Get ready to update your list of promising West Coast phenoms. Since their debut EP Tigers in the Fire, Love Grenades have been pulling their weight in the LA scene as a dance floor mainstay. And with good reason. Front woman Liz Wight has wisely crafted a record of solid, jaded make-out anthems and dancey baselines that perfectly compliment her smokey vocals.
On their first trip to New York for CMJ music festival, we talked with Liz about life, love, and her affection for all things Nugent.
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I’ll assume you didn’t pick the name Love Grenades because this project started out as a Ted Nugent cover band. Also, in an interview you once said, “”I have kind of a twisted view on what love is.” If you can, please explain your connection to Ted Nugent and elaborate on what love means to you.
First off, Love Grenades have absolutely no connection to “The Nuge.” Nothing against Ted Nugent, but when I found out he named a song “Love Grenade” I was upset at first and thought I had to change my name, but then decided against it because there is no way musically or politically we could be compared. Besides, the “s” changes everything…I hope.
And love is just a strange thing to me. I’m constantly trying to understand it. Love for a lover, friend, or mother are all so different. Boundaries and expectations vary so much. It’s something I think about everyday because I am so fascinated and terrified of it all at the same time. Love for another can either bring you the greatest joy, or crush you to pieces.
When looking for comparisons, people often try to reach back and find your punk influence in this current project. Is that justified, or was Love Grenades meant to be divorced from that connection? Do you personally see the influences of your previous bands in this one?
There is not a tinge of influence from any other projects I’ve had. The other stuff involved collaborating with four people, and by the time the songs were completed they were watered-down versions of what they could’ve been had there been less nay- sayers. We definitely weren’t Sonic Youth where all equal parts summed up to brilliance. As far as the punk influence thing goes, punk and no wave music made me realize that I could make music, too. You can break the rules and not have to conform and basically make music to make music, and not for some superficial gain.
When did the epiphany come that you could be the main creative influence of a music project, essentially doing it all by yourself? Would you now ever go back to doing more traditional band collaborations?
I realized I could create and write all my own songs when I was in high school. But I thought I needed a band in order to play. When I started Love Grenades I thought, Fuck that, I don’t want to wait, so I started playing shows, which was just me and my laptop. Love Grenades’ guitar player Corey, however, has been playing music with me for a long time. He’s amazing and the only person I could really consider part of this. I would love to collaborate in a band in the future and do something more like Sea and Cake or Hope Sandoval. Or something really brutal and noisy or shoegazey. I want to do everything, damn it!
I heard CMJ is your first time playing in New York as Love Grenades. How are you preparing, mentally and musically? Are you taking workshops on ducking homicidal cabbies and not making eye contact?
Actually, I’m doing a lot of yoga, and bought a journal so I can document every moment. I’ve been to New York a few times, so I’m researching everything going on at the Met, Guggenheim, and anything else I can get myself into.
I also heard you’re heading to Germany. How do you plan to be bigger than David Hasselhoff?
Germany actually happened this past summer. I played some amazing shows at Cookies in Berlin and Erste Liga in Munich with the Love Grenades and Sam Sparro. Sadly, I can never be as chill as Hasselhoff; lord knows I try.
You’ve related that being in punk band previously, you knew what it was like to play to an empty room. When did you feel you’d turned that corner, when the “empty room days” were behind you?
My songs were kinda marinating on MySpace for a few months before I played out and I had done the Young Lovers music video, so locally kids just sort of found me. The first show I ever played was a big Halloween party for Hang the DJs, and that to me was the turning point where I felt really confident that I could keep that momentum just by the reaction from the crowd and how good it felt to love what I was doing.
You obviously make an effort to keep things high energy at your shows. What’s has been you best, most rewarding, most fun show so far?
The most rewarding show I’ve ever played was at Mountain Bar for The Chase. The room we played in was small and it was swelteringly hot and we were all drenched in sweat. There was no stage and people couldn’t really see, so I got up on a subwoofer which was a bit unstable and shook a whole lot. I loved it! The kids were dancing and everyone there was trashed. It was a great moment when I realized that, despite what everyone thinks, Angelinos do dance! Made me really proud of my town.