but the rewards are there and that’s something we’ve done a lot of with this band!
Dead or alive, who would you kill to meet?
Alex: These ones always stump me! Uhm, my answer changes all the time but one person definitely at the top of my list would be Jimmy Irvine. His influence in shaping most of modern music as we know it from Fleetwood Mac to Eminem to NIN to Justin Timberlake, everything... is just unparalleled. I think as a producer, he’s responsible for almost all the music we hear now and I imagine he’d have some serious stories to share.
Pre-show ritual?
Landon: Along with vocal warm ups I'm usually jumping on the spot a few times in the green room to get the blood pumping. A shot of Fireball never goes astray either...
Last thing you regret?
Landon: Probably not the last thing I regret but a big regret that comes to mind, is when a bunch of us were out at Monty's bar (The Black Rabbit) after Bring Me The Horizon had played in Melbourne earlier that night. I left the bar early, as I had work the next day. I woke up to a few texts from Monty saying Oli Sykes along with most of the tour package had popped in after I had gone. It was then and there I made a vow to never leave Monty’s bar early again!
The new EP, describe it in 3 words:
Landon: Extensive, refreshing, provoking
Favourite lyric from any of your songs?
Landon: My favourite lyric is taken from our closer on Life Imitates Art - ‘Sleep Debt’; “One foot off the edge so anyone can see this sleep debt, is catching up on me” That line hits me hard. I wrote the lyrics to Sleep Debt whilst going through a particularly stressful time in my life. I was so stressed I could barely get any sleep. Once pen hit paper, “Sleep Debt” was born.
'Life Imitates Art' - or is art imitating life?
Alex: Hahaha that’s a hard question to answer. Life without art would be a life devoid of meaning or colour. I think of art as any sort of attempt to share our experiences with one another so as to understand or create meaning in this existence. Without art we’d just be production / reproduction machines and that’s not really a life I want to imagine.
What do you think life without art would be like?
Alex: In regards to the first statement, I think it’s a case of both really and that was essentially the point of the title. I think in the current age, especially in the online echo chamber of social media, you can see the way that art and culture have created this feedback loop whereby the artist commenting on something then influences the future of that thing or the future of culture. Artists become influencers and people follow their lead in this insane parody of life. One example I found particularly fascinating that sparked this idea as well as the theme behind ‘Social Suicide’ is the conversation that’s regularly heard that our generation or subsequent generations are becoming more vapid and more image obsessed, especially the idea that we’ve become overly sexualised which is something I find fascinating and almost hypocritical when you consider that one of the first images ever converted into a digital medium was a playboy centrefold, famously known as ‘Lenna’ in 1973. I think that pretty well demonstrates the distorted reality we live in.
Is Bad Love going to change the world?
Alex: I don’t know about that.... I mean, they do say love can change the world but I think we’re still finding our feet and our sound a little bit. I also think it’s increasingly difficult to have any significant cultural impact as an artist but I think in the future, especially with some of the ideas we’re working on now we’ll definitely have our place in the conversation, whether that be shifting the sound of alternative music or shifting the way people feel. Honestly at the end of the day, if I/we can change one person’s world and offer them something or a way to feel heard then we’ve done enough.
Photo credit: @lizzieskyllas
