说在前面：这篇采访目前在Dork官网上仍然是仅限会员，我们需要感谢Clem Everett的无私分享！这篇专访非常长，我们也尽了最大的努力把它翻成是人话的中文，并尽量按照原文进行了排版。如有错误敬请捉虫！

Special thanks：菜刀

(资料图片仅供参考)

超长采访预警

醒醒！Lovejoy已经是一种现象

Abigail Firth

2023年5月12日

望不到头的长队，互联网上的痴迷，数以百万计的播放和无比疯狂的演出邀约 - LOVEJOY已经成为一种现象。现在，随着他们第三张EP的砰然落地，是时候让独立音乐醒过来了……

作者：Abigail Firth

摄像：Sarah Louise Bennett

Wake Up! Lovejoy are already a phenomenon

Abigail Firth

May 12, 2023

Massive queues, online hysteria, millions of views and frantic engagement – LOVEJOY are already a phenomenon. Now, with their third EP landing with a bang, it’s time for the indie establishment to wake up…

Words: Abigail Firth.

Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

在柏林某处挤在一辆旅游大巴上的，是一个你或许从来没听说过的—除非你也和我们一样追逐着互联网的脚步，亲爱的读者—最大的乐队。他们在英国、欧洲和北美的巡演的门票全部售罄，在Spotify拥有百万级的每月听众，最新的单曲《Call me what you like》还在英国单曲排行榜上有一席之地。凭着这些成就，Lovejoy很容易被认成音乐行业的资深人士。

Squashed into a tour bus somewhere in Berlin are the biggest band that – unless you’re as chronically online as us, Dear Reader – you’ve maybe never heard of. With sold-out tours across the UK, Europe and North America, millions of monthly Spotify listeners and a spot in the UK Top 40 with their latest single ‘Call Me What You Like’, Lovejoy could be mistaken for veterans.

事实却远非如此。实际上，他们的第一份正式报道，其实就是这份封面采访。他们正在准备发行第三张EP（也可以是第四张，取决于你如何看待他们不久前以Anvil Cat的名义发布的《From Studio 4》合集）《Wake Up & It's Over》。至于那些售罄的演出？那是他们最初的几次巡演。近年来，这种夸张的舆论很少集中在吉他乐队上了，所以Lovejoy到底他妈的是谁？

Far from it. Their first proper bit of press is, well, this very cover interview. They’re gearing up to release only their third (or maybe fourth, depending how you count their just dropped ‘From Studio 4’ collection, released under the name Anvil Cat) EP, ‘Wake Up & It’s Over’, and those sold-out tours? The first shows they’ve ever played. It’s rare this amount of hype surrounds a guitar band these days, so who the fuck are Lovejoy?

Lovejoy在2021年早期，英国封锁的期间成立，由主唱Will Gold，主音吉他Joe Goldsmith，贝斯手Ash Kabosu，和鼓手Mark Boardman组成。这四个人似乎完全是靠运气走到一起的，而这个乐队人气的爆炸式上升则离不开他们每人一生的努力和粉丝的奉献。

Formed during the early 2021 UK lockdown, Lovejoy consists of Will Gold as the frontman, Joe Goldsmith on lead guitar, Ash Kabosu on bass, and Mark Boardman on drums. Seemingly brought together by sheer luck, their epic ascent is the result of a lifetime of individual hard work and some serious fan devotion over the past couple of years.

我们花了一些时间才确定他们的位置，并且在他们完成第一次全英国巡演，即将踏上欧洲巡演路程时赶上了他们。这一切都发生得猝不及防。

It’s taken a while to pin the band down, and we catch them just after their first full UK tour as they embark on the European leg. It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind.

“我想昨天是我们的第32次演出，真的很酷，”Ash说道。他把自己介绍为乐队中不说话的那个人，然后就开始主导采访。“基本上，每一场演出过后，我们都会觉得'这是最好的一次了！'但在下一场结束后就会觉得，'噢，那才是最好的一场！'”

“I think it was our 32nd show yesterday, which is just nuts,” says Ash, who introduces himself as the one who doesn’t talk and proceeds to lead the interview. “Literally every show we’ve played, we’ve been like, ‘That was the best one!’ Then the next one, ‘Oh, that was the best one!’”

“我尤其享受让自己适应这种不知道每晚将会在哪里入睡的感觉，”Will说，“它确实是很难处理的一件事，但也很有趣，我真的很享受。还有，我喜欢见到每个人的面孔，因为我们之前基本上算是一个封锁时期的乐队。现在能够与这些数字所对应的真实面孔见面真的太棒了；能亲眼看见他们和与他们交流都是极好的。”

“I’ve especially been enjoying acclimating myself to not knowing where I’m going to be falling asleep every night,” says Will, “which is a very hard thing to get around. But it’s a lot of fun. I’m really enjoying it. And I love seeing everyone’s faces because we’ve been somewhat of a lockdown band. To now be able to put faces to the numbers is great; it’s lovely to see and speak to them.”

Lovejoy将2022末尾的最初几次现场演出形容为“磨合期”，承认他们仍然在适应这一切。尽管他们的粉丝规模意味着他们可以轻易填满比这次巡演即将前往的Electric Brixton更大的地盘，但他们不愿意跳过必要的步骤，而他们有一个很好的理由。

Describing their very first live shows at the end of 2022 as “teething”, Lovejoy admit they’re still getting to grips with it all. Although the size of their fanbase means they could’ve easily sold out bigger venues than the humble Electric Brixton they headed up on this tour, they didn’t want to skip steps for a good reason.

“摇滚乐一直是我和Joe最感兴趣的”

Will Gold

“Rock music has always been what me and Joe were the most interested in”

Will Gold

“我们不想搞砸，”Ash坦率地说。“你看，这和在卧室弹吉他是两个完全不同的领域。有太多在时刻变化的东西和预想不到的事情需要你去学习和理解。我们不想给粉丝们带来不够好的演出，所以我们一直在刻意地一点点上升，试图尽可能自然地经历这个过程。”

“We didn’t want to be bad,” says Ash, frankly. “It’s a completely different ballpark to just, you know, playing guitar in your bedroom, and there are so many moving parts and so many things you don’t think about that you need to learn and understand. We didn’t want to deliver a show to the fans that wasn’t good enough, so we’ve been deliberately ramping it up step by step and going through the process as naturally as possible.”

“在几百个在这段旅途中一直伴随着你的人面前犯错，比在更大的群体面前犯错要有风度和有趣得多，”Will补充道。“至少对我来说，犯错很令人难受，但如果我在一个人相对少的房间，而他们是来参与进这段旅程的，我会感觉更能接受错误。”

“It’s so much more personable and fun to make mistakes in front of a crowd of a couple hundred people who are along with you for the ride than when you start to get into the larger crowds,” adds Will. “Making a mistake, at least for me, really gets to me, but if I’m in a room with less people, and they’re there for the story, I feel more ready to make mistakes.”

Will和Joe在Lovejoy成立的几年前，曾经在一个民谣朋克乐队里小试锋芒。在被Will形容为“非常有戏剧性的第一次演出”之后，他们分道扬镳了，但他对现场表演的渴望从未停止。在封锁初期，两人再次找到对方，Joe在封锁之前拜访了Will并决定睡在他的沙发上，而不是冒险乘坐公共交通在伦敦（和布莱顿之间）往来。

Will and Joe cut their teeth playing with a folk punk band a few years prior to Lovejoy forming. After what Will describes as a “very dramatic first gig”, they went their separate ways, but his lust for live never went away. Finding one another at the beginning of the pandemic, Joe came to visit Will before the lockdowns kicked in and decided to sleep on the sofa rather than risking taking public transport back and forth to London.

“我们在我的地下室里写完了第一张EP，并很快地决定我们需要一个鼓手和贝斯手，因为我们写的都是乐队的东西，”Will解释说。“这不是我们所习惯的民谣—而摇滚乐一直是我和Joe最感兴趣的；即使是在那个民谣乐队，我们也恳求那个主唱说我们能不能写一点独立音乐求求你了，而他总是会说，别吧，不是很喜欢Arctic Monkeys。”

“We wrote our entire first EP in my basement and very quickly decided we’re going to need a drummer and a bassist because all the stuff we were writing was band stuff,” Will explains. “It wasn’t our normal folk stuff that we were used to – and rock music has always been what me and Joe were the most interested in; even when we were in that folk band, we used to implore the lead singer if we could write some indie music please, and he would always be like, nah, not really into Arctic Monkeys actually.”

所以他们就出发去寻找一个贝斯手和鼓手。命运自有安排，当Will走进布莱顿的一家Smashburger汉堡店的时候，他遇见了拖着贝斯的Ash，并询问他是否愿意加入一个乐队。

So they set out to find both a bassist and a drummer. Fate did its thing, and upon walking into a Smashburger in Brighton, Will met Ash, bass guitar in tow, and asked him if he’d like to be in a band.

“Ash不是会拒绝许多激动人心的冒险的那种人，”Will说道，“所以他说好，然后我就给了他我的地址。当我告诉Joe我在一个汉堡店找到了一个贝斯手时，他对这件事的真实性表示怀疑。”

“Ash is not one to say no to many exciting adventures,” says Will, “so he said yeah, and I gave him my address. Joe was very sceptical at first when I said I found a bassist in a burger shop.”

“我觉得对于我个人而言，”Ash补充说，“我住在布莱顿—算是一个年轻的、有创造力的地方—你经常在酒吧这类地方能听到人们说，我们应该去做这个，我们应该去做那个，我真的以为这只是像那样的一场对话。就像'嘿，我在一个乐队里，你要加入吗？'我做梦都想不到任何事情会真的发生。我甚至不觉得我们能走到排练这一步，更别说在几千个人面前表演了。”

“I think for me personally,” adds Ash, “I’m living in Brighton – which is kind of a young, creative place – you often have conversations in pubs and places where people are like, we should do this, we should do that, and I genuinely thought that this was just another one of those conversations. Like, ‘Hey, I’m in a band, do you want to play?’ I never thought in my wildest dreams anything would even come of it. I didn’t even think we’d practice, let alone be playing shows in front of thousands of people.”

至于Mark，他是在自由职业招聘网站Fiverr上被他们招来当日工的。当他们拿不出他应得的工资时，他们反而给了他乐队里的一席之地。

As for Mark, he was booked for the day via the freelancer hiring website Fiverr. When they couldn’t pay him the fee he was owed, they instead offered him a spot in the band.

“我说，你看，你搞这个超赞的，你要不直接加入乐队得了？”Will解释道。“Mark考虑了整整五秒钟，然后同意了。”

“I said, look, you’re sick at this, do you want to just join the band?” Will explains. “Mark thought about it for a good five seconds and then said yes.”

“我当时意志非常坚定，弹着原声吉他，然后从YouTube和Arctic Monkeys的歌曲集里学东西”

Joe Goldsmith

“I was really determined, playing acoustic guitar and learning stuff from YouTube and Arctic Monkeys songbooks”

Joe Goldsmith

附和着Ash的观点，Mark回忆道：“我以为这只会是另外一个那种甚至不会在Spotify上发布歌曲的乐队。但现在我们在英国，欧洲，美国的演出全部售罄……”

Echoing Ash’s sentiments, Mark recalls, “I thought it would be another band that I’d join that wouldn’t even release on Spotify. Now we’ve sold out tours in the UK, Europe, America….”

对于他们大部分人来说，在Lovejoy之前的生活是非常不同的。Mark在大学学习剪辑，希望能在视觉效果的领域工作，从而把鼓让位于学业。“我本来可能得卷上40年才能找到一份工资不错的工作，然后Will出现了，让我提前脱离苦海。所以我非常感激这一点，”他说。

Life before Lovejoy was very different for most of the boys. Mark was at university studying editing, hoping to work in visual effects, letting drumming take the back seat. “It would have been a grind for like 40 years to get a good paying job, and Will came along and saved me. So I’m very grateful for that,” he says.

Ash之前在广播业担任电视制片人，他在大学修完电影制作专业后得到了这份工作，他还自学了动画作为另外一种收入来源。“不像Mark，我实际上很享受它，”他补充道。

Ash was working in broadcasting as a producer for TV, a job he’d gotten into after studying film production at uni, and had taught himself animation as another means of income. “Unlike Mark, I actually enjoyed it,” he adds.

至于Joe，他曾经是一名树木造型师。尽管这个职位听上去很风光，实际的工作内容却并非如此。“我就只是在地上清理一些树干，”他说。“甚至都不被允许上树。”

As for Joe, he was working as a tree surgeon, which is a flashier-sounding name than what the job actually entailed. “I was literally just cleaning up branches on the floor,” he says. “I wasn’t even allowed to go up the trees.”

Will对于众人的目光并不陌生，他在2010年代末时为YouTube频道SootHouse剪辑视频，不久后又创立自己的YouTube频道Wilbur Soot，并在直播平台Twitch上积累了数目可观的粉丝（尽管其他成员说他们加入乐队时对此一无所知。Ash表示：“我以为他只是一个长得很高的帅哥，我们聚在这里只是因为我们喜欢Will”）。

Will isn’t such a stranger to the spotlight, as he edited for the YouTube channel SootHouse in the late 2010s, later creating his own channel as Wilbur Soot and amassing a sizeable following on the streaming platform Twitch (although the other boys say they had no idea about his following when they joined the band, Ash noting, “I just thought he was quite a tall, handsome man, we’re just here because we fancy Will”).

乐队组建好之后，他们开始在Will的卧室进行录制。2021年初，英国还在严格实行封锁，这是在所有录音棚都关门的情况下他们唯一的选择。当他们终于找到一间录音棚时，他们仅有两天的时间录制五首歌，而这些歌曲将会组成他们的第一张EP，即2021年发布的《Are You Alright》。

With the band assembled, they started recording together in Will’s bedroom. In early 2021, the UK was still firmly in lockdown, so with all studios closed, it was their only choice. When they finally made it to a studio, the group had two days to record five songs, the ones that would make up their first EP, 2021’s ‘Are You Alright?’.

“我们没能完成足够的工作，”Will说。“这就是为什么第一张EP实际上有原始录音。我们只是叠加和加厚处理了我的草稿录音。其中也有反复重录会变得非常昂贵的原因。”

“We didn’t get enough done,” says Will, “which is why the first EP actually has scratch vocals. We just used my draft vocals that are then doubled up and thickened out. And also because it would have been far too expensive to just keep going back.”

“这就是为什么，一点小彩蛋啊，”Ash补充，“有些歌词是错误的。我们不再唱那些了，所以在我们表演比较早期的歌曲时，粉丝会非常困惑。”

“Which is why, little easter egg,” adds Ash, “some of the lyrics are wrong. We don’t sing those anymore, so the fans get very confused when we perform some of the earlier songs.”

对于所有四位成员来说，这整个旅途是一条学习曲线。他们没有一个人真正有过音乐背景，也没有人在过程中引导他们。“我们基本上是不得不毅然决然地投身其中，然后再开始看我们能够做些什么，”Will说道。

The whole journey has been a learning curve for all four members. With none of them coming from a proper musical background, there was no one to guide them in the process. “We kind of had to jump headfirst in and see what we can do off the back of it,” says Will.

但这并不是说他们没有努力。这些男孩从童年或者青少年时期就拿起了乐器，几乎像是他们一直在摆下自己的那块多米诺骨牌，然后在他们组成完美的组合之后全然倒地。

That isn’t to say they haven’t put the work in, though. With each of the boys picking up their instruments in their childhood or teenage years, it feels like they’ve been setting up their own individual dominoes, hitting the ground running when they were knocked down in perfect formation.

“我有一张婴儿时期的照片，”Mark开始叙述他是如何接触到音乐的。“我都还不能走路，然后我当时在我姨妈的大腿上，她就是第一个教我怎么打鼓的人。基本上从我能说话开始，我就一直想要打鼓，但我们一直都买不起一套鼓。然后到我大概八岁的时候，我父母终于为我买了一套电子鼓，然后我的姨妈就开始教我了。我很快就跟上了她，简直太疯狂了。我一直都想加入一个乐队，但是我从来都想得很现实，毕竟它基本上和变成一个有名的足球运动员之类的几率差不多。然后这些家伙出现了，一切都改变了。”

“There’s a photo of me when I was a baby,” Mark begins, explaining where he got his start in music. “I couldn’t even walk, and I’m on my auntie’s lap, who originally taught me drums. I’ve been wanting to play since I could speak, basically, but we could never afford a kit. And then I got to about eight years old, my parents finally got me an electric drum kit, and my auntie started teaching me. I caught up with her quickly, which was crazy. I always wanted to be in a band, but I was thinking more realistically, it’s the same odds as becoming a famous football player or something like that. Then along came these boys, and it all changed.”

“我从大概十三四岁？开始就已经很坚定了，”Joe回忆道，“弹原声吉他，然后就是从YouTube和Arctic Monkeys的歌曲集里学点东西，搞清楚和弦手势什么的。我基本上咬定了至少得试上一试。”

“I was really determined from when I was about 13, 14?” Joe recalls, “Playing acoustic guitar and just learning stuff from YouTube and Arctic Monkeys songbooks, working out tabs and things like that. I was pretty dead set on at least giving it a shot to try.”

Ash的起点也差不多，他向他的父亲学了如何弹奏吉他。“当我还很小的时候，我爸在我们老家的阁楼里找到一把很老的西班牙吉他，那东西都不是我们的，”他告诉我们。“我可以说是一直都在弹吉他，而且我一直都对音乐很感兴趣；我爸也在一个乐队里，保佑他吧，他在搞那些老爹摇滚。它一直都是我的一部分，但是我从来没有想过我真的会用它做什么。”

Ash’s start was similar, learning to play guitar with his dad. “When I was very young, my dad found an old Spanish guitar in the attic of our family home that wasn’t ours,” he tells us. “I’ve kind of always played guitar, and I’ve always been interested in music; my dad is in a band as well, bless him, doing dad rock. It’s always been a part of me, but I never ever thought I’d do anything with it.”

“我可没有噢，”Will跳出来说。“我最开始学吉他的时候，我就在想，这就是我想要的。当我是个青少年的时候，我会追一些乐队，然后去他们所有的演出，然后那个时候我就知道，这就是我想用来表达创意的方式。这就是我想发挥我的创造力的地方。我真的还记得一开始我把自己关在房间里，然后一天练大概十个小时的吉他。我为了干那个错过了两个暑假。能够成功达到现在的位置，我要感谢我们从大家那得到的所有美妙的支持，其中有很多都是从YouTube平台上发来的，这太令人惭愧了。我在试图用任何我能做到的方式回馈他们。”

“Not for me,” Will jumps in. “The minute I first started learning guitar, I was like, this is what I want. When I was a teenager, I used to follow around bands and go to all their shows, and I knew from that moment I want this as my creative outlet. This is where I want to put my creative energy. I literally remember I shut myself in my room and practised guitar for like ten hours a day in the beginning. I missed two summers doing that. To finally be in this position I’m in now, thanks to all the wonderful support we’ve gotten from people, a lot of them have come across from the YouTube space, is just absolutely humbling. I’m trying to give it back in any way I can.”

“我喜欢在粉丝群体里制造谣言；我们编了很多乱七八糟的东西”

Ash Kabosu

“I like to make rumours amongst the fan base; we’ve made up a bunch of nonsense”

Ash Kabosu

说Lovejoy被一个非常忠诚的粉丝群体拽到了更高的层次并不过分，但这也是让他们的发展轨迹变得更加令人激动的一环。已经很久没有一个新的吉他乐队能像这样让一个场地被挤爆了。只有两张（通过AWAL*以Anvil Cat的名义）自行发布的EP，首次亮相的《Are You Alright?》和紧接着的《Pebble Brain》获得了粉丝们足够的爱，以至于当现场演出真正来临的时候，他们能够在街区中排几个小时的队。这让人联想到十年前5SOS在他们职业初期的时候能够见到的场景，或者其他那些数字乐队。

*AWAL：英国一个音乐发行公司，在索尼旗下。

It’s fair to say Lovejoy have been pulled substantially further up the ladder by a deeply devoted fan base, but that’s part of what makes their trajectory so exciting. There hasn’t been a new guitar band that’s had venues bursting at the seams like this for a long time. Just two self-released (on their own label Anvil Cat via AWAL) EPs, debut ‘Are You Alright?’ and follow-up ‘Pebble Brain’ garnered enough love to have fans queuing around the block for hours on end when the live shows finally came. It’s reminiscent of what 5SOS were seeing at the start of their career ten years ago, or that other numbers band.

而且，这种忠诚实际上是双向的；Lovejoy会和粉丝玩游戏，在社交媒体上留下供粉丝解读的谜题，在他们于伦敦举行的主要演出中发射带着二维码碎片的纸片。他们的参与从来都没有被忽视过。

And the devotion goes both ways, too; Lovejoy play games with the fans, leaving puzzles on social media for the fans to solve, firing confetti with QR codes printed on every other piece out at their London headline show. Their involvement hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“噢，哥们儿，我爱死他们了，”Ash动情地说道。“我最好的一种感觉就是在我们创造一些什么的时候，就算只是拍拍照片这样简单的小事，有那么不可思议的一种回应。而且能够通过我们的创意激发更多人去创作这件事也很有满足感。我最喜欢的就是看见那些文字、诗歌、绘画，就，所有那些反馈给我们的艺术创作都太不可思议了。”

“Oh, man, I love them,” Ash gushes. “One of the best feelings for me is when we create something, even if it’s something as simple as a little photo shoot, the response is incredible. And to inspire other people to create through our creativity is just so rewarding. My favourite part of it is seeing the writing, the poetry, the paintings, the drawings, like all the art that comes back to us is incredible.”

Joe补充道，“我在演出之后或者之前见到的每一个人都非常尊重人，而且都很可爱。还有，他们都太慷慨了。”

Joe adds, “Every single person that I’ve met after a show or before a show, they’re all so respectful and all so lovely. And they’re just so generous.”

Ash继续道，“他们会为了听支持的乐队的音乐而花那么大努力去到现场；他们会及时到达，然后帮所有人把地方占满。然后他们会开始疯狂蹦迪，还跟唱所有人的音乐，这简直太他妈酷了。”

Ash continues, “They make such an effort and go out of their way to listen to the support bands’ music and show up for them; they show up on time and fill the place out for everyone. And then they go crazy jumping around and singing to everyone’s music, and that’s just so fucking cool.”

崭新的EP《Wake Up & It's Over》即将问世，这将是他们自2021年以后的第一次正式发行。停止录音而开始作为一个新乐队进行巡演，导致Lovejoy面临了迄今为止最长的一个创作阶段，也在塑造他们新作品的风格中发挥了作用。这一次，他们能够花更多时间录制，拥有更多的录音棚选择，他们对风格进行了微调，并使它更加地贴近了他们的个人理想。

With new EP ‘Wake Up & It’s Over’ on the horizon, it’ll be their first proper release since 2021. A break away from recording to do the touring part of being a new band has led to Lovejoy’s longest writing phase yet and has played a part in shaping the sound of their new material. This time around, being able to take more time to record and more studio options, they’ve fined tuned their sound and brought it closer to their personal ideal.

这次，以一些更加严肃的东西为目标，这些男孩想要更明确地加入对他们个人最大的影响。对于Will来说，那是一些吵吵嚷嚷的英式歌词，以及超负荷的吉他部分（他说Arctic Monkeys是最出名的例子），而Ash在成长过程中也受到了Foals和Bombay Bicycle Club等2000年代末独立音乐的影响。另一方面，Mark在年幼时由他的姐妹介绍了像Bring Me The Horizon和Asking Alexandria等乐队，这让他在探索自己的音乐品味时进入了更加重要的领域，并使乐队采取了‘唯一一个有双踢踏鼓的独立乐队’的口号。（Joe简单地补充道，“用Brandon Flowers的话来说，这对我来说就是独立摇滚。”）

Aiming for something a little heavier this time, the boys wanted to pull in their individual influences more drastically. For Will, 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. Mark, 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’. (Joe simply adds, “In the words of Brandon Flowers, it’s indie rock and roll for me.”)

开场曲《Portrait of a Blank Slate》最大胆地将那些影响融入了进去，运用了有数学感的Foals式主音吉他，《Favourite Worst Nightmare》时代的Arctic Monkeys那种繁琐的贝斯，还有The Wombats风格的辞藻丰富的人声。“我等不及要在数千人面前演奏了，”Joe说。

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.

他们还在实地测试一些其他的曲目，更加偏向流行音乐（或：更有跃动感）的《Consequences》和《Warsaw》，还有单曲《Call Me What You Like》，但剩下的仍被保密着，尤其是其中一个曲目。

They’ve been road-testing some of the other tracks too, the poppier (see: jumpier) ‘Consequences’ and ‘Warsaw’, as well as the single ‘Call Me What You Like’, but the rest have been kept a secret, one track particularly well.

这些男孩最初在去年年底开始了这张EP的录制，但他们对曲目并不是完全满意。在现场演奏了一些曲目之后，粉丝们对一首名为《It's Golden Hour Somewhere》的曲目产生了极大的喜爱，但直到EP发布之前，它都还有一种并不会被发行出来的印象。

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 one called ‘It’s Golden Hour Somewhere’, and up until the EP drops, have been under the impression it isn’t going to be released.

“我喜欢在粉丝群体之中制造谣言，”Ash说，“我算是说了，对，它被刷掉了，我们就是不喜欢它，它都没达到我们的期望，也跟EP的主题不符合，诸如此类。我们编了很多乱七八糟的东西。然后他们信了。然后就像我预料到的那样，他们还发起了要把它带回来的活动。我们在现场看到了不少写着‘唱GOLDEN HOUR’的标牌。就是很好玩，而且我觉得当它发布的那天，他们在曲目单里看见它的时候会有的那种如释重负和激动，是会让这些都变得值得的。我想，为了弥补粉丝们等待着的那么长时间，我们想要让它变得足够特殊。”

“I like to make rumours amongst the fan base,” says Ash, “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.”

即使《Call Me What You Like》在英国单曲排行榜上拿下第32位—这些年来对于一个新乐队来说这是一件稀有的事情，也是一个了不起的壮举—对Lovejoy来说，最重要的还是粉丝的想法。

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.

“看见它能取得那么大的进展真是令人受到鼓舞，”Will说道，“我觉得那是我们写歌词最久的一段时间；我们把曲子做好大概都十个月了，我还没有写下一句留到了最后发行的时候的歌词。花的那些时间没有白费是很棒的一件事，但我们完全没想到它会有那种反响。最重要的就是我们的粉丝真的喜欢我们呈现出来的东西。我们的目标是创作一些能够真正地和我们的粉丝群体建立连接的音乐，而且你知道的，我们会把他们给到我们的反馈回去。”

“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.”

有着任何新乐队都梦寐以求的形成时期、一次出色的首次巡演以及一个渴望着更多的观众群体，Lovejoy热衷于保持这种热潮。目前，他们正在用声音检查的时间来写新的素材，他们在路上的每一个小时都被善加利用，Ash暗示说他们已经准备好了一些新歌，只等回家。这个夏天，他们会进入一个音乐节的巡回，去Reading和Leeds进行第一次演出，而这也绝不会是最后一次。这条路或许还尚未被完全铺好，但它一定会通往一个令人激动的地方。

With formative years that any new band would dream of, a knockout first tour and an audience hungry for more, Lovejoy are keen to maintain the hype. Currently using soundcheck time to write new material, every spare hour is used wisely while they’re on the road, Ash hinting they’ve already got new songs saved up for when they return home. This summer, they’ll be hitting the festival circuit, playing Reading and Leeds for the first time and undoubtedly not the last. The path may not be fully paved yet, but it’s definitely leading somewhere exciting.