In Loving Memory Interview
Want to know more about In Loving Memory? Read our interview with them here:
- For those who aren’t familiar with your band, describe In Loving Memory.
Our sound pulls the best defining elements from various genres. It brings in the technical, melodic, and syncopated guitar riffs found in progressive metal and combines it with the heavy grooves and energy of metalcore. That foundation is led by catchy, anthemic, and dynamic vocals that pull from pop, rock, and alternative influences. The blend of all these elements creates a sound that walks the fine line between being unique and refreshing yet familiar and nostalgic. Our goal with our sound is to maintain compositional depth and integrity while having lyrics that are easy to grasp and relate to. The result is a sound that is innovative, yet accessible, and can be enjoyed by the trained musician and the casual music fan alike.
In Loving Memory originally started as my (Naveed) solo project where I was writing and recording music on my own. My goal was to get myself out there by doing Youtube covers until I found the right people to turn the project into a full band, as I wasn't finding the right musicians where I live in New York City.
Fortunately in summer 2014, I got discovered by a package deal of instrumentalists who lived less than an hour from me, in Long Island. Thomas, Vito, and Jon (Conway, ex-guitarist) found my Youtube channel and reached out to me when I had a show coming up. I was doing a show in Queens performing my original music as In Loving Memory, with close friends of mine learning my songs and being my live band for the show. They came to see me play the show and we kept in touch. They must have liked what they saw and heard, because they eventually approached me in hopes that I would be the new singer for their band Insanium. I had checked out their music as Insanium and was very impressed by the songwriting and each member’s instrumental prowess, though the style of music was a more old school hard rock sound. We kept in touch and they ended up coming out to my dorm at Stony Brook University to meet me and discuss working together musically. We sat outside my dorm building with acoustic guitars, jamming random songs we happened to all know (spanning All Time Low, Sleeping With Sirens, Asking Alexandria, Avenged Sevenfold). I remember a few students walking by and being like “Wow are you guys a band?” and I would say “Uhh I’m not sure but I think we will be?” For sure, we definitely all had an undeniable musical chemistry right off the bat. After more meetings and jam sessions, we came to discuss our goals and what we wanted to achieve musically. We wanted to create something that combined the technical elements of progressive metal, the heaviness and energy of rock and metalcore, with the catchiness and accessibility of pop music. This vision was much more in line with the music I had been writing already as a solo artist, and thus we decided to turn In Loving Memory into a full band in October 2014.
- Could you tell me about your writing process?
Our writing process usually varies depending on the song. On our latest EP "Introspective", the songs would usually start from musical/instrumental ideas brought to the table by myself or Tom. Ideas are typically brought to the table by tabbing out MIDI instrumentals and sending them to each other. This way, if any of us come up with riffs or instrumental sections, we can add them to the MIDI file and send them back and forth to each other. As soon as vocal and lyrical inspiration comes to me, I'll start writing lyrics for the song. Introspective has songs like "Weathered" and "Lone Wolf" that were entirely written by me, instrumentally as well. Then there are songs like "Getaway" and "Dreamer" that were predominantly written by Tom. "Forthright" and "Nomad" were much more collaborative between all members, but were predominantly founded on Vito's guitar work. So like I said, the writing process is fluid and really depends on where the inspiration comes from. That said though, we are changing our writing process slightly to be more centered around the vocals. We want to approach our writing in a way that starts with the vocal and lyrical ideas and then builds the instrumentals around it. We think this will help us write more songs with more impactful messages.
- Where can we listen to your music?
Both our EPs "Introspective" and "Stand My Ground" are available on Spotify, iTunes, Youtube, Amazon, Google Play, Apple Music, and all major streaming outlets.
- What made you decide to take the risk of following warped tour this summer?
In Warped Tour 2017, we actually went to about a handful of the northeast dates for the sole purpose of promoting ourselves, meeting new people, and selling CDs. It was overall a very successful experience and we were able to sell a good amount of CDs and introduce many new people to our music. It made us think "Wow, imagine if we were able to do this for the entire tour around the country". Since then, I told everyone in the band to prepare themselves to be able to follow the entirety of Warped Tour in 2018 as it would be a very strong option for us to build our fanbase significantly. Fast forward to the announcement that 2018's Warped Tour would be the final cross-country installment of the festival. From that moment, it became pretty clear that we had to find a way to get involved on the last Warped Tour somehow. We knew that if we didn't follow the entirety of the tour, we would regret not making the most of this opportunity. And so we all made the sacrifices necessary in order to do this. I gave up my full time job as an engineer to be able to do this. But ultimately, the main reason we're doing this is because we recognize that these 6 weeks we'd be out on Warped Tour can do more for our band than everything we've done in the 3 years we've been together so far. We're tired of In Loving Memory just being our passion project for when we punch out of our day jobs. Music is all we think about and we want to take the steps necessary to make this band a legitimate career for ourselves. We're willing to fight for this dream and build our fanbase one at a time. That hustle has always been a core of what makes this band special, and our fans have shown us so much love for making this move. We're going to get to meet so many of the people who've been supporting us online for so long and that really makes us happy. Many of them have opened their homes to us and are willing to let us spend the night while we're on the road, which is a huge help. The biggest help is the people who've been buying our merch from ILMApparel.com over the last month. We've put new items on our store for the summer and are making it very clear to people that them buying our merch is directly helping us cover our huge travel expenses. So yes, this is the craziest thing we've ever done in our lives without a doubt. But our fans are helping us take it on and giving us the support to make this summer a big turning point for our career.
- Any new music you’re working on?
Actually yes! There's so much chaos as we're preparing to leave for Warped Tour and we had our own small tour last month that was keeping us busy, but we have been writing new music whenever we have some down time. We feel like our band is at a very transitional point where we want to really step back and figure out what we want our sound, image, and message to be. Basically, we're really trying to give ourselves the time to dig deep and hone in on the identity of In Loving Memory. We've all done some growing up and maturing, both personally and musically and so we feel like it will take some time before we release any new music. So we're just taking it slow and writing for the sake of writing for now, seeing if a new direction starts to take shape. We've been playing one new song live for the past month or so, and it's very different from what fans have expected from us. It's a very poppy song that brings in jazz and funk influences instrumentally, so definitely experimental for us. We're definitely at a point where we're realizing we don't want to be limited by genres and have become way more open-minded fans of music ourselves. We think that'll show in the new direction our band takes on.
- Anything else for the future?
So much is coming. We're still very much in the Introspective cycle and we'll be putting out a new music video for "Weathered" very soon, right before we head out for Warped Tour. We'll be spending the entirety of the summer following Warped Tour around the country, promoting the new music video, and spreading "Introspective" as far and wide as we physically can. At the end of the summer, we'll finally be able to close out this EP cycle with more special content and videos. And then finally we can hit the drawing board and really plan out the next chapter for In Loving Memory. We're super excited for everything we have planned, as well as everything we can't plan for. We love everyone who supports us and can't wait to keep bringing you along for this incredible journey.
Be sure to follow In Loving Memory on this journey.
You can check out their music here: Introspective - EP by In Loving Memory
Help support their Warped Tour journey:
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