Hello, all! Metal Southern Belles Media welcomes you to another awesome interview. Our passion for heavy music and having conversations with those who LIVE it has brought us to Love Sick Drug. This female fronted supergroup is based out of Texas and gives listeners a fusion of Punk, Rock, Metal, and Pop to entertain your senses. We are joined by one of their guitarist, Lew Morris, for a Love Sick Drug “tell all”. Let’s get behind the curtain of the band that feels familiar, but original, all at the same time…

MSBM: How did you get your start in music? Who were your biggest influences?

LM: I started piano lessons at 7. I was already “writing” songs at that point, before even starting. My dad saw that I was working out melody lines and able to repeat them (so, not just randomly hitting keys and getting lucky). When it really hit him, I was at a garage sale and the guy running it saw the same thing. He asked us to come in and have me mess with an electric organ he had. Once he saw what I could do, he told my dad he wanted to send it home with me. Shortly after that, he got me into piano lessons despite the fact I really wanted to learn guitar. After he passed away a bit before my 14th birthday, I made a deal with my mom to end piano lessons if she would pitch in for me to buy a guitar. I taught myself through tabs after getting it. Influence wise, I started off really studying Van Halen, Metallica, Megadeth, Bon Jovi (mostly for Sambora), Alice Cooper and some punk like The Misfits, Dead Kennedys, and The Cramps.

MSBM: Wow, you are a natural virtuoso! Music is your forte, no doubt. With that talent, joining a band was inevitable. So, how did Love Sick Drug form? It seems like you guys have quite the unique lineup with some members having worked in the movie industry. Is there an interesting story behind how the band met and started creating music together?

LW: I met Billy Blair (actor, guitarist) while working at KNON as an on air personality. He needed a fill in bass player for his band at the time, Junk. He asked if I would be interested and I said, “sure.” I did a small tour with them and we worked well together. He asked if I would be interested in working together in the future. I told him, “if we can get something together, I would be up for it”. A bit later after the tour, he called me up and asked if I wanted to form a new band. He said he felt I would be better used on guitar and that he had some other members in mind. I told him to let me know when to get together and it basically went from there.

MSBM: I think it’s very important for bands to be “birthed” from natural chemistry in between the members. I feel the best version of a band is when the music is created by individuals who work well together and just “mesh” in a musical and artistic way like you and Billy clearly do. So, the first single, “Zombies”, was released in 2020. It was quickly followed by a self-titled track and then a few others in 2021 and 2022. “Celebrity Life” being the latest. Can you talk about the creative process behind these songs? What is drawing influence, writing, and recording like for Love Sick Drug?

LM: The single release history is a bit weird. We actually had a different drummer and singer at the beginning. We released the single, “Radio,” first with that line up. We followed that up with “Zombies.” They ended up leaving and since the singer had written the lyrics for “Radio,” I re-wrote them and we re-recorded the tracks with the new members. We then released the new version after the new version of “Zombies.” The lyrics didn’t change for “Zombies” since I had written them all anyway. These days, I tend to write the bulk of the lyrics. For the most part, Billy writes the bulk of the riffs. “Radio” and “Love Sick Drug” started with riffs I came up with and Billy filled them in. The other riffs are mostly Billy. We will get together and work out the arrangement and all that. I’ll usually come up with the lyrics. We then bring the song to the rest of the band for them to work out their parts. Influence wise, we are all over the board. Billy is very old school Rock and Roll like Kiss, Twisted Sister, etc. But he does love some newer stuff like Alice in Chains, Korn, etc. It’s pretty well-known that I’m very influenced by Eddie Van Halen. But I also come from a large Metal and Punk background writing wise, so I bring a little bit of that to the mix as well.

MSBM: A diverse set of influences can bring something fresh and exciting to the scene. So, I think what your group is doing is fantastic! I saw the movie, Corsicana, included one of Love Sick Drug’s songs and band mate, Billy Blair. Was “The Trail” directly written for the movie or did it come first and just happened to be fitting for the movie? How did that play out?

LM: We wrote “The Trail” specifically for the Corsicana movie. We actually titled it “Corsicana” at the beginning. The old singer wrote the first set of lyrics, but she didn’t even supply a 2nd verse. She just repeated the same verse. The lyrics were a bit clunky as well. When she left, Billy asked if I wanted to re-write it. I wrote the new lyrics and everyone who has heard both seem to prefer the new lyrics. Billy said he wanted to kinda have a sort of “Blaze of Glory” vibe to it – Western but still a Rock song. Since I had some experience playing Western style music with Ghoultown, I understood how to arrange guitar parts to give it that feel. It was one of the first songs where Billy and I both play pretty different stuff most of the song.

MSBM: I have to say, you nailed the vibe you were going for with “The Trail”. I tip my cowgirl hat to that haha. Having lightly touched on the movie experience in reference to some of your band members, let’s get more in depth now. How does that experience factor in with making music videos?

LM: Having 3 of the 5 members involved in film has helped us out a lot with music videos. Billy and Erin (vocalist) both have extensive acting experience. I mostly work behind the camera with production design, art department, etc. But I also have some experience on screen. I’ve spearheaded most of the storylines in the music videos. For “Zombies,” I knew everyone would have their own ideas, so I tasked myself with finding a way to incorporate everyone’s ideas into one storyline. I did the location scouting as well for that. For the latest video, “The Trail,” we knew that we would probably need to do two edits – one for our own and one for the movie. Since we didn’t want to pay for two edits, I ended up taking on the role of Director as well for that one. Since Billy was one of the stars of the movie, it was a no brainer to make him one of the leads of the video. I came up with the storyline, props, location scouting, and obviously directing and editing. We hired a cinematographer but past that, I did the rest of the stuff to get that one together. I’m actually about to sit down and do the movie edit version for that one soon.

MSBM: I actually watched the video for “Zombies”, and it’s not what I expected. But unpredictably is definitely NOT a bad thing in art. The song itself is dope as well! I watched “The Trail” too and I thought it was perfect for the song. You had a lot to shoulder there, but you did well. I’m interested to see more! Does having film experience also affect the visionary aspect and showmanship of live performances and stage set ups?

LM: I think the film experience helps some with the live experience, but overall we are all fans of bands that really put on a production. Bands like Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper don’t just show up in their everyday clothes, go up, play, and leave. They LOOK like rock stars… You want to watch them live. They have a cool stage show, etc. We are still slowly getting all that together (currently looking for a stage manager to help with that, so we can bring more elements to the live show). It’s tougher on a local level because they just don’t give you the set up time and space, especially with opening gigs. We’ve opened for Powerman 5000, Genitorturers, etc and we barely had enough stage room to stand much less bring more show elements.

MSBM: Theatrics really take live shows to a whole other level. Hopefully, in the near future, your band can get the “leg room” to expand into more extravagant performances. On a different topic, I noticed that you guys released your own hot sauce!? What was that all about?

LM: Everyone and their mom seems to be releasing hot sauce. I was asked years ago by a friend who has a hot sauce business if I wanted to make one for my Metal band, Coilback. I told him merch sales were slow at that time, so I wanted to wait. Right about the time I was going to look into it, my friend Lyle Blackburn from Ghoultown released his sauce. I didn’t want it to seem like we were just riding his coattails, so I wanted to give it a bit. After he got established (with his Monster Sauce, which is amazing and I highly suggest trying it; it’s delicious), I told him we were gonna do ours. I intentionally asked them to make something with a different flavor profile than his stuff. We named it “Love Juice” because we are tongue in cheek about everything and knew we could do some fun stuff with the name. That’s what made us film all those goofy promo spots for it (it’s on the Love Sick Drug YouTube channel).

MSBM: Yeah, I saw some of those silly videos haha. They got me interested in the sauce. Maybe I should try it and your buddy’s as well. I actually could go for something covered in hot sauce right now! But let’s get back on the subject of music before I get too hungry! There’s a full-length album on the way, correct? Care to share the details?

LM: Yes, there is a full length we are just about done with. We actually had it completely done with the old line up but they left right before we released it, so that delayed things with getting the new members on the tracks. We are hopefully going to be done with the recording in a couple of weeks and then it’s just mixing, mastering, and getting it printed. Stay tuned for that. Should be 11 tracks total.

MSBM: Fantastic! I’ll be looking forward to it. Are there any shows coming up the band as well?

LM: We tend to slow down in the winter holiday season. Weather in North Texas is super unpredictable and it’s hard to get people to come out. Unless it’s something special, we tend to do most of the “behind the scenes” work during these months. Right now, we are trying to finish the album and then hit the road to do some small tour legs.

MSBM: Sounds like a good plan! Now, to wrap this thing up, where can the readers go to keep up to date with Love Sick Drug and check out your songs?

LM: The best place at the moment to keep track of us is on Instagram and Facebook. We keep things up to date there. We have plenty of content like music videos, live videos, interviews, and goofy promos on our YouTube channel and our Bandcamp page has music and merch. We are also available on most all digital music stores. We are all currently working on some new movies as well and we tend to pop up on soundtracks quite a bit as well. Everyone should go check out the pages, give us a like, subscribe, and support independent artists.

Follow Love Sick Drug on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lovesickdrugband?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Follow Love Sick Drug on Instagram: https://instagram.com/lovesickdrugband?igshid=NDk5N2NlZjQ=

Subscribe to Love Sick Drug on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@LoveSickDrug

Check out Love Sick Drug on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7FnsK0Ezviuyfsi7itwxBS?si=MveLC_raRXSfX24asvkd2Q

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