“I was part of the mentoring program, yeah, and we were on Mixtape,” states Vito Lucarelli, lead singer, guitarist and synth-player for 8 Bit Love, a local trio whose catchy electro-clash rock ‘n’ roll brings to mind the sounds of Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Klaxons. “I was lucky enough to get teamed up with Quan Yeomans from Regurgitator and hang out with him for a good five months, so that was really sweet!”
So far, so good for the young trio, rounded out by Matt Darvenzia on bass guitar and Simon Findlay on drums, who first met while attending high school in Shepparton. “When we first got together, we didn’t know of any other people [who shared our enthusiasm for electronic music]. We played music together a bit, but it wasn’t anything really like our influences.
“Once school finished, we decided to create 8 Bit Love; so we took a more electronic turn with the music we were going to write, and play more of the new music we were being influenced by. It was something a bit fun and more different that we wanted to do – it was almost a bit of a joke at the start. You know, no one in our hometown was into electronic bands, so when we said we were going to start one, people were like, ‘Oh, really? I don’t get how that’s gonna work.’”
Sensibly mashing up their electronica sound with more traditional rock stylings, 8 Bit Love recently released their first double-A side single Rock The Digressers and their catchy-as-hell track 3:32 can be found on the last edition of Mixtape. Lucarelli speaks fondly of his band’s being able to work with the legendary Aussie producer David Carr, who has worked with the likes of Taxiride and Big Scary. It was almost as if the mentoring process was continuing. “We were lucky enough to do some stuff with him, as part of the Mixtape compilation. We got to go to Sing Sing [Studios] for that, so when we had some songs that were tracked down and needed a bit of mixing, we decided to give him a buzz. He was really keen on doing it, and it was fun – he’s a really sweet guy to work with, and really easy to get along with. He really loves Star Wars as well, so there was a lot to talk about!”
One aspect of 8 Bit Love’s sound that comes through loud and clear in their music is the raw, visceral feel of straight-up rock effortlessly blended with the stomping electronics. One might be forgiven for assuming given the band’s name, that their sound might be likened to the glitchy, sample-heavy sound of bands such as Crystal Castles but, surprisingly, that’s not the case.
“Yeah, something we always intended to do at the start was to put in all kinds of samples, but in the end we never did it because it never felt right with the stuff we were writing,” Lucarelli admits. “We’re not really a ‘chip-tunes’ band – we just do our own thing. People are sometimes like, ‘Oh, you don’t do video-game themes the whole time?’ and we say, ‘Well, it’s just a name, really.’”
When pressed on how the music actually comes together, Lucarelli gets animated. “We bring an idea or two into practice and just flesh it out with a jam, and try to see if there’s any other conjoining parts we can come up with. We always write together, but not in a studio situation – we just jam it out and see where it goes! Sometimes the best things we have done, that we really loved, just came out of the blue, playing a riff over and over again. We record it on the spot, and find that that technique works. It’s more of a subconscious thing to writing music, to go to what we think sounds right instead of putting it down and thinking about it really hard, like ‘Well, this chord can go to this chord, and we really need to go to this chord’ – I don’t know, but that can make the music sound a bit more forced, so we just whack a jam and let it all out!”
So, are Lucarelli and his merry crew getting excited about touring? “Absolutely, mate – I’m definitely looking forward to that! There’s been some really big gigs lately; we’re gonna have to follow them up and hopefully they just get bigger and bigger!”
BY THOMAS BAILEY
