Lovejoy have dropped their much-anticipated new EP ‘Wake Up & It’s Over’.
The Dork cover stars have left a special surprise for fans, too, with the anticipated but not actually announced inclusion of fan fave final track, ‘It’s Golden Hour Somewhere’.
Initially beginning the recording of this EP late last year, the boys weren’t 100% satisfied with the tracks. Having already played some of the tracks live, fans developed a particular affinity for ‘It’s Golden Hour Somewhere’, and up until the EP drops, have been under the impression it isn’t going to be released.
“I like to make rumours amongst the fan base,” the band’s Ash Kabosu told us in our new cover feature, “I sort of said yeah, it’s scrapped, we just don’t like it, it’s not up to scratch, it doesn’t fit the nature of the EP, blah, blah, blah. We’ve just made up a bunch of nonsense. And they’ve bought into it. And as I expected, they’re also campaigning to bring it back. We’ve seen signs at shows saying ‘PLAY GOLDEN HOUR’. It’s just a bit of fun, and I think the relief and the excitement they’ll feel on the day that it comes out to just see it in the tracklisting will be worth it. I think for the amount of time that the fans have been waiting, we want it to be as special as possible.”
Aiming for something a little heavier this time, the boys wanted to pull in their individual influences more drastically. For frontman Will Gold, that’s shouty British lyrics and overdriven guitars (he calls Arctic Monkeys the most famous example), with Ash also growing up on the late 2000s indie of Foals and Bombay Bicycle Club. Drummer Mark Boardman, on the other hand, was introduced to bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Asking Alexandria by his sister at a young age, pushing him into heavier territory when it came to discovering his own tastes and allowing the band to take on the slogan of ‘the only indie band with a double kick drum’. (Guitarist Joe Goldsmith simply adds, “In the words of Brandon Flowers, it’s indie rock and roll for me.”)
Opening track ‘Portrait of a Blank Slate’ pulls in those influences most brazenly, employing the mathy Foals-y lead guitar, ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’ era Arctic Monkeys fiddly bass, and wordy vocals a la The Wombats. “I can’t wait to play that for thousands of people,” says Joe.
“We’ve just made up a bunch of nonsense. And they’ve bought into it”
Ash Kabosu
Even with ‘Call Me What You Like’ landing at No.32 on the UK Top 40 – an enormous feat and a rarity for a new band these days – it’s still what the fans think that means the most to Lovejoy.
“It was very validating to see it go that far,” says Will. “I think that was our longest-ever lyric writing time; we had the tune down for about ten months before I even penned the lyrics that ended up going in the final release. To see that time pay off is amazing, but we had no idea it would get that reception. It’s more important that our fans really love what we’re putting out. We’re aiming to create music that will really connect with our fan base, and you know, we’ll give them back what they’ve given us.”
This is an excerpt from Dork’s new Lovejoy cover feature. You can order a copy of the Lovejoy edition of June 2023’s Dork here, or below.
