Trevor Melody
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Before setting off to Los Angeles for the final leg of its West Coast tour, three-piece minimalist pop band Love Inks made a pit stop at Cal Poly to perform for KCPR’s “Free Admission” series on Oct. 24.
The band, which hails from Austin, Texas, is made up of vocalist Sherry LeBlanc, bassist Zach Biggs and guitarist Kevin Dehan. It has been on tour to promote its third studio album, EXI.
Love Inks has toured for the past three years for its previous albums, E.S.P. and Generation Club. While it can be stressful being cooped up in a van for nine hours straight, the members’ long-lasting friendship keeps them sane.
“We’ve all known each other for a long time, and other than the occasional snippiness here and there, there’s nothing too major (to fight about),” Biggs said.
The hardest part of being on tour, they said, is knowing when it’s appropriate to let loose and when it’s time to buckle down and work.
“You have to learn to control your party,” LeBlanc said. “You can’t just party every single night. Once you have that down, it’s easy.”
EXI, which was released in early September, is similar to the band’s first record but with more of the fat cut out of it, Dehan said. With the idea of keeping things minimal, the band focused on growing artistically.
“Just like with any group, you’re going to be a little more greener on the first record and by the time you do a third record, there’s going to be a little more maturity in the sound,” Biggs said.
Those who have yet to hear the halcyon sounds of the band might get confused and call them a “shoegaze” band — but don’t get it twisted.
“We want to divorce ourselves from (chillwave) and shoegazing and dream pop,” LeBlanc said.
Before starting out, the trio had a round table discussion, going over styles they weren’t hearing on the radio along with the type of music they would like to hear — even if they were just listeners.
“Kevin made a mixtape of all the bands that we were interested in in the past, and we formulated our sound and our band around that mixtape,” LeBlanc said.
For LeBlanc, Yoko Ono is one major spiritual inspiration when it comes to performing on stage, but the band as a whole draws inspiration from all sorts of places.
The band’s music draws influence from the southern United States as well — not the fiddle and banjo sound one may think of, but more like old cowboy songs from back in the day.
“So it’s a mixture of that with a kind of British approach to songwriting and recording,” Dehan said.
The name “Love Inks” appears in a chapter of the 1934 book “Magica Sexualis,” which describes how one could take love letters written from previous lovers, burn them and use the ashes to make ink that could woo future lovers.
“It’s so weird because now that name gets associated with tattoos, and it has nothing to do with that at all,” LeBlanc said. “It’s just this really great romantic idea.”