Prior to releasing their highly-anticipated CD The Trip in late April, Victoria-based band Lovecoast heads to Bo’s March 29th.
“We actually all met in music school,” explained lead singer Danielle Sweeney, adding the band’s CD The Trip arrives April 27th. The soul-pop group also recently released the video for their superb new single “Motion” on PopMatters.
“But it wasn’t until we all graduated that I started the band, and then kind of cherry-picked the guys that I thought were the best in the program, and asked them to join the band with me.
“It’s been five years now and we are still trucking along. I think that school was the best place for us to start. We started with musician-relationships first, and then our friendships came. So it was kind of cool the way that happened.”
Since their inception in 2013, Lovecoast has been delivering a sound that won’t go unnoticed.
Folks first heard what these folks had to offer via an exemplary EP called Chasing Tides back in 2014, which received much critical acclaim and several film and TV placements around its release.
And now, through The Trip, the band hopes to broaden their reach that much further.
Both projects were produced by Tom Dobrzanski at Monarch Studios in Vancouver.
As for the album as a whole, Sweeney said the band’s goal was to keep things sounding as fresh and ‘live’ as possible.
“The ‘live’ side of things is really important to us — even more important than the recording and production side,” she said.
“In today’s atmosphere, production is at an all time high, and live musicianship quality and skill is lacklustre. So our goal with this was to make a record that we felt was our best playing, that sounded good live and was also a good representation of our shows.
“We really had a ‘live’ quality that we wanted to get out there, we are all about performing. That’s where we thrive the most is onstage.” As for the final result, Sweeney couldn’t be happier with the project.
“I’m so beyond thrilled with how it all turned out.”
The band works collaboratively during the writing process and although they are all gifted artists singularly, they manage to blend their skills seamlessly onstage and in the studio.
“I am a very, very lucky person to be able to work with the musicians I work with on a daily basis,” she said.
Sweeney has always loved music, and although her folks loved music as well during her growing up years, they weren’t musicians. “They love music. They love to listen to it and dance around the kitchen! But it wasn’t until I got to high school and into theatre, which led to musical theatre that I started singing in the classroom basically,” she explained of her musical roots.
“I had this awesome drama teacher in high school that was super encouraging of us to try everything, and set up free vocal lessons and what-not. So I kind of found my way through that.”
That vocal teacher encouraged Sweeney to attend music school. “I didn’t even know that music school was a thing,” she laughed. But that marked a start of her further journey into music - via formal studies.
“I was hooked. Absolutely hooked.”
As to songwriting, that didn’t really start until after university.
“It wasn’t until I left that I actually found the confidence to sit in my apartment and start writing constantly — all of the time. Numerous songs a day — all I did was write and write,” she recalled. “Since then, it’s just been what I’m about.”
And speaking of songs, they had about 35 penned for The Trip — and of course had to pare that down to a dozen or so.
“Sometimes we are all totally on the same page. Other times, maybe two people are so connected to this particular song and they can’t understand why the other three aren’t,” she laughs of the selection process for what tunes finally make the cut.
“Music is such an emotional, personal thing - especially when it’s your idea or your thought.”
For Sweeney, there couldn’t be a better path to walk.
“The fact I get to do this with four of my best friends - these guys have really become like brothers to me. That’s huge for me — we’ve really boiled it down to the fact that is just has to be fun. We love music, we want to pursue music, we want to keep putting music out — but we want to do it our way.
“We are really just dead-set on it being what we want it to be.”
Meanwhile, Motion is available on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services.