“Growing up in a family of artists and musicians, vinyl records were always around. Some of my first memories listening to music are from my grandparents’ living room, hearing Bach and Beethoven on vinyl. My granddad had a long career as a violist in the NY Philharmonic, so he took his audio quality seriously and had a big, fancy record player in his apartment.”
“Unfortunately for me, rock and roll wasn’t really allowed in my grandparents’ home. So ironically enough, I didn’t truly get into the vinyl that I love most until I was a teenager and inherited a clunky old turntable from that same grandmother (love you, Rae!). I also inherited several bucketloads of my parents’ records from the ’70s, which I promptly wore in and wore out. Lots of Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Derek & the Dominoes, Joni Mitchell, the Grateful Dead, Hendrix, all my favorite stuff.
I vividly recall destroying a lot of record albums the summer after my freshman year at Oberlin College, around the same time I wrote the first words and chords of “Hats Off.” And it wasn’t that I destroyed my records for lack of love, but rather, I tore those damn records up. Really wore down each of my parents’ copies of Layla, a Europe ‘72, Are You Experienced. Every day that summer, I’d wake up in my childhood bedroom, start smoking a shit ton of weed, turn on my guitar amp, put a record on, play along and try to learn. I never took great care of those records, and I still regret bringing my mom’s copy of the White Album to an ex’s house a while ago (it never got back to me). But it was a great environment to absorb music, and those classic records will always live in my heart.
Inevitably, my turntable broke down and it’s been sadly tucked away in the closet of my old bedroom, waiting for me to return it to its former glory. Thankfully, our manager (and my roommate) just got an old, mostly working record player for our apartment in Harlem. So I went and grabbed all my old records and have been having a good time getting back into my old, scratched-up vinyl. So far, this random live album I found tucked away in my crates is Hendrix on one side and Otis Redding on the other; it’s become the house favorite.”
—Leo Lovechild
“Hats Off,” the first single from Lovechild’s forthcoming debut release, is in stores now.
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PHOTO: BENJAMIN LIEBER
