Lola Cove is an indie rock / pop band from South London that formed in 2014.
The band consists of brothers Luke Richmond (lead vocals, piano) and Ollie Richmond (vocals, guitar), Jonny Swales (bass), Owen Crane (vocals, guitar) and Rob Cousins (drums).
In this interview, we chat with the band about their influences, the new project, and more.
Full Q&A, links, and a stream of “Wait Up For Me” below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
Luke: As a band we listen to a wide range of genres and styles which all have an influence on the sound that we play.
Ollie: When it comes to playing live, we’re all for upbeat pop rock vibes and having fun on stage.
Luke: We try to create authentic, honest songs about hope and positivity.
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
We’ve all played music from a young age, brothers Luke and Ollie have been writing music together growing up so we feel there’s that natural connection.
Jonny: We enjoy the whole process of recording and developing music. I guess the driving motivation is to put music out that we hope people can connect with. Songs that can be a catalyst for people. I love it when we get a message from someone who’s listened to our music and has heard it in a completely different way to maybe how I hear it. When you hear of how something you’ve created has helped or shaped them in some way, there is no better feeling!
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
We have been influenced by a huge variety of sounds and artists from Nirvana to OneRepublic and from NEEDTOBREATHE to Coldplay and this has helped us adapt our sound to a more indie, rock n roll EP that brings in hints of our previous songs but has been greatly developed. We would say our tastes have changed over time, even since the band started. We think everyone’s tastes change and this is often reflected in different albums and releases. This is no more evident than in our latest EP where more thought and time was spent lyrically and melodically to produce something we were all entirely proud of.
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
Creatively we have tried to show where we think we are heading as a band, both melodically, lyrically and commercially. These songs are far more developed than anything we have produced so far and we hope people enjoy what’s to come.
What was the last song you listened to?
Jonny: River – Black Foxxes
Owen: 22 (Over Soon) – Bon Iver
Luke: Embers – The Brevet
Rob: Bangor Town – Foy Vance
Ollie: Gabriel – Bears Den
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Rob: Both Jonny and Owen are massively into Vinyl you can often find them together trailing through record stores usually with a flat white, cold brew coffee or some sort of craft beer in hand.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
I don’t think we’ve ever really thought about it too much to be honest ! We definitely all use Spotify,
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
I think you are definitely right there’s so much music out there and it’s often so easy for new music to get lost. The biggest difficulty these days for small artists is to get recognized and discovered in the first place. The likes of Spotify and Apple Music help smaller artists to be found, but the fact that so much music is consumed instantaneously and people don’t invest in bands like they used to makes it difficult to remain interesting. You can listen to a song for 20 seconds and without having to pay for it, change to another song if it doesn’t capture your attention. Therefore a struggle these days is trying to capture people’s attention from the get-go.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
We are pretty good over all our social media outlets at checking them and keeping them all up to date, we love to connect with people who follow us and are always open to chat! Facebook is a great place to start as a large chunk of our social media feeds into the page.
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
Our debut EP ‘Sons & Daughters’ is out 30.9.16.
Catch us live:
- Friday 30th Sep – EP Launch (Headline) @ Cargo, London.
- Weds 19th Sep – Blogtober Festival @ The Finsbury, London
- Weds 26th October @ Tooting Tram & Social, London
- Saturday 19th November – Supporting Bare Traps @ Camden Assembly (Barfly), London
