Today Essex, UK band – LOWLIFE – announce their debut album ‘PAYDAY’ due on November 18th via Tim Armstrong-led Hellcat Records. Drawing inspiration from a wide variety of sources, the album fuses 90’s hip-hop and alt-rock with the sound of early 2000s pop and punk bands. Informed by the erratic, boisterous energy of groups like Beastie Boys, Rancid and Bikini Kill, they are here to deliver a new wave of unique music in 2022.
The lead single, “ELON”, sonically references 2000’s hip-hop, but today they pivot in a different direction for a new single and music video “, SOMETIMES.” Sampling a headbanging Black Sabbath demo circa 1975, the trio takes turns spitting nihilistic bars dripping with disdain for authority, laced with their endearing accents.
“SOMETIMES is about impulsiveness and the irrational urge to act out. We were listening to lots of N.E.R.D and loved how they blended rock and hip hop, so we sampled an early Black Sabbath demo thinking it would be easy to clear, turns out a Black Sabbath demo, is still a Black Sabbath song… it wasn’t easy for us to clear but we’re happy we did!” – LOWLIFE
Watch the video for ‘Sometimes’ – BELOW:
PAYDAY came together over the course of three years as the three LOWLIFE members took their time to think critically about the decisions being made during the songwriting process. This organic way of creating paved a natural progression for the band to navigate their many different influences and dial in on a sound that was cohesive yet also felt exciting and different.
“We would meet up at the studio a couple days a week and just mess around and have fun,” the band reflects on the making of the album. “The only thing we were clear on is that we wanted to write the music that we wanted to hear and not to make music for any external validation. Whether it be fans, managers or record labels, we agreed that the best music comes from a place of sincerity and trusting your own artistic instincts.”
LOWLIFE write, produce and mix entirely independently with a self-determined DIY spirit informing all aspects of their creative process. They pool their skills to make the most of their scant resources, filming music videos, designing artwork and producing merch on a limited budget without compromising the quality of their output. PAYDAY is the culmination of the band’s achievements so far, with the time they took pouring over the details of each song usually leading to the agreement that “less is more”. “We hope the album reflects this by being more compelling and developed whilst still feeling spontaneous and not overbearing.”
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