The Lovely eggs: no encore for duo

CHEER all you like at the end of tonight’s Lovely Eggs show – they won’t be coming back on stage for more.

As Holly Ross, singer, guitarist and one-half of the songwriting team behind the Lancaster duo explains, it’s all due to a campaign the band launched two months ago against fake encores.

“It’s been getting on my goat for so many years,” she says on a break from recording the band’s fourth album in their home studio. “I used to rant about it constantly.

“The music industry is very fake and people are very shallow. The fake encore is one other layer of deception between the audience and the band.”

Pick up a setlist from the stage or soundbox after a show and the list of songs will often be broken up by a black line, depicting which songs will be used as encores – frequently the hits fans have come down to hear in the first place. It is this idea which The Lovely Eggs is rallying against.

“If you’ve played an amazing gig and the crowd reaction has been good, and there’s been a magical atmosphere I don’t mind if you go off and the crowd claps you back on,” she says. “It should be something that rarely happens. It’s very American or Disney the way every night has got to be the best. Life has got its ups and downs, and the fake encore is a plastic veneer of shinyness which I abhor.

“When we finish we’re done – if we have to come back on it’s like a rabbit in the headlights, we ask the crowd what we should do. Of course now it has come back to bite us on the bum because if we want to come back on and play again we can’t because of the fake encores campaign. People are shouting for us even more just to see if we will come back...”

It is now two years since The Lovely Eggs – Ross and her drummer husband David Blackwell – released their third album Wildlife. Since then their lives have changed dramatically with the arrival of their first child Arlo –although they’re letting him slow them down.

“I was touring when I was six or seven months pregnant,” says Ross, who prior to The Lovely Eggs fronted all-female punk band Angelica.

“We were playing festivals when Arlo was four months old. We were determined to keep on going – we have that punk rock ethos and background. We’re used to doing it the hard way. Adding a baby into the equation is like another challenge – we’ve put some more seats in the van and now every time we book a gig we make sure there’s a dressing room we can put a cot in.”

Ross hasn’t been tempted to release an album of baby-related songs, and he is absent from the songs the pair has already penned.

“We have been accused of singing nursery rhymes since we started,” laughs Ross. “If you try to analyse our songs they’re about kicking against normality. A lot of it is about the ridiculousness of the material things people think are important in life - insurance and PPI, cold callers trying to sell you crap you don’t want.

“A big theme is us sticking to what we believe is important. We’re thankful we can practice and play loud and sing about adult things.”

Whether Arlo will turn the band into a family affair is another matter.

“I think he’s going to become an accountant,” says Ross. “You always become what your parents loathe!

“I’ve always played him lots of music and he ignores most of it.

“He got massively into Livin’ On A Prayer when it came on the radio though – he went mental in his high chair. It was amazing to see and slightly disappointing at the same time.

“He doesn’t know what’s cool and what isn’t – he just reacts to what he reacts to. He likes Postman Pat and cheese sandwiches – he hasn’t got any passion for one band at the moment.”

The Lovely Eggs remain resolutely DIY – remaining in their Lancaster base rather than heading down to London, recording their own albums and creating brilliant videos for singles including Don’t Look At Me (I Don’t Like It) featuring a guest appearance from Sheffield’s singer-songwriter organist John Shuttleworth, the Strongbow-guzzling F*** It and their collaboration with Gruff Rhys on Allergies.

The band’s approach has remained the same since they began making music together in 2006.

“We both wanted to do lots of travelling and David wanted to make music,” says Ross, who had taken a break from the music industry after her negative experiences with Angelica.

“We didn’t want to do any bulls*** - just do the music we wanted to do, play live and have fun.

“Playing live is how we meet people – we’ve made so many friends doing the band. It’s a really important thing.

“We try to have a friendship relationship with everyone we work with – promoters, labels, booking agents, the people who make our T-shirts, the people who press our records.”

That feeling extends to their fans too – with Ross keen no-one is disappointed when they play their next Brighton show.

“We’ve been told we’ve nearly sold out,” she says. “Last time we played [at West Hill Hall] people were being turned away at the door – so we want to say you have been warned!”

Support from Slum Of Legs and Oh Peas.