Luke Johnson and Lee Downer, two seasoned figures in the music scene, have rekindled their passion for rock with the formation of Lowlives, a band rooted in the raw essence of ’90s alternative and grunge. Their journey to rediscover this passion comes after years navigating the complexities of the music industry, where commercial pressures often overshadowed their love for creating music.
“I once thought that music could only bring amazing things,” reflects Johnson. “I never realized it could also bring unhappiness. But as time went on in my previous bands, the innocence of making music had dissipated to a place where it was about trying to make money from art. The purity had gone.”
Their paths converged in Los Angeles, where both expats found themselves sharing more than just a city—they shared a desire to reclaim the unadulterated joy of making music. United by their love for bands like Nirvana and Alice In Chains, Johnson, a drummer, and Downer, the vocalist, joined forces with guitarist Jaxon Moore and bassist Steve Lucarelli to form Lowlives.
The band’s debut album, “Freaking Out,” is a testament to their rejuvenated spirit. Recorded amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, the album captures their raw energy and camaraderie. “Being forced into that situation of living and working together brought us even closer,” notes Downer.
Their music, heavily influenced by the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins and early Foo Fighters, resonates with themes of introspection and existential questioning. Tracks like ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Swan Dive’ echo Downer’s passion for grunge, while ‘You Don’t Care’ channels Johnson’s admiration for The Smashing Pumpkins.
“We’re making music that excites us because it’s what we want to hear,” Johnson affirms. But beyond the nostalgia for ’90s rock, “Freaking Out” delves into deeper emotional territories, exploring fears and vulnerabilities that resonate universally.
For Lowlives, this album marks not just a musical milestone but a personal triumph—a return to the purity of creating art for art’s sake. As Downer passionately sings on ‘Closer Than You Know’, “I thought by now I’d have the answers / Or the power to save my soul.” Lowlives might not have all the answers, but they’ve found their spark once again, inviting listeners to rediscover their own passion for rock music.
Montreal Rocks caught up with Lee & Luke to talk about the history of the band, the challenges of touring and how the album finally came together.
Watch the full interview below:
Let’s talk about how this all started. What was the initial spark for you and what did you want from it from day one?
Lee: So me and Luke were in bands back home in England. Both bands ended, and we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. Luke, in particular, was just like, “I’m fucking done with music.” I did a bit of session stuff and thought, “I just want to do something cool.” I’d written a few songs and recorded them. Then, Luke and I had known each other for a bit—not well, but we knew each other because we were two Brits living in LA. He put a comment on something, and we messaged back and forth.
He was like, “Oh, what’s going on with the band?” I said, “The band’s done, but I’m working on this new thing. I kind of need a drummer; it’d be really cool.” So I sent him the songs, and he was like, “This is fucking great.” We were both into Superheaven, and we’re old ’90s grunge kids, lovers of Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Alice in Chains, Pumpkins, that stuff.
So, yeah, we met up in LA in a pub. We knew we could both play, so that was fine. It was just like, are we going to be cool hanging out with each other? We went to the Darkroom on Melrose, had a couple of beers, and decided this was going to be really cool. So it started from there, really. I was going to Luke’s every weekend in Orange County to record songs. We weren’t even like, “Oh, we need to make this a touring band or a live thing.” It was just nice to do something real again and bounce off each other. We bounced off each other really well recording, like it came together really fast.
Luke: I feel like the spark really was just… I don’t know if you have it there in Montreal. I’m sure, being Commonwealth, there are a lot more Brits and French over there. In LA, I feel like there’s a ton of Brits, but now that I live in Arizona, sometimes the connection is just missing, right? So getting with Lee, we’re into the same things. The relatability was just immediately there. When we started writing, we had very similar writing styles. Like he said, we went to the pub, hit it off. I think when we were trying to figure out what this would be, it started off as just writing songs to scratch the creative itch. Songs were just coming out. We were unfiltered, just writing a song and being like, “That’s a song, done.” We weren’t overthinking anything. So the songs were just coming out real quick. We thought, “Man, we could probably make an album.” That’s when it started to be like, “Maybe we should get some other people and play a show.”
I think the real coin-drop moment for us was when we were both sharing comments and love for the Foo Fighters’ 1995 headline show at Brixton Academy. If you haven’t seen it, just Google it, YouTube it. We were watching and were like, “This is exactly what we want to be.” Two guitars, bass, drums, one backing vocal, and a singer just blowing his voice out. The energy. I still get chills watching it. I’m getting chills talking about it. We decided to be extremely analogue about this whole band—no super technological stuff. We’ve prided ourselves on being a 16 to 18 channel band. No samples, backing tracks, triggers, or trickery. It’s been that since day one.
I think at some point, as bands go on, they get bored of their original formulas and need to evolve. Being so anti-technology and an analogue band, there may be a rub in the future, but right now, we love it. And that’s where we’re at.
When was all this happening exactly?
Luke: 2016. I just got married in 2016. So it was right at the end of the year. Yeah, at the end of the year is when we got together. Our first show was in 2017 at the Troubadour. We did loads of stuff at the Troubadour. First show supporting a British band called Moose Blood. They were just like, “Fuck yeah, come and play the show with us.” And it was sold out. Our first-ever show, opening slot, sold-out show. It was wicked.
Lee: Our second show was supporting The Used, which was sold out. Third show was supporting Saosin, and that was sold out. We were like, “Whoa, what the hell is going on?” And then it went horrifically downhill!
Luke: We actually bagged a European tour with The Used right after that. We thought, “2018, our fourth show will be the first show of a tour with a pretty big band.” We had no expectations for this band. This was great. We got out there; our first show was in Stockholm. We’re driving out there, not having a ton of money in the band pool. So everything was out of our own pockets. We kept it as frugal as possible—cheapest van, non-refundable flights, non-refundable ferries. On the way to Stockholm, the phone rings. Tour manager says, “Tour’s cancelled.” I thought he was joking because I was mates with all of them. But he said there’d been a death in the band’s family.
We sat at a petrol station, having a moment. Some of us scarpered into the petrol station to get beers, and it turned out they were non-alcoholic, which was hilarious. We decided to go back to the UK immediately, had to book another ferry, and stayed at my mate’s house in London. I rang up some friends, including Ross, who books us now. He’s a legend. He helped us out. Using Facebook, we managed to book a 13-show headline tour in the UK, only having one song out and having played three shows.
Lee: And I think we had to do it because we could have just turned around and come home. But at the end of the two-week Used tour, we had a headline London show, and a Radio 1 BBC session booked. So it was like, if we turn around now, we’re going to blow those two things off. So we’re like, let’s just make all the things up in between. And somehow we made it work. It was nuts, man. No, every show was different. It was like, we’re going to open for this band here, headline this one here. But we had people coming to watch us that were into our old bands. They knew one song. It was just like, well, you’re going to have to wait till the end of the set to hear it. So you’re going to have to listen to 45 minutes.
So what was the high point of that tour? Did you have some good gigs as well?
Luke: Yeah. London was great. We did a London show at the Black Heart and worked with Killy. They were just like, “Look, man, we’re going to do a free show. We’ve got two wicked bands and we’re going to smash it.” We were like, “Yep, sounds perfect.” No one knows who our band is, so let’s do it. It was rammed front to back. We’re like, shit. We’re not thinking that was an audience for us, but they did stick around and watch us, and they enjoyed it. We sold a lot of merch. Two days before that, we had just done a Radio 1 session for Dan. That went out on the Monday, right after we got off stage. So it was kind of cool to wrap up all this trauma in a London show that was packed out. A lot of our friends came down, and we had the Radio 1 live session go out. A bunch of people were emailing and messaging, and Dan was forwarding it to us. That was a nice way to end.
Then 2020 comes around. I remember doing a writing session in January. Boom, we got a European tour with New Year’s Day and we’re like, finally! We put a tune out, got ready, put a couple of tunes out. They were being really well received and got a Tune of the Week on the Radio 1 Rock Show. We’re like, great. Then as we get into March on that tour, shows get cancelled because of COVID. Shows start falling off. Then, basically, we’re in two years of hell like everyone else. That’s where we made this record. We came to the UK in the middle of the pandemic.
I’m not sure if you went back to the UK in that period, Steve, but they had Boris presenting various levels, like that colour code system. There was a level where you could travel into the UK, and you didn’t have to quarantine at Heathrow, but you had to quarantine in place. So it meant we had to go back. Then when we got to the studio, we couldn’t leave for two weeks until we tested negative, which none of us were positive in the first place. So we thought, that’s fine. We’ll be in the studio making a record. We don’t need to leave. Maybe go to the grocery store to buy some food. That’s it. That’s when the record got made. Then it took two years to find a label partner. It’s been a series of misstarts for the band without a shadow of a doubt. Some soul-crushing times and definitely like wondering, man, maybe we’ve just got to hang it up. But then some kid rolls online and tags you in a post with a Lowlives tattoo, and you’re like, what the fuck?
Which songs are you most excited for people to hear on the album?
Lee: It’s a song called “Swan Dive” that I really like. It’s very Alice in Chains. My favourite song on the record is the last song called “Vertigo.” It’s like the acoustic-y song that has cello on it. It’s just really stripped down. It was really fun to write.
Luke: I was going to say “Swan Dive” as well. Like that’s just got a real kind of like, you know, headbang, like slow headbang. And it does have an Alice in Chains vibe to it. I agree.
But I think “Closer Than You Know” is like… I still get chills listening to that song. And I think what I was explaining yesterday, we had another interview and I was explaining on that. And I’ll say it again, like, is that I had no part in the lyric writing on that song. Lee came up with this concept. And it just, from the minute he told me what it was going to be about to the minute that he finished it and delivered it, like it just knocks the wind out of my chest. And so it’s very weird to be able to consume a song that, you know, is from a band that I’m in, that I’m actually not consuming it and looking at it objectively. Like, oh yeah, like, you know, you look at your own music differently to the music that you consume, right? And so that song, for some reason, I’m able to remove myself from any partaking in it. So I’m able to consume it from a consumer’s point of view, and it never gets old, man. I just love how big it is. Like at the start with the chugs coming in, you know, and then the lyrical content, like the story just sets me off. So that’s probably the high point on the record for me, even though it’s a low point lyrically. It’s kind of an upbeat song, but not an upbeat song. It’s got like a darker tone.
What’s the rest of the year looking like for Lowlives?
Luke: We got Download Festival, and then we’re going to do some European shows around Download. Then we’ll see what happens. We have some enormous American festivals later on in the year. We’ll be trying to get back to England and Europe again. Just a lot of shows, hopefully. We got Louder Than Life and Aftershock. And we’ve also been writing. We never stop writing. Lee literally just came out to me in Arizona last week, and we wrote another four songs. We’re probably about 10 to 12 songs deep for the next record. Also, with a goal of maybe having about 20 to pick from. We don’t want to get caught. We had a massive gap of two years, and people are like, when’s the album coming? We didn’t want to get caught up in album cycle stuff and not have time to write. So we’re trying to get ahead of the curve and be ready for when it’s like, all right, get in the studio and have a lesser gap for the next one. We’d love to have an album out in 12 to 18 months after the release of this one.
Lee: I think every 12 to 18 months, we just need a new record to come out just because it keeps people’s attention. We notice now, like you look at streaming numbers and everything and your monthly listeners, man, that dips earlier and earlier every time now, like even a week after a single, you’ll see it start to dip already, which is just mental. So yeah, you know, just keep on releasing music.
Freaking Out is out now on Spinefarm Records.
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