DEC- 2014 – LONDON : Artist:Tuff Love. Band members Julie Eisenstein and Susan Bear.
( Photograph by Graeme Robertson)
1) Who are you, who is in the band, who does what in the studio and on stage?
We are Julie (guitar and singing) and Suse (bass and singing) and we’re Tuff Love. Iain Stewart plays drums with us when we play live and sometimes when we record.
2) How long have you been writing and performing in this way?
We have been writing together for around three years.
3) How exactly do you work / write / record?
We write in a few different ways. Sometimes one of us will come up with a song that is more or less complete and then we’ll get together to flesh it out and solidify the structure. Sometimes we just sit down together and one of us will start playing something, the other joins in and we see where it goes. We record and mix everything ourselves in Suse’s flat, which gives us a lot of freedom.
4) How do you feel your studio/recording style informs the way you perform your music live (or vice versa)?
I’m not sure but I think maybe because we record ourselves, we put a lot of thought into what goes into the recordings and how they will translate live. We don’t usually like to add anything that we know we won’t be able to recreate on stage.
5) What’s been happening lately and what’s new with you?
We played a lot of festivals over the summer, but now we’re back home in Glasgow, getting ready to release our new E.P, Dregs, which is out on November 6th on Lost Map Records. We’re super excited about it, and this tour and playing all our new songs! We’re also writing an album which we’re hoping to release at some point in 2016. The most exciting thing might have been our discovery that Tebay, our favourite service station, do loyalty stamp cards for hot drinks. It makes me want a hot drink when I don’t want a hot drink!
6) When was the last time you played Edinburgh (and where)?
We played some thing during the fringe that was in this little room and it was for an alcohol company… we were told there would be famous comedians there but I don’t think there were any. Suse got a parking ticket on her car and it took us about an hour to find the venue :'(
7) If you’ve played Limbo before, what did you like/rate about the experience? If you’ve not played Limbo before, what have you heard about it?
We’ve not played before, but we’ve heard that it is good!
8) What’s next, coming up after this gig, for you and what are you generally looking forward to right now…?
After this gig we are playing lots more gigs! We’re going on tour round the UK and we are looking forward to that… We have three E.Ps out now, which is fifteen songs, which means that we could potentially play an hour long set (don’t worry, we won’t!) When we started playing live, our set was probably under 20 minutes :-/
9) If you have any other passions/opinions you’d like to share, if there’s anything else you feel strongly about, pls feel free to tell us about it here…?
We quite passionately want Travelodge to sponsor a Tuff Love tour so we can always stay in Travelodge. We like the TV and the bath.
10) How would you describe what you do – in a nutshell – to someone who’s never seen you before?
Guitar pop music with mad bass solos, harmonies and lots of loud/quiet bits. And some awkward chat.
