Interview: Upcoming Band No Love Lost Offers Hope to a Dark World

The desk lamp in my office dims and flickers, causing me to feel anxious that the evening's thunderstorm will disrupt my late night interview with bassist and guitarist Adam Richardson of UK's darkest ambition, No Love Lost. The white flashes of light and crisp air spilling into my window offset the melancholy of No Love Lost themes -- an ideal background to our discussion. Yet Richardson manages to calm my nerves with his genuinely bright presence. It's apparent to me right away how the chemistry between Richardson and No Love Lost begot their released demo, In The Darkest Hour.

No Love Lost is a conglomeration of all dark elements of music, laced with real life themes of suicide and madness among others, yet highlighted by a shining light of hope -- dark but not at all depressing. But Adam Richardson's modesty overlooks where the "happy" feeling in No Love Lost music is born. "There has been another review which says a couple of tracks have a 'feel good factor' about them," says Adam, "Maybe [the themes of the tracks are] where some of the contrast is."

Adam is unsure of the root of the life and light heard beating in the heart of his band's dark music, and he admits that these trends may have been impacted by some of the group's personal influences. "[Our favorite bands] influence us subconsciously," he explains for himself and the other members of the group, who aren't present for the interview, "If someone likens any of our parts to a band like Type O Negative [or Paradise Lost], the I take it as a massive compliment!"

Stylistically, yes, No Love Lost may have subconsciously borrowed a few techniques from popular groups of many different areas of rock, yet birthed an overall sound conceived from an entirely different combination of their influences' musical DNA. It gives to reason why Adam tries to keep word of the band's biggest inspirations to a hush -- he simply doesn't want to give a fresh audience any preconceived notions regarding what No Love Lost sounds like before they listen for the first time.

You Don't Belong Here from the band's debut demo, In The Darkest Hour, contradicts itself, as it definitely does belong on this record. The music alone is much more upbeat than the rest of the tracks, and the guitar intro reminds the listener of Lost Boys (The 69 Eyes) in a way that is quite bizarre. It's not really at all that the two introductions sound alike, they are simply reminiscent of one another -- similar running rhythms with musical phrases that can predict one another.. The guitars of You Don't Belong Here are more in unison than harmonizing, and the note articulation is much more fluid than the accented phrases in the popular The 69 Eyes tune. No Love Lost dims the rhythm section, as there's enough power in the melody alone to give it our full attention as a lead into the opening verse.

Vocalist Sally Holliday explodes with like power and occasional signature pacing of Amy Lee and the allure and sex appeal of Annie Lennox. Much of what is heard are duel part harmonies with extreme variation in the range -- evil, yet sexy deep notes promenading beneath a flute-like upper range. The best features of Sally's voice, predominantly showcasing the second section of Desecration, are the flawless grace notes rippling between minor-keyed notes, giving some sections a Gothic or even Gaelic feel. She's truly remarkable.

Bane of My Life also carries a very solo voiced rhythm section, but in contrast to You Don't Belong Here, the rhythm plays more of a dominant role in a much lower register, much like the bass line in some earlier Type O Negative records. Singing over top of it, the higher strings clap like ominous church bells.

My Reticence is actually almost an ironic title for a song that says so much. Almost wholly consumed by the vocal part, it actually brings a bright and poppy color to a brokenhearted theme. This one is definitely a genre-barrier buster, as it has the makings of a multi-interpreted anthem for relationships in all walks of life.

Whatever their songs original purposes may be to each individual member, No Love Lost has an unfolding of comradeship within itself. But Adam says that personality played little part when seeking out musicians to sign on to No Love Lost in project form. "It's hard finding people in a city like [Birmingham] who wants to play dark, heavy music, and just by chance I found a couple of people who wanted to join me!" says Adam, "Sally fitted the style perfectly. We've never had a permanent drummer. We rehearse with a drum machine ala Sisters of Mercy-style, and for the MCD we hired our good friend Keith Yorke (Ladytron, Pitchshifter, etc) to record with us." No Love Lost's original guitarist was replaced by Matt Dobson after In The Darkest Hour was released, but there are no plans for re-recording: "All the music on In The Darkest Hour was written by myself, and I'm still on good terms with Adam, the old guitarist. There wasn't enough room for two Adams in the band!" says Richardson, lightheartedly.

Adam may have been the key player that put together No Love Lost, but he doesn't see himself as a "band leader" as much as a "band member." He says, "I may look like a bit of an egotist from the outset, having so much control over No Love Lost, but it's simply a case that not everybody who plays music in a band necessarily wants to write of compose it." Writing is a group effort in some part, though Adam has a dominative role in the music composition aspect. Sally takes on more of the lyrical aspect, yet all members are part of the creative process, mainly with revisions. The current demo displays the aforementioned dark themes, but fate pulled out all the stops, driving No Love Lost into that direction for this collection. "The times were never chosen specifically," says Adam, "the lyrics to three songs on the demo are written by Sally, and it may be that she has experienced those themes in her life. Although, I've never discussed the subject matter too much with her. You Don't Belong Here was written by myself and can be interpreted a few different ways."

"I sent some demos to magazines (and other media) with a biography deliberately not stating any influences, as I want people to come to their own conclusions on what we sound like -- as some writers tend to go: 'Band member wearing shirt of Band X, says they are influenced by Band Y, so therefore Band sounds like a cross between Band X and Y. . . does that make sense?" Yes Adam, it we know just what you mean. No Love Lost has its influences, just like every other artist in history, but it's not a group of copy cats or generics. It simply wouldn't be right to say their music sounds like "this band" or "this band," because their personal touches, their evolutional interpretation of the technical aspects of other artists are so unique -- so far shoved into the breaking point of the next level -- that it wouldn't be fair to label them with even a sub-genre of rock. Doing so might even keep a potential fan from wanting to give No Love Lost a fair chance of showing what they've accomplished if he's heard the band sounds like music he's already bored with. "I'd like people to make their own minds up about us. I'm bored of bands who give you the hard sell, and they've told you every detail about what they sound like, and when you get 'round to actually hearing them, you find out they're [expletive] boring!" Adam adds.

The evolutional process of creation even happens within practice sessions. Adam says that simply playing a song enough can spawn an eventual turnaround to where the sound is ultimately headed: "It's just the more time we spend working on a song, the more likely it is it will sound different from when it was first written -- like tempo, parts played differently, parts replaced or added -- so the finished song will be a different beast to the one we originally gave birth to! Of course if you spend too long on a song you get Axl Rose syndrome, and it takes you fifteen years to release anything! It 's a natural metamorphosis, I guess you could call it," he explains.

On the off chance that the world isn't ready for No Love Lost, don't underestimate Adam Richardson -- his devotion to music will always keep his name in the business, as there's nothing in this world that will keep him away from it. Music is his unconditional love, and quite possibly, his only love: "I was in bands before No Love Lost; I feel like [this band] is a fresh start for me on a personal level. I've been in touring bands since I was nineteen. I'm twenty-five now, and I'll still be doing it for a long time, hopefully. It's quite sad, really, the only thing I'm interested in is music. It's not that I don't find other things interesting as such. But my appetite for music is always there, and I don't seem to devote my time to anything else! I can't really think of it not being in my life."

"In five years time, hopefully, we will have a couple of albums out, and some people will want to listen to them -- and if nobody wants to list to us, we'll still be doing it, anyway!" he says of himself and bandmates.

To obtain a copy of In The Darkest Hour by No Love Lost, or for more information, contact Adam via the No Love Lost Official MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/nolovelostdoom. All demo tracks are also available for free download. "Don't forget the doom kids! I'm the only one who handles the MySpace account, so it sometimes takes me some time to reply to messages and friend requests, but I get back to everyone eventually!" reminds Adam. Now that No Love Lost has touched us and left us smiling in the dark, I don't think we could ever forget.