Love Ends Disaster are a five piece rock band waiting in the wings preparing to blow your minds. With a sound they describe as a ‘pop experiment’ you can be nothing but intrigued. The band members are Matt Oakes (lead vocals), Rob Sadler (guitar / vocals), Jon Dix (guitar), Matthew Dix (bass) and Pete Jones (drums). Our meeting brought up such topics as the worst audience reaction in the history of live music....

Love Ends Disaster! Where’s the name from?
Jon: “Originally we were simply called LED. It was the first thing we came up with.”
Rob: “And that was after two weeks of thinking about it.”
Jon: “We didn’t want it to stand for Light Emitting Diode ‘cus that’s a bit dull. I like what we came up with though. It’s kinda hippy in its utopian sense.”
Matt: “We were probably hammered at the time.”

Where did you all meet?
Matt: “I knew Jon’s brother, Matt, from university. We did some music together in a band. It was terrible punk. I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Jon: “I knew Rob as we both went to Trent Uni.”
Matt: “We all went down The Social one evening. All we knew was Rob had big hair. I remember looking around and shouting “You’re Rob, aren’t you! I knew Pete from uni as well. He was just a drunken fool at the time.”
Rob: “We’ve been together 2 and a half years now.”
Jon: “When you’re at uni you always think, “Yeah let’s start a band”. But instead you get drunk all the time. But when we left we actually we got around to doing something.” 

Describe your sound...
Jon: “It’s a big, grand sound. I think we wanted to combine Sonic Youth with Flaming Lips. It’s quite noisy. As a guitarist I like that sort of sound. But Matt’s the lyricist and he brings in more melody. We want to try as much stuff in one song as we can. Sort of like a big pop experiment.”
Rob: “Some sounds are messy as there’s lots going on. But we try and get a really strong melody over the top to tie everything together.”
Jon: “I’m very against the whole keeping it rock and roll thing. I find that really dull. We have all these big grand ideas in our heads and so we try them out.”
Matt: “As the lyricist I think Tim Rice has got to be a big influence.”
Jon: “Who?”
Matt: “He writes with Andrew Lloyd Webber. Just joshing with ya.”

What are your lyrical influences then?
Jon: “I can tell ya what Matt will say: Dylan, Bowie…”
Matt: “I guess Bowie is a lyricist. I like people who have a story element to what they do. Randy Newman, that sort of thing. People like that add wit and humour to music.
There’s a lot of writers who go too angsty and forget to add any element of comedy.”

You’ve just recorded a new EP. Tell me about it!
Jon: “We recorded it at the same place as we did our first EP in London. It felt a bit more relaxed than the first one.”
Rob: “The first one was recorded and mixed within a week. But this time we are being a bit more ambitious with our sound.”
Matt: “We tried to bring new elements in. We had a flute playing on one track. There’s also more synth bits in it as well. Before it was a lot more direct rocky stuff so it was easier to record. The arrangements were more complex and we got more involved in that side of things this time. Last time we got led a bit, this time we had more idea what we wanted.”
Jon: “The record company are printing 2,000 discs. Last time it was 1,000 so we wanted to get it right this time.”

Has the EP got a title?
(Everyone laughs!)
Jon: “It’s been an absolute nightmare trying to think of one. The first one was called ‘Stories for the Dislocated’. We’re thinking of maybe calling it ‘The view from Mountain Probable’. It’s from a book by some popular scientist talking about the evolution of mankind.”

What’s ya favourite track from the new stuff?
Matt: “‘Cut your Hair’. That title may change.”
Jon: “I like ‘Fort Washington’. It’s waltzy with strings and a piano.”
Matt: “It’s about Tony and Cheri Blair having a bed time conversation over his fear of his public’s persona.”
Jon: “It’s about what?”

Worst gig?
Jon: “The Sportsman in Long Eaton. It was in the club in the back called The Roost. We did a Battle of the Bands there. It was a Goth place full of 16-year-old nu-metal kids. We were just a mess. When we finished the set everyone in the audience just laughed.”
Matt: “We won though.”
Rob: “We never went back for the next round.”

Best gig?
Jon: “Most recent was Summer Sunday in Leicester. We played the same day as Yoda Tengo and Patti Smith. We played one of the little stages.”
Rob: “Good catering.”
Matt: “We played some of the new songs there.”
Jon: “We have a bit of a shambolic aspect. We play songs two or three times then go out on stage and see how it goes. I think that unpredictability adds to our sound.”
Matt: “That way you have to really concentrate. It could go well or it could completely fall apart.”

Favourite other Notts bands?
Rob: “Lo-ego are our favourite. Hellset Orchestra and We show up on Radar.”

What’s your favourite album of all time?
Matt: “Bloody hell! Where did that question come from?”
Jon: “Probably an Aphex Twin album that no one’s heard of.”
Rob: “Flaming Lips’ ‘Soft Bulletin’.
Matt: “I could pick an album but it will change next week.”

What are your favourite Nottingham hangouts?
Jon: “The obvious ones, Broadway”.
Rob: “Rescue Rooms, Alley Café. We spend 80% of our lives in Broadway.”
Matt: “I don’t know cus I don’t live in Nottingham. I live in London. I spend a lot of time at the train station waiting for trains. It’s not my favourite place but I spend a lot of time there.”
What do ya think about the smoking ban?
Rob: “I’m trying to give up so I’m trying to force myself to be anti. People should be able to sort their own health out. We can’t say we’re anti-smoking as most of our audience smoke. They just wouldn’t come.”

Where do you see yourselves in ten years?
Jon: “We’d like to keep testing ourselves and pushing ourselves further.”
Rob: “If we make a bit of money we will buy some new equipment. We’ll be messing about with that for a bit to see what sort of sound we can get out.”
Matt: “We’ll be recording a Beatles tribute album called Love Ends Disaster Me Do. Or we could record it in Leicester and it can be called Love Ends Disaster Me Duck.”
Jon: “Get out!”

That’s all the questions now! Cheers lads!
Rob: Excellent! Can we ask you some?

Hmmmmmm……… nope!

www.loveendsdisaster.co.uk




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