Photos courtesy of DLFW.
Dead Love Fear Wave may sound like a description of the best and worst of your summer romance on some remote coast. In fact, it’s the moniker for a duo of friends from Manchester, Jim Spencer and Paul Eaton. They’ve lifted the lid on their new single Golden Rule (listen below) and have been kind enough to chat with us about their musical journey thus far.
CRAVE: You guys aren’t newbies to the scene. Describe what your process has been like working with other artists in the studio?
Jim: My background is working with bands, and I moved to Manchester to work with Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner’s band Electronic in the 90s. Since then I’ve worked with the charlatans and new order and spent most of my time working to make other people’s records sound great.
Paul: I’ve played music in bands and written years too in Manchester, but it’s always been more about live gigging for me, studio time has been very efficient and planned so this is the first time where it’s been completely free from any boundaries, I’ve always had to cater for taking a record live or the limitations of a particular style of band. So personally this is the most creative time I’ve had making music. A complete blank canvas.
Was it always the goal to move into the spotlight and release solo material? What changes when you go from producing and collaborating with others to shaping your own sound?
Jim: I wouldn’t say move into the spotlight, but it’s brilliant to be working on Paul’s songs as he gives me freedom to realize his ideas with very little remit. It’s liberating to work on music without boundaries, without the need to think about radio or any commercial agenda. I’ve always felt the best way to make music is to please yourself and your mates.
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Paul: yeah and that’s what’s been cool for me, cause Jim’s produced my songs before but to actually work from scratch together has been great. Both recording time in the studio and working on the tracks separately, it’s been a real buzz hearing some things that Jim has done to the tracks. A fresh mix in the morning gets your day going!
Who and what are Dead Love Fear Wave?
DLFW are Jim Spencer, producer & Paul Eaton, writer. It’s a collaboration that started as an experiment with sounds in Jim’s studio, working from tracks Paul had written on a loop station.
There are some very nuanced dark and bittersweet moments to be found on your forthcoming EP. What did you pull from for inspiration?
Jim: The inspirations came from many places. I guess if you throw William Burroughs, Beck, Tom Waits, Bert Jansch and 808 state into a blender that would go some of the way. But really we are inspired by the freedom of letting the songs grow organically and following the path that the studio takes us. We have some pretty weird and wonderful instruments that take things in unusual directions and it’s interesting to let that happen without any fear of the results.
Paul: It’s a kind of ‘this sounds cool, let’s record, let’s loop it, let’s effect it, let’s reverse it, let’s write a melody over it, let’s work up new beat behind it’ and just keep going till we’re either satisfied or bored with it!
Dead Love Fear Wave are Jim Spener and Paul Eaton.
Imagine this EP is like a platter of exotic food. How would you set it out on the table as a dish? What are the foods and flavors you’d assign to tracks like “Golden Rule”, “Don’t Exist“, and “Common Ground”?
Paul: Congratulations, that’s the most random question we’ve ever been asked! DLFW is real mashup of sounds and textures so it would be a very experimental plate of food for sure. You said bittersweet and that’s certainly an evident flavor. It challenges convention and is definitely not to everyone’s taste. All the tracks are very understated though so it wouldn’t be very flamboyant, perhaps the grand finale being the end of Don’t Exist.
Jim: Perhaps the EPwould be like a table full of marmite, Brussels sprouts and blue cheese…. You love the tracks or you hate them!
An EP is a bit of a tease to listeners. Are there plans for a much larger album? If so when? What can we expect from it?
Yes, we definitely will be releasing more material, we have a lot underway and are also looking at remixes and extended collaborations into the DLFW mix. There’s no date at the moment and as we are doing everything ourselves it won’t be very quick, unless a label comes onboard that is. You can likely expect a similar vibe to the EP but with more experimentation and a wider range of sounds, the more we are developing the process the more interesting it’s getting.
Cheeky question. Here you are suddenly stranded on a deserted island with only each other and two luxury items. What would they be and how do you imagine you’ll get on in the middle of nowhere together?
Paul: Maybe not very luxury but I’d take my guitar.
Jim: It’d have to be my piano and all my tunes stuffed under my shirt as a hidden 2nd item! We get on great working in a studio in rainy old Stockport so pretty sure we’d be cool on a desert island, yes!
Where can the public see you live? Any live performances and tours planned?
We played down at The Great Escape festival earlier this year, that was really interesting playing these tracks live. Currently we’re still concentrating on the studio, taking these sounds live is quite challenging but we have got a lot of top musicians who are on board to help. So no tour plans currently, but we will be taking DLFW live in the not too distant future.
