Low vs Diamond
Lucas Field, lead singer of Low vs. Diamond, sits smoking a pipe outside a Paris cafe, clad in a purple velvet suit, musing on the impact his upbringing in darkest Bohemia had on his bands music.
“Im the son of an Austrian count, and I was brought up on classical music. Wagnerian opera, really dark moody European composers like Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. I feel that Mittel-Europe mindset comes through in our music.”
“Our songs were originally written in Czech,” says drummer Howie Diamond, “as it felt to me like the most expressive language possible for the kind of intensely emotional music were making…oh Christ, I cant keep up this bullshit. Let’s just be honest shall we?”
Okay, lets start again.
Low vs. Diamond have just been discussing ways in which they can invent dramatis personae for themselves which might fit in with the richly emotional and sheer sonic scope of the music they make. Despite Fields smoky croon sounding like a slightly more vulnerable Bryan Ferry and their rich, string-swept and synth-washed songs echoing post-punk aesthetes like The Associates, their two core members look more like gap year college kids in the flesh today.
“You caught us on a bad day,” admits Lucas, who is at least on holiday in Paris when we meet him. “We usually dont leave the house without consulting our tailor.”
Originally from Chicago and Seattle respectively Howie and Lucas first met as students at Colorado University, where they soon grew tired of the Phish and Dave Matthews style jam bands that dominated the campus scene. They discovered Bowie, followed by Roxy Music and Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, then Serge Gainsbourg which led them to newer French music like Air and Phoenix.
“It was just so different to all the music we grew up with,” says Lucas. “it was this onslaught of new sounds, and it totally turned our heads.”
After college they decamped to LA and parted company with fellow founder member Ben. The split was partly due to the usual musical differences - Howie and Lucas wanted to take an alternative direction to the seven-minute epics Ben preferred - but there was also a fringe figure involved who would inadvertently inspire the band’s new name.
“Bens girlfriend (nickname ‘Low’) used to butt heads with us and bring everyone down,” explains Howie. “In the end it felt like me and Lucas against her. Then when we were throwing around possible names and we were joking about how ‘Lucas And The Diamond’, based on our names, sounded like a Roald Dahl story, and that mutated into ‘Low against the Diamond’, then Low vs. Diamond.”
So thats the obvious interview question out of the way, then. Ben was replaced by San Franciscan keyboard player Tad Moore, who, it has to be said, fits slightly more comfortably into the slightly regal world suggested by their music.
”His full name is James Thaddeus Moore IV,” beams Lucas proudly. “Hes like, aristocratic stock. Hes also a great looking guy. Were thinking of putting him on the front of every record we make, like the official face of the band.”
Joined live by Anthony (guitar/ backing vocals) and Johnny (bass), Low vs Diamond had pretty much played everywhere there was to play in Los Angeles when a demo caught the ear of Dominic Hardisty, who signed them to his Marrakesh label after seeing only one show, just as he had signed another unknown act, The Killers, a couple of years before.
“What really struck me was Lucas's amazing voice,” says Dominic, “and the way the songs weave through different melodies and textures - both accessible but sophisticated at the same time. I just had a gut instinct that they were just something really special - exactly the same way I felt when we signed The Killers, whom we also signed after just one listen.”
Despite being only 24, LucasS songwriting displays a thoughtfulness that belies his tender age. Life After Love on their debut EP, for instance, tackles the common twenty-something dilemma of whether to follow your heart and commit to a relationship, at the expense of your freedom.
“Its about a choice you have as a single guy. You say to yourself Am I going to give in to these really powerful feelings, even though I’m still really young and theres so much other stuff I want to be free to do.’ You have no idea what it’s going to do how it’s going to change you. But ultimately you cant plan this stuff, you just have to go with it.”
Lucas has become something of an agony uncle among his friends, and is invariably the person to whom they come for advice on various issues. And if by any chance they don’t happen to ask for it, hes quite prepared to dish out unsolicited advice in lyrical form. This Is Your Life, for instance, appears to be urging an acquaintance to pull themselves together and not let their romantic failures overshadow their existence.
“A lot of the songs are messages,” he admits, “aimed specifically at people I know. I guess I can be quite a judgmental person, and that’s maybe not so acceptable in real life so I do it in songs. Im taking dead aim and I hope the music makes it more cutting. You know when you write a love letter to a girl and you feel like it means more than if you just saw her and told her how you felt? It’s kind of like that. Its stuff I couldnt say to them in person. Im not vicious like that but if that’s how it comes out, then so be it.”
As far as Lucas is concerned, his job is to say in song what many people wouldn’t dare say at all.
“A lot of guys dont talk about stuff like relationships. Girls do, but a lot of guys just think about it but never talk about it.”
That emotional openness suits the sense-stirring swell of their music, and it allows Lucas to explore a side of himself that usually remains hidden in everyday life.
“Im not an emotional person, or a dark kind of guy most of the time. But I do like melodramatic music, so you have to look inside yourself to bring out the feelings that you don’t usually show.”
Meanwhile, Stay Awake tackles more bleak subject matter, concerning a friend of the band who was struggling to kick heroin.
“I dont know why its so heavy – it almost seems anathema to how I normally am. But when youre young I guess you feel like you have one chance to paint a picture so you have to make it huge, and go for the big feelings and the big subjects. It wouldnt surprise me if some of the songs we do later have a little more cream in the tea.”
Either way, no ones complaining too much when the results are as good as this. But you get the feeling Lucas and Howie won’t be satisfied until theyre striking all your senses at once.
“I want these chords give you chills,” says Lucas, “hopefully the story will mean something to you and my voice will resonate and make you feel what I’m feeling. When I sing its like Im wearing an outfit that looks so right I can go ahead and say what I like. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
Low vs Diamonds first single - Heart Attack - is out now!
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