The Love Shots talk “Crooner”

love-shots
Elgin, Illinois’ the Love Shots are an interesting beast. Their album, Crooner, derives influences from the usual pop and punk loci, but branches out to include a lot of influences from ’50s and ’60s pop. Thankfully, they’re not another rockabilly mishmash, singing about hepcats. The album – out now on Bing Bang Records, takes a little time to come to terms with, but once you’ve settled into the groove, it’s something to which you’ll return again and again. We spoke with the band via e-mail about the new album.

The vocal style for the Love Shots is interesting. It’s somewhere in between Devin Peralta of the Cobra Skulls and Chris Cheney of the Living End. Where’s that come from?

Johnny: Well, both those bands kick ass.
Danny: My vocals are all over the place, in terms of inspiration. I’d say more so Liam Gallagher than Devin Peralta.

It’s a little discomforting at first. Do people take a bit to warm up to the Love Shots’ sound?

Not really. We’ve never heard that from anyone. We’ve always gotten a bunch of compliments right away.

The slightly rockabilly style also fits with your music. It’s a very oldies rock ‘n’ roll approach to pop-punk, owing more to Buddy Holly than the Ramones. How’d you develop “deathwop”?

Deathwop wasn’t really something that was developed. It was a joke gone too far, just like our name (except Deathwop has nothing to do with phalluses). We don’t even remember who came up with it.

cover-croonerWhat was the recording process like for Crooner?

Johnny: Absolutely miserable, and I’m not kidding. You know there’s something wrong when the ‘producing’ takes four times longer than tracking/writing.
Danny: The recording process took way longer than expected, and longer than it should have lasted. The quicker, the better. Now we know that for the next album.
Rob: It should have been done way before it was. Way too much over-thinking in my opinion. We’ll know exactly what we want to do next time around and it’ll be in a fraction of the time.

Do you have any plans to tour in conjunction with the album?

In conjunction with the album, no. To tour for the hell of it, yes. We’re going on the road in late February for an extended weekend. We’ll be taking a bunch of these little trips leading up to this summer.

You can purchase Crooner from the Loveshots’ store.