On The Verge

The Love Language

Chapel Hill, N.C.
Conversational Wisdom
www.myspace.com/thelovelanguage

“To think that I always need to talk about heartache would mean that I’d always have to go through it,” *The Love Language*’s Stuart McLamb says about his band’s nine-song debut album. “I’m more into writing about what’s going on—what I’m going through currently.” Combining soul-filled Beatles pop with lo-fi sounds and stories of tempestuous relationships, McLamb wrote, performed, recorded and mixed the band’s eponymous debut album himself (with the exception of “Nocturne,” where his roommate played drums) and later recruited six of his closest friends to form a full touring band. Influenced by The Kinks and The Walkmen, McLamb aims to capture honest, poetic images of conversations with his stories rather than simply “always writing about something you’re feeling,” he says. “Just listening to someone’s conversation around you might spark an idea for a song.” While most of the tunes from the debut record were inspired by heartbreak, McLamb resists being categorized as only a creator of sad love songs: “It would be an awful place to be pigeon-holed.”