Tuff Love interview: We're writing for an album

Images: Tuff Love 

When you sit back and think about how many great bands have burst onto the live circuit out of Glasgow, a sizeable amount past and present come to mind.

Tuff Love are a burgeoning three-piece from the city currently puffing its hardened lungs with woozy guitar melodies and skin pinching hooks that flesh the band out with the credentials to follow in the footsteps of local success stories Chvrches and Honeyblood.

Formed between Julie Einstein, Suse Bear and The Phantom Band's drummer Iain Stewart, the band are currently on the tipping point of releasing their third EP, Dregs, with teaser track 'Duke' sounding like it has been lost in time and air mailed from early nineties Seattle.

In fact, once their upcoming tour has zipped by and the punters are hooked on their overcast alt-pop, we may find them playing there. But for now it's onto Iceland, and with that we couldn't help wanting a quick chat ahead of the upcoming EP release and tour. 

Unexpectedly, both Julie and Suse are on hand to spill the beans, making for even better conversation as we juggled the band's current happenings and what lies ahead in an entertaining conversation.  

So guys, what are you up to today? 

Suse: We're songwriting, well, we're not really doing that. We're writing for an album, new songs are exciting. They'll be out next year maybe, it depends when we get finished.

I seen on your Twitter that you were shooting a video, tell us about that and what song was it for? 

Suse: That was for 'Duke', the single that's just been released on the internet. It [shooting] involved core strength, you'll see what we mean when you see it. 

Suse: Basically, you know when you're at the seaside and you get those things and they have holes in them for your head? It's like that but we had to lie on the ground and put our heads in. There was like no support for our heads and the thing was too high off the ground. We had to elevate ourselves. 

Julie: It was like one crunch for six hours. I mean with a bit of aid from a pillow. 

What's the reaction to 'Duke' been like so far?

Julie: The reception for 'Duke', we just seen in The Line Of Best Fit it said 'Tuff Love's joyfully dishevelled new single'. I was like "WHAT!"

I seen your label manager, Johnny lynch's, letter to the Guardian where he described your music as summery, but 'Duke' sounds colder, gloomy and darker, would you agree? (listen to earlier track 'Slammer below)

Suse: It's not so much summery, there's no elements of sun (Laughs). Our stuff has never been joyful, it's never been like happy happy, I don't think we write happy songs.

Julie: It's hard to tell from the inside.    

Suse: They're all sad and heartbreaking. 

Is 'Duke' going to be more representative of how the album will sound? It feels like each EP has been progressive of how you want to sound. 

Suse: At the moment we're in a constant state of progression, so I feel like the stuff we've been making recently has been maybe not dissimilar to 'Duke', but like not the same. 

Julie: We didn't even think about what we were doing, the first EP was like "woooo we've made three songs", but now we're think about it more so maybe we will have more of a similar vibe. 

How does the dynamic of writing the songs between the band work? Do you get together and jam, or is it more of a drilled process?

Julie: We have an arm wrestle (Laughs). 

Suse: We were rehearsing with our drummer Ian yesterday and I used the word jam to suggest we try out parts of a song. He got excited because we don't normally jam things.

Me and Julie write in our room, we get the recorded demo to precisely what we want, including the drums, and we show him. Maybe it develops a little bit but it's not really a jammed out process. But perhaps for this album it will be a proper collaborative process.

Julie: Yeah, we like to have a go at doing it more like that anyway so we'll see what it's like. I thought yesterday we made some headway with that method. 

Suse: Yeah totally, it makes me feel scared though. I mean I can't really improvise, so erm yeah. 

So you've just got an idea in your head and that's how it will be? 

Suse: I think it's because when we come up with an idea we always know what it's going to sound like. It's difficult and a battle if you want to jam something out when you know what you want it to sound like... SO NO TO JAMMING. 

What about your upcoming tour are you excited for that?

YEAH! Suse: We're going to Iceland I know it's not really a part of the tour but to be playing in Iceland is amazing. 

And the EP is out on November 6th, tell us more about it? 

Suse: I like EPs because with five songs out of an EP it's okay to try out five different things, whereas on an album you want people to look at it and for it to be cohesive.

Julie: I think 'Duke' is the only song on there that sounds like 'Duke', songs like 'Crocodile' are more contained whereas 'Duke' is quite unruly. 

Thanks guys, we can't wait to hear it.

Dregs is released Friday 6th November via Lost Map Records ahead of their UK tour which starts on Monday 9th November at The Harley.

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