Love Songs have been touring in fits and starts since their first inception in 2000. Pulling from influences as varied as King Diamond, SNFU and “Weird Al” Yankovic, the band has enjoyed being confused for a punk, thrash, lite rock, hardcore, indie trash, folk, and/or metal band. Knowing full-well it was a terrible band name, Love Songs called themselves “Love Songs” to keep audience expectation low before punishing them with whatever genre they felt like delivering. “Love Songs” recently added “The” to their name to become “The Love Songs” which was a huge step towards making them almost Google-able.

Led by Craigums, aka Air Guitar World Champion Hot Lixx Hulahan, the band have five out-of-print full-length releases (thanks in part to their 2.7MM followers on Facebook - or maybe because both Dionne Warwick and Elton John have albums titled “The Love Songs”). Alongside him is Bradley, the Ulrich to Craigums’ Hetfield (or in terms of size, the Hall to his Oates) who has been Craig’s sidekick(drum) since the early 90’s, 10 years before this band even existed. Some years later, a veritable thrash-riff encyclopedia named Frank left his post in bands like Degenerics and Star Fucking Hipsters to take on the lead guitar. Shortly thereafter Salem, the Lebanese pharmacist, was welcomed as the new bassist despite his inability to fix the band’s van’s radiator.

What does an East Bay Punk band do when they want to promote a new album? Why, go on tour, of course.

And when the world shuts down mid-tour due to a global pandemic and renders all of their promotional efforts moot? Then what do they do? It’s a no-brainer that they commission an Australian Rock luminary to animate a lyric video for a song from that new record that they can no longer promote.

And when that lyric video proves so promising that they can’t help but imagine a more complete narrative? What then? Well if you’re The Love Songs, you imagine a short film that contextualizes that lyric video. Then write your idol, “Weird Al” Yankovic, to play the villain and turn what should be a 2-minute music video into a 14-minute, one-of-a-kind film showcasing your underground band’s still-new-to-the-world album.

And once you’ve rounded out “Weird Al”’s performance with appearances from Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, The Offspring’s Dexter Holland, Nardwuar the Human Serviette, and more? Well then you spit-polish that amazing short and start submitting it to festivals.