I sat down over Zoom with Jon Worgan, guitarist/vocalist of heavy pop rock group Superlove, to chat about their upcoming EP but for the moment… and new single “btw! i adore u”, creative process and live shows.
Paul: How have you been over lockdown?
Jon: More things have happened in my life over the past year than they ever have, so it’s been pretty mental. It’s been good, though. I’ve moved house like three times in the past year and had like four different jobs. But it’s been good, band stuff has been quiet as fuck up until last week when we just put the song out.
P: You guys just released a new song, “btw! i adore u” with the EP announcement, how was it recording and writing over lockdown as opposed to last year’s self-titled EP, which was finished before the first lockdown?
J: The EP was kind of out of the blue. We’ve got an album recorded already which we finished recording around last October during lockdown, but we were just sat around for a bit and I had some demo for another song on this EP, and then we spoke to our management and label and they basically asked if we wanted to do a small EP, just for a bit of a laugh, really, and we said yeah, pretty much. We had the time to and we just wanted to try things that we hadn’t really done. “btw! i adore u” is a bit weird compared to our other ones because we just got a bit experimental with it. It was good, we all just done it from our bedrooms, recorded all the guitars and bass in here, all MIDI drums, as easy as anything.
P: You do a lot of the production for your songs by yourselves in house, what’s the process of thinking up a song and bringing it to life through demos and recording?
J: It’s only really me and Jacob [Rice, bass/vocals] that usually write anything. He’ll just send me a small demo and we’ll send each other the projects. It’s funny cos he writes more of the riffs than I do even though I’m like the ‘metal guy’ and he does that more than I do, but he’ll just send me a project and I just sort of go at it, adding bits and bobs, sort of just back and forth between me and him. With the production stuff, I’ll just take it and put my spin on it and then he’ll do the same. We’ve both got our favourite kind of synths and stuff and we’ll just sort of blend the two and find a midway point.
P: I know you used to be in a few heavier bands, what was it like adapting to the more pop rock sound with Superlove?
J: Weird as fuck at first, to be honest. I only ever played bass, I just started playing guitar for this band. I started playing bass when I was 13 and have only ever been in heavier djent bands back in the day. The first two months were weird, but it’s funny because I’m used to it now, I find playing bass really strange now. The worst part was getting used to singing, which I’m still not really that used to. Jacob’s way better at singing than I am so he’s got way more experience, but he had never played bass before, so it was both really new things for this band. I’d say I’m fairly used to the guitar and writing stuff but the singing, I’m still not with it on that. It took a while to get used to it.
I started playing bass when I was 13
and have only been in heavier
djent bands back in the day
P: When you first started playing gigs did you have to work on your stage presence or what kind of band you’d be like live?
J: Yeah, pretty much. I was never really nervous about singing until our first Bristol show, which was a headliner, and it wasn’t until the set started when I was like “Aw fucking hell, I’ve actually got to sing”. I did soundcheck and everything fine, not nervous, and then that kicked in. It was pretty horrific. I lost my voice the day before as well, it was awful, absolutely awful. We had loads of practice before because we wrote all our songs and got the whole thing recorded the year before we publicly announced that we were a band, so we had loads of time to practice things but it wasn’t until the first show that we sort of found our feet. We thought we had it under control but not really. I think we’re getting there now though.
It wasn’t until the set started
when I was like “Aw fucking hell,
I’ve actually got to sing”.
P: Yeah, well you’ve only been a year out of practice
J: You know what, we had a practice around January, it was the first one in 14 months. It was rough. Not good. Really, really rough (laughs).
P: The new song really is quite experimental, was it a challenge blending hyperpop with the more djenty sound?
J: Not really, I don’t know. I’ve had a few people say it works quite well, thinking it would have been really planned and stuff, but it really wasn’t. It was like this main heavy bit that Jacob wrote originally. He had it in A and I was like “Nah, that’s gotta be in F”, ’cause that’s just heavier. Then we dropped this verse in and thought “Fuck it, why not?”. It just worked out for the best, really. We didn’t plan anything. Do you think it flows well?
P: For as bipolar as it is I think it flows great.
J: It’s like a mixture of three different things, isn’t it? Like the sort of djent, heavy kind of thing, with the hyperpop sort of Charli XCX kind of thing and then the chorus which I’d say is just standard pop punk. That one just sort of happened within a day, just one of those ones.
P: The music video has quite a few very distinct aesthetics, what was the inspiration behind that?
J: The original idea for it was… do you remember on YouTube like years ago you’d get the old lyrics videos for, like, DJ Cammy and the happy hardcore songs that were like horrible pink Windows Movie Maker lyric videos?
P: Yeah, I was actually just listening to MC Mental yesterday.
J: Yeah, mate! You know what I mean? Stuff like that was the original idea for it. It started off, we were gonna get really nostalgic British TV adverts from 2000 to 2005, but as I was editing it, I was thinking “Oh my god, this is getting tedious”. It just ended up becoming an epileptic nightmare of a video, just chucking whatever we could at it. The first half has kind of a look to it, then it just goes off the rails a bit. The original intention was to give it an early UK, Nokia Bluetooth type thing.
It just ended up becoming an
epileptic nightmare of a video,
just chucking whatever we could at it.
P: The new single and your previous “NOT ME! NOT YOU!” were both quite heavy compared to the rest of your songs, can we expect more of that in the EP?
J: There’s different things we’ve done before. There’s one song on there that’s just a standard sort of song. I’d say there’s more interesting production bits with these ones, more focused on the cool newer things we’ve decided to put in. There’s a remix of a song we released called “Untouchable”, an intro, it’s nothing mental but it’s just more of a small, fun EP.
P: What can we expect from Superlove in the next year?
J: We’ve got this tour for August and September, some of it’s with With Confidence and Doll Skin and thing other is with Gold Bloom. I hope they go ahead because I’ve just bought an Axe-FX III (laughs). Until next year, we’ve not heard much, it’s difficult at the moment. Everyone’s just sort of planning for the next couple months. Just towards the end of summer at the moment, really. We’ve still got a lot of album stuff to finish so I don’t know.
P: Before we finish up, what’s your album of the year so far?
J: You know what, I don’t have one for this year, but could I do last year? If so, Charli XCX’s how i’m feeling now, the one she did at home. It’s amazing, man. That one’s definitely my favourite. As far as this year, I don’t think I’ve listened to anything new to be honest. But my go-to for the past few months has been that album, for sure.
Superlove are due to release their new EP but for the moment… on June 18th through Rude Records. You can pre-order/pre-save the EP here, and stream their latest single “btw! i adore u” here.