MusicTAP (Matt Rowe):
Ryan - How did you come up with the term Love Spirals Downwards as a band name?
Ryan Lum (Guitar/Keyboards): We needed to think of a name quickly in order to send out demos, and that was the first one we came up with.
MT: Ryan - Why did you shorten the name to Lovespirals? Is it representative of the second phase of your career with the band?
RL: To make a long story short, Anji and I wanted to release music under a different name from my old band, but Projekt wanted us to have some name recognition when they put out Windblown Kiss, our first album. So we compromised with the name Lovespirals; a new name that also has name recognition. So for better or for worse, that's our name.
Anji Bee (Vocalist): Its easier to typeset than Love Spirals Downwards, so that’s a plus!
MT: Ryan - How did you meet Suzanne? Did your meeting Suzanne contribute to the creation and direction of LSD?
RL: We met while working at a record/video rental store together. Remember those things? We started dating and eventually I had her sing on some music I was working on at the time. It fit nicely, so we finished two songs and sent out some demos. Projekt was the first to want to work with us, so that's how we got started with them.
MT: Ryan - If you had not met Suzanne, would there be a Lovespirals today?
RL: That is hard to answer. Who's to say how such things work out in life? I've been making music since I was a kid, so it's safe to say that I still would have been making music today, whether or not I had ever done the Love Spirals Downwards thing.
Anji B: I’ve heard a few demos with Suzanne’s sister on vocals, and it sounds pretty darned similar, so I think he might have started down a similar path, but with a different band name.
MT: Ryan - How long did it take for you to fully flesh out the complexities of Love Spirals Downwards, enough so that Suzanne and yourself felt comfortable sharing your music with an audience?
RL: It happened pretty quickly. We just made those first 2 songs and said “why not send some demos out?”.
MT: Ryan - After you became a unit strong enough to record and tour, how did you draw the attention of Projekt Records?
RL: (see above)
Anji B: LSD didn’t even play live until after their 2nd album, in 1995.
MT: Ryan - From the Projekt phase of your career, do you have a favorite LSD album? (Why?) A least liked album? (Why?)
RL: That's hard to say. If I had to pick a favorite, perhaps Flux, our last one. Why? It's got a little more soul than the others and it's not recorded as badly as the others. I also think it's cool that I crossed ethereal dream pop with atmospheric drum and bass.
Anji B: I think my favorite is probably Ever. I like the mix of acoustic and electronic songs and elements on that one. I also enjoy hearing Ryan doing backing vocals on “Delta.”
MT: Ryan - Anji’s voice is hauntingly memorable; her voice sticks in my mind long after I heard the songs. Are you as hypnotized by her ability to mesh with your vision of how Lovespirals songs should be communicated as we are hearing it?
RL: Yeah, it's surprising how her voice just fits perfectly. I'm very lucky. Her voice has been as important as anything in the evolution of our music together.
MT: Anji – Obviously you are an excellent fit with Lovespirals. The forward progression of the band incorporates you better than many bands undergoing a shift in style. How do you feel your involvement with Lovespirals changes the band? Have you brought your own influences into the structure of the band’s musical vision?
Anji B : It would be impossible for me not to bring my own influences into the band, since we are a collaborative team. I think I bring an earthier element to the music. My vocals are very lyrically based, as opposed to Suzanne’s more non-verbal stylings, and my sound is more soulful compared to her purely ethereal sound.
MT: Who, in this duo, brought about the jazz influences found beginning in Windblown Kiss and extending into the latest album, Free & Easy?
RL: It's just something that we're into and listen to, so naturally it's going to make its way into our music. Pretty much the stuff that I listen to inspires me to make what I make. So the trick for me is always find music that is great, so that I may be influenced by it.
MT: There are distinct differences from Windblown Kiss as opposed to Free & Easy. You have perceptibly increased your jazz influences. Where do you see Lovespirals going next?
RL: Even more soulful and more bluesy.
MT: Where do you draw inspiration from when you write songs? Do songs come easily or do they have to be coaxed from you?
RL: Every song comes about in its own way. But generally the main musical idea for a song comes pretty easily. The polishing of that idea into a recorded song though is more of an effort, mainly because we want our new baby to be very good.
Anji B: I have found it is impossible to “coax” Ryan into making music. But once he does get inspired, he’ll work for hours and days non-stop until a song is complete. He gets very annoyed if anything pops up to prevent him from working on music.
As far as my inspiration goes, I would have to say that it just comes from my life experiences. Most times I write lyrics long before any music has begun, but occasionally I write lyrics specifically in relation to some music. Generally the vocal melody is inspired by the music, though sometimes my original melody fits the music as-is.
MT: Who’s the primary lyricist in Lovespirals?
Anji B: I am the sole lyricist, aside from the two song collaborations with Sean Bowley that we included on Windblown Kiss.
MT: How long does it take for a Lovespirals song to birth, from initial inspiration to completed (but not yet recorded) structure at the demo or rehearsal level?
RL: Once I have an idea that we're into, we'll work on getting it's structure down; stuff like where they lyrics go and how the song flows from beginning to end. that's pretty quick work, about an hour or two, but it's not too much of a song at that moment. A song really starts to take life once I start laying down a few tracks.
Anji B: We don’t really “rehearse” music per se. We’ll spend some time going through the song with just guitar and vocals, figuring out the whole verse/chorus/bridge arrangement and then go into the studio to begin work on it.
MT: Typically, how many versions of a song come forth before the perfect one is settled on? Often, you’ll hear slow demos on what eventually becomes faster songs, or vice versa. Does that happen for Lovespirals?
RL: Not really. If anything, on a few occasions we've gone back and put in better drums, as we did with the title track to Free & Easy as well as the album closer “Sandcastles,” which resulted in better, stronger songs. Typically though, we try our best to get things sounding good from the start. Experience may be helping me out some with that.
Anji B: The creation of Free & Easy was a little different from Windblown Kiss in that we began our second album by reworking a few songs that we held off of the first one. The songs sound basically the same now, as far as tempo and vibe, they’re just recorded better. The only song that might seem to be a new version is “Hand in Hand,” which was partially inspired by one of the first tracks we ever did together, back in 1999. We took reused sax sample and I fleshed out the vocal lines from the previous recording, but otherwise, all of Ryan’s music is completely different. So it has the same name and some similar vocals, but is really a totally new song.
MT: What are the recording sessions like? Give us a slice of your recording process especially when an album is in bloom.
Anji B: Our general workflow is this: after our initial song inspiration and jam session, we’ve figured out the chord changes and where the lyrics all fit in so that Ryan can fire up ProTools and lay down the basic guitar track. At that point, he needs to figure out a bassline and percussion. After he’s got that worked out, I go in to lay down a vocal. Sometimes this ends up just being a scratch track, but other times it’s the final vocal. Then Ryan is inspired to start adding in additional layers of music, which could be keyboard or more guitar. After that, we check out the vocals again. Sometimes I want to redo them, other times I just want to add harmonies to them. We might go back and forth, adding lushness to the production here and there until we feel that it’s complete.
MT:Do you prefer traditional recording processes or the more current “ProTools” methods?
RL: We do use ProTools to record and edit, but I feel that we don't really abuse digital recording. We use ProTools much like one would use a tape machine. I'm not a huge fan of using plug-ins for effects and I'm totally against using things like AutoTune to try and correct the pitch of a singer. It has annoying sounding side effects. You can hear it all over most radio hits today and I feel it is one of the many things ruining music. Back in the day, musicians had to practice to become competent enough to perform their music. If you stunk, you'd get booted out of the band or out of the studio. Now, most people can't sing or play worth a crap and try to use their computers to make them sound okay.
Anji B: We use ProTools because of it’s ease of use in a home studio situation. It’s much more convenient than a huge, expensive 24 track analog setup, yet sounds totally professional. Before ProTools, for the old Love Spirals Downwards albums, Ryan used an 8-track reel machine. That thing is pretty darned big for how few tracks you can work with!
MT: Anji – Do you continually write songs?
Anji B: It seems to go in cycles for me, where I’ll have a lot of lyrical inspiration and then a slower period hits, and then another bout of inspiration begins again. I try to note anything I come up with for future use, either written in journals or recorded somehow.
MT: Do you have many out-takes recorded to completion for Free & Easy? OR do you decide during basic tracks, which will be on the album before recording to completion. In other words, do you have a batch of songs “in the can” but which have not been included on any album? If you were to do a definitive version of Free & Easy, say 20 years from now, what would you do for your “legacy edition?”
RL: Right now, just about everything we've made has been released in some way. There's a few things that were mp3 only thus far, but there's not a bunch of lost tracks for Free & Easy. Of course there's already a few brand new songs that'll be part of our next album.
Anji B: There’s only one song we recorded that got cut, and it was a really early one, during the Windblown Kiss sessions. I wasn’t happy with my vocals, and Ryan wasn’t happy with the transition from verse to chorus, so I don’t think that one will ever see the light of day. We have a few cover songs we’ve recorded for comps that could be added to a rerelease, but it can be such a hassle to clear the licenses and pay royalties on covers that we probably wouldn’t want to mess around with that.
MT: Have you given thought to future treatment of your work? That is, if you gain unheard of popularity, would you have sufficient demos, rehearsal cuts, live performances, and session out-takes that never made the playlist, etc. to compile for a Deluxe Edition of any of your albums? Actually, a Deluxe Edition is not a bad idea, even now. I’m sure that there are fans that would love to hear how your songs take shape? Perhaps a low production, fan club edition that covers 2 CDs and with great packaging. I love those and see absolutely no reason that fans need to wait 20 years to get something like that.
Anji B: Ha ha! I don’t think we need to worry about that too much. There are a few demos and live recordings, but nothing we’d want to put out. Honestly, we usually just record a song from start to finish without a “demo” version, since we do all the production in our own studio. The only demos we make are cassette or computer mic recordings during our jam sessions, just to make sure that we don’t forget a song idea. Most people wouldn’t want to listen to that.
MT: How about an EP that includes a single off of the album but also contains session out-takes, perhaps a live cut of one of the songs?
Anji B: At this point in our career, we aren’t releasing “singles” for radio stations. As for live versions, we haven’t had any professional live recordings made of us.
MT: If you had the chance, would you sign with a large label to gain a wider distribution and perhaps more recognition for your hard work? Or do you like the low-key approach that gives you more control over your music?
Anji B: The big labels right now are so much in flux that it would be hard to know what would happen to us if we did sign to one. We’re pretty happy being in control of the sales and promotion of our music right now. It would be great to have wider distribution, sure, but there’s no guarantee that would happen if we signed to a major. They might end up just sitting on our music. Just think of all the big indie bands that have gone major only to go back to indie afterwards. These days many mainstream artists are breaking away and starting their own labels, which seems to say something, doesn’t it?
MT: Ryan - What is your musical background? You have great skill in several instruments. Were you schooled as a young child or did you pick up each instrument on your own?
RL: I had guitar lessons for several years when I was in elementary and middle school. And I've studied music and guitar on and off again at different times in my life. As for piano, I can get by, especially if I am not playing live. I usually know what chords or notes I want, but I usually don't find the best combinations until i go back and edit what I recorded.
MT: First Anji, then Ryan…Who are your favorite artists? Collectively?
RL: Another tough one. I'd say Pink Floyd and Miles Davis have been a huge influence of the way I've been heading musically for the past few years; lots of mood and blues and beautiful notes.
Anji B: Hey, Ryan answered first! Um... that is constantly changing for me. I’m always discovering new music, but by new music, I mean new to me, not necessarily newly released music. Mostly the two of us have been delving into older music that we missed out on before. Right now we’ve been checking out a lot of blues artists, like Robert Cray - who we just saw in concert and were blown away by. I’ve also been listening a lot to the John Mayer Trio the past few months. But last year and the year before that I was into something totally different.
As far as musical inspirations go, I can’t say that any artist has really inspired my vocal work in particular, but everything I’ve listened to over my whole life has given me inspiration in general. Sometimes when I’m listening back to one of our songs I’ll think, “Hey, that scat reminds me of Simon’s vocal in ‘Rio’,” or “My fade out vocal there kinda sounds like Carly Simon,” or “Gosh, I wonder if I was subconsciously thinking of that line in ‘Rock with You’ when I sang ‘love survives’?”.
MT: Ryan…ever feel the need to record a solo project?
RL: Yeah sure, but it's nothing that I've ever given any major consideration. I barely find enough time to do Lovespirals justice, so I doubt you'll see me making a solo record anytime soon.
MT: Anji, same question.
Anji B: I’ve been doing side projects the whole time I’ve been in Lovespirals, actually. I haven’t released any albums, but I’ve recorded more than enough material for an album by this point. The thing is, I don’t feel like any of the stuff I do outside of Lovespirals is quite as good. There’s something about the chemistry between Ryan and I that brings out my best qualities.
MT: If you were not doing Lovespirals, what would you be doing now? Ryan, we know that you like to DJ, as you’ve guested with stations in the past; would that be your calling? If so, could you be structured or would you have to be more freeform?
RL: No, no more Dj'ing for now; it's too time consuming and I'd rather be playing my guitar than spinning the wheels of steel.
Anji B: I was actually the radio DJ, Ryan was a club DJ. I was with a college station for 3 years doing multiple radio shows. I ran the program guide for the station, and did a stint at the Music Director, as well. Now I’m channelling that old DJ urge into a new podcast called The Chillcast.
MT: How do Anji and/or Ryan relax?
RL: Relax? What's that?
Anji B: Play PS2 games, like Katamari Damacy, or go to the beach. Ryan surfs whenever he can, so don’t let him tell you he doesn’t relax!
MT: How long has both of you lived in California or were both of you born here, never to leave?
Anji B: We were both born and raised in California.
MT: I love the sound of a forlorn saxophone. Besides the evocative span of a violin, I’m not sure that there are that many instruments that can tug at the soul like those two instruments. What are your opinions and observations of particular instruments?
Anji B: My favorite instrument is the guitar. It can express so many emotions so well. I love a good jazzy sax or trumpet line, a soulful flute, or a dreamy vibraphone, too, but probably not as much as guitar. Rhodes piano can be really cool as well. And let’s not forget a sweet spiritual organ swell.
MT: Anji – If you could be one personality in history, musically or otherwise, whom would you choose as your expressive self?
Anji B: Sheesh, I don’t know. I never thought about it. Maybe Anäis Nin? But then I’d miss singing... I wouldn’t want to be Billie Holiday, because she was way too tragic. I guess if I could be anyone, it would be fascinating to be the historical buddha.
Be sure to check out Lovespirals' site at www.lovespirals.com where they are offering a special on CDs; both albums for just $19.99 - personally autographed by the band. Take a listen to our band podcast, Chillin’ with Lovespirals, on iTunes, and keep your ears peeled for Anji’s brand new independent music podcast, The Chillcast as well.
