Luke Field, the lead singer of Low vs Diamond, is an incredibly talented songwriter and a generous man. Meeting at his apartment, he tells me he only has two beers left, then asks, “You want them both?” After politely declining both, we each drank a Bud Light and talked about the meteoric rise of LVD.
Tell me how the LVD lineup came together. You’ve had a few different incarnations of the band in your time in LA; how’d this all happen?
Well, Tad (keys) and Howie (drums) and I have been friends since we were in college at Boulder, and we’ve played our share of shit coffee houses and worn embarrassing clothes together. Anthony (guitar) and Johnny (bass) we found later, but both at the same time. Our producer was like, “you gotta hear these two, they’re fucking amazing.” We were going through a real change then, a difficult time, and finding them then was just a genius stroke of luck for the band.
Listening to the new record it’s amazing to pick up the scope of the influences that come through. One second it feels like I’m listening to Pavement, the next, I’m feeling Neil Diamond. How do you manage to take all these different sounds and make them into a cohesive record?
Well, if you look in my record crates, you’ll find both of those in there, so it’s funny you mentioned that. I think it’s just about taking the sounds and styles that influenced you to start making music in the first place, and putting your own spin on them. I mean, I love Neil Diamond, and I love Pavement. I like Serge Gainsbourg, but we don’t sound like French vagabond geniuses. The process of writing songs sometimes just comes down to taking the best things from the stuff that moves you the most and making it your own.
Your record is dope, but live, there’s just something that’s so infectious. I want to take girls on dates to LVD shows so I seem really cool and then I get to have supercourse. I guess what I’m saying is that everyone should see you up close to appreciate it, even if they already loved the record.
That’s cool of you to say, and that’s great to hear. I mean, we all do this because we love it, and we are always pushing each other to make it as good as possible. You’ll see it live because that’s the place where it really comes together for us.
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