Photo Courtesy of Love & War
Left to Right: Michael Mears, Stephen Luster, Bryan Mears, TJ Louis and Ryan Collinsworth make up the band Love and War. Three of the five are either NC State students or alumni. The group plans on releasing their first album later this year.
Members of Love & War have been busy in their studio for five consecutive days recording their debut full-length album. After taking a hiatus from performing to write and record, the Raleigh band is planning to release a 16-track album later this year.
The members of Love & War met at NC State in 2012. The group is made up of several members of the NC State community: Ryan Collinsworth, a senior studying psychology and Spanish, TJ Louie who studied film, Bryan Mears who studied English and graduated in 2012, along with Michael Mears, Bryan＊s younger brother.
All members of the group are singers and songwriters with different tastes in music. Their playing reflects that as it combines strong vocals and a blending of blues and folk styles. The vocals are influenced by classic hymns.
“We are all vocalists, and harmony is our most important writing concept,” Collinsworth said. “We love the harmony in how hymns are built and try to emulate that.
After meeting as members of the Beta Upsilon Chi fraternity while at State, the band began to practice together. With everyone in the group being a songwriter, there was disagreement in the style of the music.
“All of our music either fit one or the other,” Collinsworth said. “We were frustrated not being able to find the in-between.
Both of the Mears brothers had already been playing a roots-folk style, while Collinsworth favored more modern blues. In August 2013, the group took a trip to a rural mountain house in western North Carolina to focus on combining their musical styles.
“We went to the mountains to escape the hustle of Raleigh and really connected as a group there,” Collinsworth said.
At this point, they were still nameless and did not have any recorded material. The name Love & War was formulated on the trip.
“We were trying to write a record on the concept of love, but kept experiencing tension with each other,” Collinsworth said. The name Love & War is from embracing different sides of this process.
The band said the mountain retreat helped them learn to blend each other’s own personal styles and preferences together to create a coherent sound with everyone’s styles complementing each other.
“It took a while to understand, but with working together and using our differences, I think we get better music, Bryan Mears said.
After returning from the mountains, Love & War recorded their Sorrow like Sea EP. With original material, they began to play more shows in the triangle area. They were averaging a gig a week while some members were working or still in school.
“We were burned out after playing so many shows,” Louie said. “We enjoy playing, but I’d say we all lean more towards introverted and needed a break.”
Since spring 2014, Love & War has taken a hiatus from live shows to focus on writing and recording.
“Typically the way we’ll write is someone will bring something they’ve written, we’ll all play it over and over for two hours, after a while, if it’s good enough, a song will emerge,” Bryan Mears said.
On their upcoming album, the group wants to explore the subject of Love. While the subject matter is abstract, Love & War seeks to tackle it in a practical and pragmatic way.
“We want our music to be palatable to a wide range of people,” Collinsworth said. “We like to use stories and narratives to put these high concepts in human flesh for anyone to connect to.”
Love & War continues to work on their debut album with plans to release it later this year.