Love Spells: Born to Move
There's a nightclub in Houston called Numbers that Taegen Harris, known primarily as Love Spells, has been going to since he was 17. It's been around since the 70s, and some of the same people who worked there then still work there now. Every Friday they play 80s music, and every Friday he'd go with his friends and dance the night away. He still remembers those nights: that feeling of raw motion, of being free in it, no words spoken but everything said. It's a feeling that runs all the way through his debut album.
Over zoom, he's all smiles. It's a stacked day, with the singles, the album and the tour all landing at once, and he says he's been handling it by watching cat videos on reels. I jump right into the singles.
The two dropped a month apart. On 'Crutch,' Harris sings candidly about a love gone wrong, both people using each other, and admits he's lost without it anyway. 'Keep It to Yourself' lands in similar territory: a flawed relationship he wants to be in regardless. Love and its complications run through everything Love Spells has put out, but these two singles sharpen what he's been circling.
MB: As someone that's been a listener for a long time, I feel like 'Crutch' and 'Keep It to Yourself' refine your sound so well. How do you think what you've learned while making music so far has led to honing in on your sound?
Love Spells: Honestly, it's more of expanding my taste and wanting to do more. I don't want to be stuck in one sound forever. I strongly believe in evolution, and I feel like this is my evolution in a way. It's almost like setting myself up to evolve even more. I remember telling my manager when I dropped my first EP… there's a song How.. I dropped that because I wanted to have it be like… a stepping stone to do other stuff. It's what these two songs are essentially doing as well, setting myself up to do more different things.
He says the album was made over a seven to nine month period, after wrapping shows with the Blush crew and opening for Suki Waterhouse. While he was working with them and doing shows he hadn't had a studio session for himself, but 'Love is the Law' was born over a short time once he did. The lead singles are stepping stones for his artistic evolution, and he's already thinking about where he'll branch out next.
Blush: Collaboration & Artistry
At the topic of Blush, the album and collective project involving Kevin Abstract, Dominic Fike, Quadeca, Truly Young, Love Spells himself (and more), I ask how the experience influenced his artistry. He details that working with Ian (Kevin Abstract) and the whole team allowed him to become more confident in himself as an artist. There's a mystique around his dreamy falsetto, and many people discovering his music for the first time are often in awe that the voice is him and not a female singer. This sort of situation would have him shy away and be humble, but now he's able to accept the compliments head on. Being around a plethora of other artists and befriending and working with them led to him growing into his own, feeling more ready to be in the forefront.
LS: …Working with Ian and the whole crew, meeting everyone that I did over that amount of time has set me up.. to be in this position. It made me more confident [in] myself and gave me more star power. I wouldn't have really imagined myself dancing and … in the forefront until I worked with [the blush crew]. People would always come up to me and be like, "Oh, like, this is you on the song? Oh, this is amazing." I would obviously be very humble about it. I don't really like hearing compliments about myself. I was like "Oh, thanks. It's nothing, it's nothing." I feel like now I kind of know how to accept those things and also just own up to it and own being who I am, and own becoming someone new, and own being confident in my voice and everything else that I can do. Ian would always tell me, always tell people, like, "Lock in, lock in, lock in." And I was like, no, but he's right, though. If you really want to be who you want to be, you have to lock in. You have to believe in yourself more and you have to start acting like who you want to be. It's kind of just what I've been doing since meeting everyone and coming to know everybody, and then being friends with all the people who are actively living out their dreams. Being so close to Ian and even becoming homies with Dom. My whole life has changed since accepting who I am.
LOVE IS THE LAW: Debut & Declaration
MB: 'Love is the law' is your debut album. What is the ethos behind it? And what does love is the law mean to you? It feels like a grand declaration, like a statement. So, walk me into that world and what that looks like.
LS: "It's just like a grand declaration, it's in your face. The album name is literally what it means. It's nothing to hide and it's almost something I want to declare as I continue to make music"
From the promotional imagery (the background all red, denim jeans and cowboy boots, a finger gun made with one hand), to certain sonic elements in 'Crutch' and 'Keep It to Yourself', there's a country-esque charm to Love is the Law. The album and era begin to click as a love letter to Texas, his home.
LS: I'll always miss Texas.. I'll always love Texas. I feel like I left a piece of my soul over there. A lot of the new music on 'Love is the Law' has… southern tones to it and very country-esque elements, lots of pedal steel, some harmonica, very Americana tones to it. Which is also a testament to how I feel about that place.
The 80s nights at Numbers were the start of it, but Texas comes up again when the question of sonic and visual inspirations is posed. He places the feeling of being on the dancefloor as something that inspired him, the level of freeness and raw emotion that being in that room brought him. Listening to Love Spells, you can place some of his inspiration clearly due to the transportive nature of his music; you're in an 80s film instantly. It's no surprise when he lists watching Michael Jackson music videos as something that inspired him while creating the album, moved by the substance and theatrical style of them. He watched the movies Dirty Dancing and All That Jazz too, and cites loving Bob Fosse and his theatricality.
Memories & Movement
Something mentioned frequently during our conversation was the idea of moments being fleeting, and memories being everlasting. Love Spells lives in L.A now and moved there recently, but he says he misses Texas because of its slower paced environment that gives you the ability to value your time and create memories. There are more moments than memories in L.A, he says; Texas was the reverse. This carries over into his music. What inspires him most is the idea of making music that holds memories for others. He mentions driving his car, a vintage Chevrolet Chevelle, around town and listening to his own album. "I want [to make music] that people will be able to live with over the course of the years of their life. You'll be 60 years old and you'll be like, oh, I remember listening to this song with my wife. We had this moment in the car, or I remember listening to this song. Memories that carry on. It's just some sort of thing I'm still trying to perfect in a way," he says. Love Spells wants his music to be the soundtrack to your life. Above all, he says, his influences while creating 'Love is the Law' were movement and feelings.
Sticking true to his theme of things being raw is his choreography process. Harris never took dance classes, only recently having sessions at a dance studio to practice and refine the skill. He got help from choreographer Sadie Wilking (particularly on the 'Crutch' music video) on which muscles he should be working and how to properly execute certain moves, as well as the beginning parts of the choreography. For the most part, he spends time in the studio perfecting certain movements, not learning choreography by heart.
LS: Crutch… up until in the music video where I do that little movement where I'm like a little bird flapping, that is choreographed up until that point. Afterwards, I was improving the whole way. I'd never done a dance class before [I was put into contact with] Sadie. I love Sadie. She's awesome. I had my 1st dance lesson with her, actually, and [was] just learning more efficient ways to spin… things I can do to refine and sharpen the blade. She was showing me muscles that I never exercised to be able to do certain things, and she also helped me figure out the intro to that dance, to that music video. After that, of course, it was improv of me trying to figure out what are the most dramatic, theatrical movements I can do to display my emotions for the song.
"I want to feel like I'm overcome with emotion. I want that to be displayed, how raw can I get? Just doing anything I could do to make it more raw and make it more true to how I felt about the song."
I also asked whether he'd be bringing his dancing to the stage as he embarks on his first world tour. He says if he feels moved to in the moment it'll likely happen, but he can't execute choreography and fake the passion that comes with the spontaneity of being moved to dance.
LS: I feel like the more dramatic you are on stage, the more comfortable people are to be dramatic. Like, oh, he's not just standing there singing. Dancing specifically is so raw and you can't lie. I feel like it's why a lot of people now shy away from it and they don't want to be recorded being so honest. They're afraid of being captured in that raw, vulnerable state. So many people are filming and whatnot. If people are filming me and I'm doing the most, everyone else will start not to care either. I see it all the time, I go dancing and if you're doing the most, people around you are going to start doing the most because they're not alone in it. It's easier to do it together.
Movement and dance is a method of storytelling for Love Spells, most evident in his music videos. His focus is always on things being as raw and earnest as possible, and dance is the most unspoken form of honesty. "That's what it means to me to be free and just express myself in a way that's not words, [to] be myself in the truest rawest form. You can't fake that…you can't lie, your body can't lie," he says. In creating 'Love is the Law', Love Spells sought out to make music that he and others could move to; whether it be slow dancing, or a sway of the hips. Music that moves both physically and emotionally was his biggest goal, along with music that people can make memories to.
Before we run out of time, I ask him for a few keywords for the album and the era. He thinks for a second. "Texas. Red. Boots. Love. And electric."
