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Dangerbird Records
Released: October 4, 2005 |
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Sabrosa Purr
Asked about the songs’ lyrical content, Love is reluctant to divulge their true meaning. He does, however, hint that most of his songs are conversations with himself. “I’d rather not talk about the meaning of the songs. Not because I’m protecting any great mystery, it just takes me too long to get to the point. It becomes long winded.”
Love’s journey to Sabrosa Purr began when he was growing up near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “Even before I actually started playing music, I always had the mindset of a musician,” Love explains. “I’d create these imaginary bands with schoolmates who never knew I was building imaginary bands around them.”
Located within the city limits of the larger Titusville, Mims is a tiny town situated on the southeastern coast of Florida, 25 miles from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Love’s father was the lone military recruiter in an area with no military presence. “To get an idea of what Titusville was like,” Love states, “just realize that this is the place the United States government felt comfortable launching rockets from. They had to pick a place that no one would miss if one of those Saturn V's took a wrong turn and landed in the mall parking lot. Notice I said the mall, yes - there was only one.”
Love says he was an alienated kid looking for solace in music. “I asked for an electric guitar but my parents bought me an acoustic,” he recalls, “which may as well have been a tuba – it just made no sense to me. I didn’t have lessons, so I never really touched it. In seventh grade, when I wanted to play drums, I signed up for band class.”
During high school, Love experimented with various bands. But, he says, “The bands I was in could never keep a good singer. After a while, I figured I could probably do it myself. So one day I just switched from drums to singing.”
Around the time Love finished high school, his father took a job in San Diego. After another unsatisfying attempt to form a lasting band in Florida, Love joined his family in California. Shortly thereafter, he started a group in which he played guitar as well as sang. “I still don’t think of myself as a guitar player,” he confides. “I’m a singer who plays guitar out of necessity. I just make it up as I go along.”
Just as this latest band was getting off the ground, however, the drummer, who was also Love’s roommate, decided to move out of the area. “Things fell apart,” Love relates. “I had all my gear in the rehearsal studio, which is where we recorded. I couldn’t afford the rent on both the apartment and the studio by myself, so I gave up the apartment.” He lived at the rehearsal studio for six months, showering at a nearby gym. “I just know that if I’m willing to keep doing this despite those kinds of conditions,” he says, “then there’s really a purpose to it.”
Love next headed north. “When you grow up in Nowheresville, you want to go somewhere that’s the exact opposite. I always really wanted to be in L.A.,” he informs. His efforts to put a band together there finally paid off when drummer Jacob Thompson answered Love’s ad on Craigslist. Jacob’s friend and roommate, Jeff Mendel, soon joined the band on guitar. “Jeff and Jacob are fantastic. They interpret my ideas, contribute their own and provide me with new inspiration. They are truly capable of handling anything I throw at them, from a wall of crushing feedback to the slightest whisper – and that demands an exceptional level of musicianship.”
Sabrosa Purr has not felt the need to add a bassist – Love compensates for this by providing low end on his guitar, while Mendel plays lead. “On songs that absolutely must have bass, we have a little Casio keyboard on the floor that Jeff plays by stepping on broken drumsticks,” Love explains. Besides, the band simply does not feel the need to add another member. “Jeff, Jake and I are in the exact same head space,” Love insists. “It’s extremely hard to find people like that. This is all we do – this is all we want to do – and we arrange our entire lives around it.”
Love is nothing if not outspoken about his commitment to music. “This is what I’m doing with my life,” he declares. “Whatever happens, I’ll always do it. I’ll always go to my little room and write songs. I don’t have an exit strategy; I don’t have a time limit. I’ll be the guy on the sidewalk outside the Viper room playing guitar and singing. I take this shit way too seriously to do anything else.”
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