Following the release of their first new music in 14 years, Les Savy Fav is back again, to share their third single “Limo Scene”, from upcoming LP OUI, LSF, due out May 10th.
Talking about “Limo Scene”, Tim Harrington says, “This song is the story of being abducted by the spirit of music past while out looking for the grave of Turner ‘Rocky’ Wilson Jr. — Rocky was bassist for the doo-wop band The Rivingtons. He made up ‘Pappa-Oom-Mow-Mow’ (1962) that the Trashmen took and uses for ‘Surfin Bird’ (1963.) It’s been copped, quoted, and reinvented ever since including the end of this song. You could call it a love letter to musical legacy but fuck letter is more like it. It’s about how baby music gets made — an orgy of breeding ideas.”
The single comes alongside a new music video, directed by Syd Butler and edited by Andrew Reuland.
It’s impossible to talk about Les Savy Fav without acknowledging that it’s been more than 10 years since the guys released 2010’s Root for Ruin. But it’s not like they had a messy breakup or quit to become bankers. They just had a lot of living to do. “When we finished our last record, there was a sense that if we were going to do more, we wanted to do something more ambitious,” Harrington says. “I think it took us a while to even get in a space where that was possible.” Remember, these five men — Harrington, Seth Jabour, Syd Butler, Harrison Haynes, Andrew Reuland — have been friends and collaborators since 1995, when they attended Rhode Island School of Design. It takes a beat to shake old habits.
In the interim, the band has been busy building growing their families, taking and losing jobs, and living through the various ecstatic and hideous aspects of growing older. Harrington wrote and illustrated children’s books (like 2015’s Nose to Toes You are Yummy), ran out of money, built his attic studio, wrestled with mental health issues, and got a job-job as a creative director. Butler continued to run his label, Frenchkiss (which released the majority of the band’s albums, including this one), and, along with Jabour, honed his writing skills as a member of Seth Meyers’ 8G band. Harrison left his career teaching to focus on fine art, while Reuland built a reputation as a film/commercial editor and writer on Adult Swim’s cult show Ballmastrz: 9009.
That onslaught of personal ambitions and adulting could spell death for many bands, but, as Harrington puts it: “The band was never a job, so we can’t get fired and don’t have to quit. We had the time to figure out how to bring the people we’ve become and the people we are as artists together authentically. There’s a chaotic, untethered ecstasy at the center of the band’s universe. Squaring that with the desire to create stability and the need to endure some grind isn’t easy.”
Over the years, the band has continued to perform, always on their own terms, but after a stint at Primavera in 2022, they caught the proverbial songwriting bug once more, sharing demos, jamming in Harrington’s attic, and recording through the heap of DIY and esoteric gear Harrington collected over the last decade. At first, there was no intention of recording an album; they were playing music, not writing it. “The last record was a lot about holding on. OUI, LSF is the sound of release — no map, no preconceptions, no self-righteous certainty,” Butler says. “There’s nothing like hitting 50 to slap the cocksure vanity off your face.” That’s not to say it was easy. The challenge of learning a new way to write and work together took a lot of letting go. Among the artwork that plasters the attic studio is a piece by Harrington that reads, “Can’t do it how you want. Don’t want to do it how you can,” spiraling into a bloodshot eye. “I put it there as a warning about how easily that fixation can paralyse you,” he says.
The resulting album is a glorious mix of tragedy and comedy — studded with nods to the band’s eclectic musical taste — delightfully weird and utterly them. Album opener and latest single “Guzzle Blood” crashes us into the record like a runaway cop car, setting the tone for the rest of the 14-song suite.
“It opens with just a total disillusion — a loss of faith, frustration, anguish,” Harrington says of the song, which speaks of demons haunting your sleep and the battle for salvation.
Les Savy Fav returned to the UK in February for electrifying performances at both London’s The Electric Ballroom and Bristol’s Simple Things all-dayer.
NME, in a 5 star review, said of the band: “seminal indie heroes Les Savy Fav’s set on Bristol Beacon’s main stage is basically a party, full of joyous grooves and wild antics.”
2024 will see further wild antics in Dublin, Leeds and Barcelona, with the band having recently been announced for Primavera in May.
LES SAVY FAV LIVE
May 24 – Dublin, IRE – Whelan’s
May 25 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
May 26 – Derby, UK – Bearded Theory
May 28 – Barcelona, ESP – Primavera Festival
