by Alexx Calise
— Guest Columnist —
LA rockers, Love and a .38 are back on October 30th with a heavy-hitting new single and lyric video entitled “Kiss Me Hurt Me.” Comprised of vocalist, Ryan Hudson, bassist Justin Emord, guitarist Domo Domaracki and drummer, Clark Skelton, the fiercely independent “blue collar” rock band have been making a name for themselves on the Sunset Strip and garnering acclaim from esteemed rock publications such as Revolver Magazine and Music Connection. HRH correspondent, Alexx Calise chatted with the guys about how “Kiss Me Hurt Me” came to be, what they’ve been doing creatively during lockdown, and what they think is in store for the music industry following the pandemic.
Alexx: So “Kiss Me Hurt Me” came about during a jam session, when Ryan (who is usually singing) was sitting in on drums. I didn’t know Ryan played! How long have you been doing that, Ryan, and what else are you hiding from us? Also, where was Clark? Did he feel miffed? :)
Ryan: I mean… I don’t do it WELL. Just enough to be useful while we’re writing (although I did do all the drums on my solo record). Back in the Before Time (pre-covid) we liked to keep on a pretty set schedule for rehearsing. And if there were nights where Clark was unavailable the rest of us would still get together to try to write. Writing without drums can be a little boring for big, loud rock songs so I started doing my best Don Henley.
Alexx: The new song is about “star-crossed lovers who are participants in a duel, facing off at high noon.” Was this taken from personal experience? Who hurt you, Ryan?
Ryan: Even when things AREN’T from personal experience… they still are, ya know? You don’t get to be my age without a few battle scars that you can agitate when you need a little creative push. Writing lyrics for me has almost always been a form of either escapism or therapy. Not that I sit down to write with those in mind… but 20 years of music has made me notice that that is what usually happens. This song kind of falls right in the middle of those 2 functions.
Alexx: Is this single going to be a part of a larger body of work, or do you think it’s more of a stand alone track?
Ryan: We’ve got a few more songs in the can that we will be releasing over the next few months. Stuff that we had started before the world fell apart. The plan is to package it as an EP after we’ve released them all. But we do intend on releasing them all individually first so that they all get a little bit of their own time in the limelight.
Justin: Kiss me Hurt me is part of a larger EP that we will be releasing soon. All songs were recorded shortly before Covid hit but didn’t feel like releasing things while so much of the world was in disarray was the right thing to do. So here we are with new music now!
Alexx: This single was produced entirely at home by Ryan (aside from mastering). Has that always been the case for your productions?
Ryan: Well… sort of at home. We track everything at our studio downtown. But I do most of the editing and mixing at my house so that I don’t have to put on real pants. Although come to think of it there is probably photographic evidence that I am reluctant to put on real pants at the studio too.
Our very 1st EP was recorded at a great place in town called Infrasonic… then we had Shawn Sullivan at World Class Audio mix it for us. It was a really, really great sounding EP. But when it came time to record some more songs we didn’t have the budget to go back to that type of a setup. So I decided to try my hand at recording the band (I’d been doing demos for years) to see how it went. We did one song as a test… that song was “All Mine” in 2013 and it went well enough that we’ve just kind of kept using that model ever since. It allows us to work at our own pace and put our money towards other things the band needs.
Justin: Every piece of music Love and a .38 has released excluding the first EP has been made in house. We felt it gave us the most flexibility to produce the best music we could by being able to really workshop ideas in the demo stage at a higher level and fine tune those while also setting our own hours to record based on what works for the individual members any given week or day. The way Ryan has grown and learned in that role is remarkable going all the way back to “All Mine ” to where we are now. He’s done a fantastic job.
Alexx: What have you guys been up to since the start of the pandemic? I know that you’ve been pursuing some projects other than just Love and a .38.
Ryan: I actually just put out my very 1st solo album last month. I hadn’t really planned on doing that… but I had written a lot of new music over the winter and once the shutdowns started I didn’t really know what to do with myself. So I just kind of kept working on the songs and recording more parts. Eventually I thought it might be kind of fun to make a proper album out of it and put those songs out into the world. Stuff that is just a LITTLE different than Love and a .38 so it may not have ever seen the light of day otherwise.
We’re also right on the doorstep of releasing an EP with our other band, The Pride. Love and a .38’s original bass player, Daniel McGuffey, and I have remained extremely close over the years and back in 2015 we did an EP with The Pride. Over the fall he hit me up about putting some new music together so we’ve been plugging away at that as well over the Spring and Summer. Hard rock with some decidedly pop sensibilities… sprinkled with a dash of country and punk. Very cool stuff.
Justin: Besides Love and a .38, Ryan and myself have been hard at work on an EP with our other project the Pride which consists of original .38 bassist Daniel McGuffey on vocals/guitar and Brian Sheahan on drums. The Pride takes a lot of influence from a UK based band called the Wildhearts. Monster riffs and harmonies are the bread and butter of this project and we’re excited for our EP release in December
Alexx: Justin, you’ve expressed that the pandemic affected your creativity early on, and that you hit a wall musically at one point. How has photography, another passion of yours helped breathe some life back into your other love, music?
Justin: Photography has been a complete blessing and gift for me during this pandemic. Landscape and cityscape photography has always been my jam so when the safer at home order went into place, I knew I wanted to capture images while the air quality was immensely better for which made for clearer images than I’ve honestly ever been able to get in LA. Something I’ve always wanted to do was Milky Way and Starscape photography which has always been hard to do because of scheduling conflicts. So I took the leap of faith, went out to Joshua Tree for two nights and it was absolutely incredible. The change of scenery and change of approach to photography was exactly what I needed to get the creative juices flowing again. I came back from that trip feeling refreshed, satisfied and with another skill set that I always wanted to have. Since then, the musical ideas have been a lot easier to coax out of me. I relate it a lot to circuit training at the gym; you have your leg days and your arm days to target and focus on different muscles. Moving forward,, my creative endeavors with music and photography are forever intertwined.
Alexx: What are you all hoping will come out of this pandemic for creatives? Do you think that things will ever be the same for the music industry especially?
Ryan: I hope that people who have wanted to be creative but never found the time will have finally been able to scratch that itch. I also hope that there will be a renewed appreciation for the arts… since it is just about the only thing that got a lot of people through being locked up inside for months at a time.
I don’t even know what “same” we would be going back to. Over the last couple of decades things in the music industry have changed so drastically and rapidly that Covid or no Covid things would probably have looked pretty weird by 2021 anyway.
Justin: For creatives, I hope they’ve been able to hone their crafts or learn something new. We all have more free time due to the lack of other obligations in our lives and I think that’s something we need to take advantage of. My biggest hope for musicians is that the general public sees how much different life is without shows and there can be a revitalization and celebration of artistry when we all come out of this and our industry can bloom and blossom into something better than what it was before Covid hit.
Alexx: Live music isn’t coming back for the foreseeable future. Do you plan to do any live streaming events, or are you just going to wait things out until you can actually play to people in person again.
Ryan: I’ve dabbled a little bit with the live streaming stuff, and we’re going to do a little something the night before the single is released… but I doubt we’ll get TOO heavily into it. As much as I appreciate the innovation and the efforts put forth by people trying to continue to give the masses a way to enjoy live performances during all of this… I am still a purist at heart. I worry that so many people doing it will eventually turn it into the “norm”. And that terrifies me. The experience of seeing live music up close and personal is not something that can be duplicated. I don’t care how good your streaming setup is.
I mean… yeah, sure, pornography is great. But it’s not sex.
Justin: For us, I think it’s a little bit of both. There will be some livestreams because we believe there’s a place for it, for a band and a digital audience to connect and communicate until we can all be in a room again. But we do miss the energy and feeling of a true live music experience and we can’t wait for the day we can do that again.
Learn more about Love and a .38 via the following links:
http://www.instagram.com/loveanda38
