Band: Love As Laughter
From: Brooklyn, NY
Sound: Raucous, joyous slabs of Americana told through the guileless filter of rock and roll
Similar Artists: Built to Spill, Superchunk, Modest Mouse, The Replacements, Sam Champion
Listen Now: “Crosseyed Beautiful Youngunz”

Do you want to know the real secret to surviving the music business? The key to longevity, respectability, and most importantly maintaining some semblance of sanity when you’re a “lifer” within the mad mad world of rock and roll? When your home is the van and your office a different sweaty stage night after night?

“Mario Cart and books and fitness and conspiracy theories,” Love As Laughter’s Sam Jayne tells EF via email.

Perhaps an oversimplification of sorts, perhaps not, but in either case it’s probably wise to listen to Jayne when the subject turns to survival within the surreal landscape of rock music. Here, there are no 401k’s, paid vacations, or health insurance, only a dogged fixation on youthful appeal, disposable hits and passing fads. In other words, to truly flourish within this setting and remain true to one’s art, the reality of sex, drugs and rock and roll is more like sacrifice, persistence and, well, rock and roll.

“I’m aware of fads, if that’s what you are asking,” Jayne says. “I think it’s pretty apparent at this point that it has nothing to do with what Love as Laughter does….should it? Strokes and Hives are really rich right? Shit.”

All joking aside, the man knows what he’s talking about. He came of age in Seattle in the early 90s, fronting the band Lync around the same time the rest of the country was going bonkers for “grunge”. After Lync disbanded, Jayne started Love As Laughter and released two well-received albums on K Records - The Greks Bring Gifts (1996) and #1 USA (1997) – before jumping to Sub Pop for 1999s Destination 2000, an album he still believes is the band’s best from a production standpoint.

By now, you could spot the trend: a supremely talented songwriter creating consistently impressive rock albums for a decade without much recognition from a mainstream audience ravenous for that month’s hot sound. In 2003, it appeared certain that Sea To Shining Sea would change all of that. It was a loud, abrasive, sprawling and yet accessible rock epic that came across as America’s sonic answer to British Sea Power’s The Decline of British Sea Power. As always, it was met with glowing reviews, and as always it stood in the shadows of the current fad, this time the frenzy of skinny-jeaned young “garage revival” bands clamoring for attention.

In 2005 came Laughter’s Fifth, another magnificent collection of anthems that also continued the band’s maturation towards a bigger sound. This time around, Jayne’s Pavement cum Stealers Wheel rocker “Dirty Lives” would get featured on the 18-35 program du jour The O.C.. Meanwhile, Jayne’s longtime pal Isaac Brock was absolutely blowing up with his band Modest Mouse. Was a sea change finally coming? Well, yes and no, and it turns out it doesn’t really matter. Being described as perpetually “under the radar”, a claim that often sticks to Love As Laughter, isn’t really a bad thing as Jayne sees it.

“Love as Laughter is a constantly morphing band, i.e. it’s me and some really great friends who are the best players I know,” Jayne explains. “Does ‘under the radar’ mean ‘band that everyone likes that isn’t commercially successful’? I’m not sure that that’s the point. There’s jagged edges everywhere. I like them, so I’m comfortable.”

above: Sam Jayne performing live on American Apparel’s VI

And part of Jayne’s current comfort level would have to be attributed to the band’s latest album, 2008s Holy. The band’s current lineup – Jayne, bassist Ivan Berko, drummer Zeke Howard, guitarist Andy McLeod, and keyboardist Robbie Lee - picks up where Laughter’s Fifth left off, Holy being an absolute huge-sounding album in some of the subtlest ways possible. Atop multiple layers of percussion, walls of lush acoustic guitars push up against hotwired electrics in a seamless way that also mirrors the album’s range of content. Countering instant-anthems like “Konny and Jim” with more restrained affairs like “Crosseyed Beautiful Youngunz”, Jayne has created enough open spaces and far-reaching boundaries that pretty much anything that might service the song is allowed within.

“I think the point of this record was to make it huge in concept and stamp and sound,” Jayne elaborates. “Joe Blaney (who also worked for the Clash) for whatever reason got the stuff and ran with it, he’s dope. He took it to the max. I tried to push some stuff into a certain realm, I think everyone else did too. With great results! Whatever we WANTED we got, something we love that didn’t know was even on the menu.”

In the process, it appears some mainstream outlets are finally starting to pay attention (albeit with questionable fact-checking skills). Rolling Stone featured Love As Laughter in a recent issue – as irony would have it, the one with the Jonas Brothers on the cover – as well as on its “Breaking Blog”, though it referred to Holy as “their first proper studio album.” Such is the fate of being perpetually under the radar I suppose; of course, the flipside to this added attention is additional grumblings from the detractors.

Blame it on the band’s move to a major label. Why not? Others have for no good reason, perhaps holding on to some antiquated ethos of the DIY spirit and the supposed purity of lo-fi aesthetics. Holy is certainly not lo-fi in any sense, but that’s why it works. It’s a colossal rock record meant to go straight to your ears and your heart. Yet still, in reviewing the album, AllMusic brushed it off as a simple ploy hatched from moving to a major, stating, “Love as Laughter have been many things in their career, but slick, well-kempt, and utterly predictable have never factored into the equation until now. You hate to blame the shift to a major label, but the record is so radio-ready and glossy that you have to wonder.”

That assertion seems a bit misguided, and I told Jayne as much when asking him about it. His response?

“That person obviously never heard Nevermind or Goo. Also reviewers like that are using their soapbox as an opportunity to wax about how old school they are or whatever,” he says. “They never even saw/ heard our shit when it came out and got drunk on Bob Pollard’s homebrew and lost all their Elliot Smith records.”

And yet, if you did want to take that reviewer’s bait and argue about the merits of signing to a major label, it should be noted that Love As Laughter are on Glacial Pace, an imprint of Epic headed by Jayne’s old pal Isaac Brock. So it’s not like Brock is your typical suit, right?

“He’s a really honest and devoted dude,” says Jane. “He has an emotional attachment to what he’s up to, but he still wants to push the envelope[…]Honestly there’s a lot of adjusting this year. As far as Epic is concerned, that’s realistically what label we are on and if they ever figure out we are on the label, then great. Otherwise, we just pulled a really good heist.”

But then again, if you do have a problem with it, Jayne most likely doesn’t give a shit. He’s been around long enough to know that all trends, fads, and opinions come and go, and all that’s really consistent is the music itself.

Love as Laughter - All Parts of Me Directed by Danny Perez from Love as Laughter on Vimeo.

Listen: “Crosseyed Beautiful Youngunz”

See Love As Laughter Live:
22 Oct - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (CMJ)

Visit Love As Laughter on MySpace.
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See the list of bands recently featured as EAR FARM’s Band of the Week HERE.