London based alt pop band LAWRN made dreamy pop with 80's vibes. The guys have released their new track 'Too Much Love'.
"This is a deeply personal song about not being ready to let a relationship go. It came from a picture lead singer Andy took of a rose floating in the sea and he started thinking about how the rose looked like it had been thrown away. The artwork is a throwback to the original image."
We had the chance to speak to Andy from the band to get to know more, and find out about their upcoming EP.
Introduce yourselves and tell us a fun fact about the band! "Hi! We're LAWRN - I'm Andy and I sing and play keys, Ollie's on guitar and Harm hits drums. A fun fact would be that when myself and Harm were in high school we used to play metal covers in a shed his Dad used to make cider."
Where are you from and what’s your favourite thing about it?
"Me and Harm are both from near Norwich and Ollie grew up in Croydon. I'd say my favourite thing about Norwich is the chips! They do good chips."
How did you guys meet each other?
"Harm and I went to school together, so we've known each other since we were about 4! Ollie and Harm met at Uni in Portsmouth and then we all met up when we moved to London a few years later."
Is there a story behind the band name?
"I need to come up with a better story but it comes from my middle name Lawrence. I always thought it was a cooler name than Andrew so I wanted to use it when I released music! Then we formed the band I started playing around with the spelling to see if we could use it in a way that it didn't sound like it was one of our names. I really liked the sound of LAWRN (pronounced Lauren) - it kind of fit with the dreamy sound we were going for and looked pretty cool written down. We've had some funny pronunciations though!!"
When did you start making music, separately and as a group?
"We started making music together when Harm moved to London, so I think late 2017. I had been writing the songs for the first EP by myself and when Harm moved to London we met up and started jamming through the songs and working on arrangements as a band feel. The last piece we needed was a guitarist so Ollie came to a practice before our first gig at the start of 2018 and that was it!"
How would you describe your sound in a short sentence?
"Dreamy pop with loads of synths!"
Who would be your dream collab?
"Ooooo good question! Probably Drake because who wouldn't want a number one?!"
Musically, who do you draw your inspiration from?
"I think we have a variety of different influences really. We all listen to a VERY different music and we all come from quite different musical backgrounds so it's hard to work out where they all tie in sometimes! I think the basis of our sound is influenced most by the synths and electronic drum sounds of the 80s. Piano was always my instrument and Bruce Hornsby's early albums were a big influence on me. I loved the way he layered synth pads with his piano, so I started messing around with synths and our sound kind of grew from there. I think we all grew up mostly listening to bands so I think we naturally kept that live band feel and that's something that is really important to us."
You’ve just released your new track ‘Too Much Love’. Tell us a bit about it! "That's right! It was a song that took a long time to come together - I started writing it a few years ago but could never quite finish in a way I was happy with. It's quite a personal song so I was reluctant to finish it before I was ready and maybe not do it justice. Earlier this year I sat down with it again and it came together really quickly! The song originally came from a picture I took of a rose floating in the sea. I thought it was a really powerful image because it looked like it had been thrown away. I already had the title Too Much Love and when I came back to the song some things had happened in my life that fitted the idea of the song so well. The lyrics are quite transparent in a way, but there's quite a lot room for interpretation as well. I'm not going to tell you what it's actually about because I want it to mean whatever the listener needs it to mean, but it's not necessarily about a person. It's just about being in a place where you're not ready to let something go, whether that's a relationship, a place or a moment. The recording was interesting because we did it entirely in lockdown so everything was done remotely. We worked with Superheart in producing the track and he was so great! We ended up having phone calls and working through the song over the phone, so that was interesting!"
How has the reaction been so far?
"The reaction has been amazing so far! We're so grateful to everyone who has listened, shared the song and reached out to us. It really means the world to hear that people relate to the song or even just like what we're doing. The song was played on BBC Introducing and we recently did a radio interview with Tim Willett on Cabridge 105, which was so cool and something new for us. So yeah, it's going really well!"
It’s the third single from your upcoming EP! What can we expect from that when it drops?
"Yeah! Unfortunately, the plan for the release of the EP keeps getting altered slightly with everything that's going on so it's difficult to give you much information the specifics!! However, we've got two more songs coming that will complete the EP, so we hope everyone will love those! We're really just hoping the EP will give people something that they can get lost in. We just want people to feel something when they listen to our music. That's always been our goal."
What are you guys up to next?
"The main thing we're working on is finishing off the EP, so the final two songs are our main focus. We've also been working on completely revamping our live show as well. We wanted to make it bigger and more energetic so we're super excited to get that going (if we're ever allowed to gig again)! Hopefully we can make up for lost gigging time when we're allowed out again!! We just want to get bigger and better with each release, so that's the plan!"
'Too Much Love' is out now.
LISTEN HERE @lawrnmusic
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