Interview | Love Inks

Austin’s best new band has recently released the excellent E.S.P. after pleasing many with their performance at SXSW. As they continue to tour North American with their appealing minimalistic indie-rock, Love Inks took the time to answer a few questions for Argos Barks.

If you’re yet to familiarise yourself with the Texan outfit, then what better time than this. Read on to discover what makes the band tick and then listen to their debut album - you’ll be more than pleasantly surprised.

Argos Barks: Hello, could you introduce yourselves for us?

Love Inks: There are four of us in the band now - Adam on guitar, Kevin on bass (song writer extraordinaire), Beth on percussion (live drums and drum machine) and Sherry on vocals. (Sherry is doing this interview and obviously stoked on parenthesis).

AB: How would you describe the music you make?

LI: Simple and emotive, with room to breathe. We just finished a month long tour of North America. During our travels we started to realize that the music we make is fairly reflective of the place we’re from… Austin, Texas. I think if we lived in NYC or Los Angeles or any other great city, we wouldn’t have made the same music. Each city has it’s own pace and identity and I think you can feel Austin somehow in our sound.

AB: What are some of the bands/artists that have influenced you?

LI: We all have such different tastes and influences that it’s hard to pin this question down! I’m more of an Otis Redding, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell type. Definitely influenced by soul singers. Kevin is a huge fan of the Ramones and you can see that in our song structure. We’re all music history geeks and constantly listening to new music. We didn’t listen to any specific band and say, ‘We want to make music like this’. Our process involved talking about what music we wanted to make and building songs around the idea of clean, expressive music.

AB: What was it like playing at this year’s SXSW? Did you expect to be so well received there?

LI: (Sherry passed interview to Kevin) It was fun, in a way it’s more stressful than touring even.  People were excited to hear about us I guess, it’s rare that anyone goes just to see a band at that festival so I think we were in the periphery, for example when it’s between us or Moby, people who have never heard us are going to the Moby show.

AB: From what things did you draw inspiration for your debut album, E.S.P.? 

LI: I’m not sure.  Each other mostly.  Our inspiration was to go against the barrage of effects used in music now.  We got inspiration from other Austin bands who aren’t really musicians, they just bought a bunch of pedals and smoke a lot of weed, they have no song writing sensibilities.

AB: You could be easily named as America´s answer to The xx as you too share the ability to create short and simple but incredibly elegant and effective songs. What goes behind the creation process of Love Inks?

LI: It’s all songwriting and crafting the songs.  We spend a lot of time coming up with elaborate songs and then cutting them down to the bare bones.

AB: What are some of your favourite films and if you could include your music in the OST of a film, which of your tracks would you choose and for which film? 

LI: I’ve been getting into Jim Jarmusch’s older stuff like Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise.  I could see our music happening in one of those films.  Or old Sophia Loren movies because I love her!

AB: Given how Love Inks members Sherry LeBlanc and Kevin Dehan are husband and wife, we are worried that if Love Inks will become too popular they will end up separating Oasis-style. How do things work with a wedded couple in a band? How are disputes resolved?

LI: (Sherry takes over again) As far as that goes, being in a band together has only brought us closer. It’s a shared experience and such a rad one. Neither of us has to sit at home and be the ‘tour wife’. The biggest dispute we’ve had is when the air conditioning broke in our van during a heat wave. We were en route to Washington DC and it got ugly. I think anyone would fight in that situation, but our fights usually end with one or the other laughing and pointing out how stupid the argument is. We fully appreciate that we get to be in such a rad situation together and that has been a strength.

AB: If you love ______, then you will love Love Inks.

LI: The night time.

AB: What music are you all listening to at the moment? 

LI: (Kevin jumps in again) I guess we all listened to Lady Gaga’s new album in the van, what else?  Dirty beaches, and really a lot of obscure 70s heavy blues, classic rock from Sherry’s uncle Art.  He gave us his records, stuff like Blue Cheer, Rory Gallagher, Epitaph, Johnny Winters, some really cool heavy shit.

AB: Any plans of touring the UK soon?

LI: Mega European tour coming in September and October, we hit about 10 places in the UK I think, maybe not that many but there are a bunch of UK dates.

AB: What’s the next thing we can expect from Love Inks? 

LI: We’re working on a new 7 inch from Hell Yes and then more songs to come!

Love Inks will be playing a few more gigs during the first half of July. If you happen to be in the area, be sure not to miss them!

• Wed, July 6 - New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks
• Fri, July 8 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s (9:30PM)
• Sat, July 9 - Austin, TX @ Emo’s
• Sun, July 10 - Dallas, TX @ Prophet Bar