Lowlives: “To be playing Reading and Leeds blows our minds”

Lowlives is a relatively new band, but you’ve all got a lot of experience. Can you tell us a bit about your background and how the band formed?

Luke: Both myself and Lee had somewhat taken a break from music. I was really wanting to start over with the fresh exciting attitude that I’d had with some of my former bands. Usually when you have to start paying bills and the band becomes your income as well as your passion, it can lose some of the magic.

So through a totally random Instagram conversation, myself and Lee started talking about each other’s projects and writing. I wanted to write with someone on the same wavelength, he needed some drums on his stuff. So we met for a pint at a bar called the Dark Room and really hit it off. Soon after we were writing constantly, it was like nothing I’ve experienced before, we were very much on the same page stylistically and attitude wise; song ideas were flying out left right and center. Then we needed to actually become a band, I knew the perfect guy to rip the bass. My buddy Steve Lucarelli, he’s a beast, a handsome one at that.

Finally we were introduced to Jax who completed our line up. Jax is the chillest dude ever, even in the middle of Europe when your tour gets cancelled, he was keeping the stress levels down in the van, haha.

Lee has previously said in an interview that one of his aspirations was to play Reading Festival – how does it feel being on the cusp of achieving that?

Lee: It feels fantastic! In school our teacher made us write a CV and in the bottom it had a hopes and aspirations section, most people were just like… be a chef, plumber, do something that makes me happy… Mine was to play Reading Festival. I went every year from a pretty young age with my dad and then with all my mates as I got a little older… it was the highlight of every year for us and we’d count down the days til we left like a kid counts down to Christmas; to be playing it now blows my mind.

So far we’ve heard ‘Burn Forever’ and ‘Thieves’ from you which are amazing, when can we expect more music?

Luke: Well, we recorded the album last October out of our own pocket with producer Beau Burchell. It came out awesome, we just figured it would be easier to find a home on a label with a finished product. So that’s being sent around now. But in the spirit of our DIY roots, we decided we would release a 12” limited run vinyl pressing of ‘Burn Forever/Thieves’ and 2 extra songs to make an EP.

This is available to pre-order now through our website and will be in stores in the UK September 21st. We also went live with the ‘Burn Forever’ music video shot by British director Adam Mason.

If you had to pick any song from any artist that sums up your journey as a band so far, what would it be and why?

Lee: ‘She’s Your Queen To Be’ from Coming to America…just cause we sing it in the van. Happy times…actually…or Big Shaq ‘Man’s Not Hot’…Steve our bassist knows every single word of it. Big LowLives bus tune! Ha

If you had to pack a fancy dress outfit, what would you take?

Luke: Oh wow, like to wear on stage? Hmm, maybe I might even try to bust our my best Robert Smith outfit circa ‘Disintegration’ era. Not quite sure I could get my barnet to look like that so easily though haha.

Lee: From previously being in a goth band I could tease that hair to perfection for ya Luke.

I’d bust out my he-man costume though…complete with small furry pants and sword. Plus small and easy to travel with…sword might be tough through customs though

If you had a food stall at Reading and Leeds what would you call it?

Luke: I have to say, our band meal is chicken tikka masala, Jax had his first ever on the tour in Feb. He basically made it his mission to tikka himself up before every show, utter insanity! But then again, on the other hand, you have Steve our bass player who has such an extreme nut allergy he will die if he eats one or comes in to contact, so much so they have to ban nut service on planes when we fly. So maybe the food stand would be called “NUTJOB STEVE” and sell anything but nuts, bless him.

Leeds plays host to the Piccadilly Party late into the night in the campsite. Who on the line up would you like to party with?

Lee: My mate David is involved with running that party and he DJs at it too, so it’ll be nice to see him. Big Shaq of course…just need a photo of Steve with him, with maybe a bottle of ketchup in his hands. Oh and I’d like to hang with Harry Hill, I’ll bring my stouffer puppet.

Lastly, where would you like to see Lowlives this time next year?

Luke: We just put together our 2019 dream festival run, Obviously Reading & Leeds is on there (we don’t want to be too greedy haha). Basically we’d love to get a nice festival run that took us through UK/ Europe, SE Asia, US and Canada. In order to do this we will likely need to lock in a label this year. I’d also love for us to go to some markets that are less visited. We want to work hard on the live side of things, we don’t want to skip over somewhere because it doesn’t tie in, I want to go everywhere. On the whole, a nice handful of festivals and a deal for 2019 would be epic! Thanks for having us this year!

Don’t miss Lowlives when they hit Reading’s Pit Stage on Sunday evening.