|
LOVE & THEFT SET TO RUNAWAY WITH A HIT SONG AND A DEBUT ALBUM!
(By: Bessie Sorge and Gracie Haverty)
Comprised of members Stephen Barker Liles, Brian Bandas and Eric Gunderson, Love & Theft are one of country music's hottest acts on the rise in 2009. The band formed when Stephen, Brian and Eric met through mutual friends in Nashville, and after a few writing sessions they all agreed that there was no question whether or not they should stick together as a band. "I got together with him (Stephen) to write through Robert Ellis Orrall, who became one of the co-producers on our album," Brian shared with us during our interview. "Ultimately, we all got together and we were writing together, and the chemistry was immediate and obvious and very special."
The next step is obviously not an easy process, but for this trio looking to their roots gave them a name that signifies their existence in country music. "We were going through some discographies and some artists we really admire and listen to," Stephen explained. "Brian calls and said 'what about Love & Theft from Bob Dylan's album?' It just fit. It felt like it fit the vibe of what we were trying to do."
Brian aka "Love" - Stephen aka "&" - Eric aka "Theft"
One would agree with Brian that the group is definitely a good fit all around! Sharing lead vocals and guitar between the three members is one of the reasons that their current single "Runaway" has become a smash hit with country music radio and the music video is tearing up both CMT and GAC. "Runaway" is a song that many can personally relate to and is currently sitting in the #23 position of the U.S. Hottest Country Songs chart from Billboard Magazine, just above Sugarland's latest single "Joey".
LNT, as their fans like to call them, will be releasing their debut album "World Wide Open" through Carolwood Records on August 25, 2009. Excerpts from our interview with Love & Theft is below. Be sure to join their official social networking sites to get the latest news directly from the band: Official Website. Myspace and Twitter. Visit our Tour Section to find out when Love & Theft will be visiting a town near you.
What was it like working with Jeff and Robert on the album.
Brian: The whole experience of making the album was just exciting. It's a big project and it's very emotionally charged. Everybody has ideas and opinions, and its music that we are all attached to and passionate about. It was an awesome experience and, in a good way, it was intense. It was very involved, we spent so much time together in a little room. We're proud of Love & Theft and the things that we've done, but they have a lot to do with the sound that we've come up with. They're just incredibly talented guys and very much a part of the family and it was awesome working with them. You learn so much and you don't realize how high the standard is and good everything has to be and you sort of don't get a sense of what the professional level is until you work with somebody like that. And you think you're good to go and they're like, "Are you kidding me, you're not close." They push you in a major way to levels that you didn't even know existed.
There are so many things that you have to do when you are recording the album. For you, you write your own music, you record, you lay out the track, you finish the album, you promote it; out of all that's involved in this process, what's your favorite part?
Stephen: My favorite part is writing. Writing is like my passion, so I love the writing part.
Eric: I like the performance side of things. I love the writing part, as well, but I don't know, it's kind of cool to perform the songs that you've had a part in creating and see people react to it; it's a very cool and a very rewarding feeling.
Brian: Same for me, live show performing is just my favorite thing. It's so exhilarating; it's like a natural high. It's amazing.
Tell us a little about your current single.
Stephen: We're excited about "Runaway". It's just about that moment where you're not going to talk about change anymore and you're going to do something about it. It's about that breaking point where you've been fighting with whether an unhealthy relationship, or a job you hate.
Eric: Or dropping out of college, which we all did to go play music.
Stephen: We all dropped out of college and moved to Nashville to pursue our music careers, and that's kind of what this song is about for us. So, it's really special to us in that we're all runaways. But it's a positive thing, it's in search of something better and different positively in your life.
I'm sure you all have written a ton of songs to put on this record; what's the process that you go through and what do you look for when picking the songs to put on the album?
Eric: It's actually a fairly easy process once it actually came down to picking the songs for the album. We had written probably close to 150 songs, and we all went and listened to them, and we all put together our lists of our favorite songs. There were probably 15 or 16 songs on that list, and the three of us and our two producers all had pretty much the same exact list of those 16 songs. And from there we just narrowed it down to what was going to fit on the album, and how it was going to work and flow.
Brian: And what we wanted our first impression to be.
Stephen: That kind of had a lot to do with it.
Eric: It could have been a more difficult process, but like most things in our band it just happened really naturally and it kind of worked itself out.
Brian: We got a feel for what it was we wanted to do. It really didn't get difficult until it was like, okay we've got to have 12 and we've got 14. The album was actually not that hard, it just got to the point we were like, that's a Love & Theft song right there, or that's just not it. And it was pretty much just going off your gut, and our guts all pretty much said the same thing the majority of the time. So, it wasn't too bad.
Taylor Swift is a huge fan and brought you on tour with her last year; how was that experience?
Stephen: Man, what an experience. We went from playing bars . . .
Brian: The Commodore
Stephen: . . . to playing for a bunch of people. And the second or third show we played with her, we announced that we were signing out in the lobby after the show, we didn't know what to expect and we walked out and we got mobbed by people.
Brian: Which was really weird because you don't expect that kind of a thing. But, it was a really humbling experience. We worked hard and we really had a good time, and she treated us really well.
Stephen: She treated us the way she said a lot of other artists had treated her and so she really helped us out.
What is your favorite song to sing live?
Stephen: I love singing "Can't Go Back" and "Freedom" live. Those are my two favorites.
Brian: "Can't Go Back" is mine, and "Runaway" I love Runaway, man.
Stephen: "Runaway" is fun to play now because people are singing with you, and it's like such a cool feeling when you're playing your song and a lot of the people are singing to where you can actually hear them and that's pretty cool.
It has got to be rewarding to have somebody in the audience singing your lyrics.
Stephen: It's really, really exciting.
Brian: That's been like a big change over. Even just the last month we've been seeing people, not just singing "Runaway", but they are singing everything else. People were singing along with "World Wide Open" in the ABC Tent (at the CMA Festival).
|
Interviews 
