Love Spells on Finding Truth Through Music

There is a striking lack of a filter when you talk to Love Spells. In an era where artists frequently hide behind heavily curated mystique or layers of irony, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter prefers to pull thoughts straight out of his head and lay them out over a track. This trait extends all the way back to his moniker. Born out of teasing from his friends, the name became a badge of honor. He admits he was always a hopeless romantic, and said “It seemed like I was under a spell, always in some sort of love with somebody”. So instead of shaking the label, he chose to make it his own because it represents exactly who he is as a person and an artist.

That unfiltered, carefree energy is physically manifested through his look. While his fashion and aesthetic are deeply intertwined with his music, he rejects the idea of a calculated uniform or a set style, in his words “everything changes all the time”. He instead pointed to his signature wild hair as his defining trait. He likes how wild and carefree it is, noting that “just being myself, I feel like that reflects a lot into the music and a lot of the messages I try to put out there”.

For Love Spells, honesty is a non-negotiable. He finds the concept of manufacturing a persona completely contradictory to his mission, stating plainly that “it makes zero sense to lie in a song”.

Yet, extracting those truths isn't always easy. While some artists dread the vulnerability of performing raw tracks live, Love Spells’ experiences show the exact opposite. For him, the studio is more of a battle, where recording can be an especially stressful process for him because he carries a hyper-specific image of the track in his head; if it doesn't capture the exact emotion he envisioned, he struggles to see it through. Once the track is laid down, however, the weight evaporates. Performing live is pure fun. On stage, he is willing to completely change the weight of a song—turning a soft track into a heavy one—just to ensure everyone is having a good time. In his words, “the words matter most, as long as they don’t change, the song is still the same”, the emotional core remains intact no matter the performance choices.

His creative process recently underwent a massive shift, courtesy of legendary producer Rick Nowels, who challenged him to actively write songs before entering the studio. It’s a stark contrast to his previous method, where songs would organically find him during jam sessions. The resulting tracks on the upcoming album act as vivid emotional markers.

If he had to slap a warning label on the record, it would be a warning for nostalgia. He notes that listeners always find a deep sense of the past in his music. When asked how he views his tracks, he answered “they’re time capsules”—buried treasures he can open every now and then to read the contents before putting them back. He says when people listen to his songs “they can think about the past, or even living in the present. That present time becomes nostalgia”.

As for what comes next, Love Spells is looking directly to the past to push his sound deeper. A self-professed devotee of the 80s club scene, he noted “I still go to clubs every Monday and Thursday night to dance to 80s new wave music”, and that a lot of those expressions and feelings are what he aims to channel more. He is heavily inspired by the theatrical, unfiltered honesty of artists like David Bowie and Tears for Fears, and channels that cinematic drama into his own work, creating tracks that feel cinematic. Whether his songs are played in the dead of night or blasted under the blazing sun of All Points East, Love Spells isn't planning on compromising. They are his truths, frozen in time, waiting for whoever needs to dig them up.