Spindle Radar: LOWES Triumph On Dance-Pop Anthem ‘Game of Love’

Electronic-pop trio LOWES are back with euphoric new single ‘Game of Love‘, a shimmering 80’s inspired dance-pop anthem which sees the Lancashire band truly come into their own. Consisting of Evie Plumb, Luke Paget and Jamie Walker, LOWES’ music manages to be both powerful and vulnerable and has seen them gain continuous support from BBC Radio 1, having received seven Hottest Records to date as well as singer Evie being named the station’s Best Dance Vocalist (2021). 

LOWES’ have had a number of high-profile collaborations with the likes of CamelPhat, High Contract, Sigma, Vintage Culture and Solardo, culminating in over 65 million streams to date. LOWES offer ‘Game of Love’ as solely themselves, with a music video shot by acclaimed director Taisia Deeva, who brings the metaphors of the song to life with undeniable charm. 

We were able to chat with LOWES’ lead vocalist Evie about the band’s music beginnings, their new single ‘Game of Love’, and so much more. Read our full interview below. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today! How’s your 2023 going so far?

Thanks for reaching out! It feels really exciting to be hitting the ground running in 2023 with this January release. We 100% hibernated for a couple of weeks over the festive season, and it was really needed – peaceful days in the snow and the mountains, time away from the studio and the industry… but we couldn’t wait to get back, to be honest!

LOWES have had an incredible journey so far since your debut in 2018, working with some big-hitting names. How does it feel?

It has certainly been unexpected! One thing just seemed to lead to another, and it was hugely fun to delve into the electronic dance world in a much bigger way than any of us initially intended. We’ve worked with some amazingly talented producers, writers, and DJs, played some huge shows and been lucky enough to get some pretty good radio time with our dance collaborations. We’ve learnt a lot and met some brilliant and inspiring artists, but we are buzzing to bring it back to our own camp now and concentrate firmly on sharing our own sound and project.

Going back to the very beginning. How was LOWES formed?

We all met in Lancaster and were initially just a songwriting and production trio, working out of a tiny (freezing cold) bedroom flat, pitching ideas out to other artists. Then we had this one idea that we got really attached to called ‘Awake At Night’, we wanted to release it ourselves, so we did under the moniker ‘LOWES’, we weren’t even a band at that point… and the day after release we woke up to an inbox full of industry emails demanding more music, and more info on our project. So we had to get ourselves organised pretty quickly after that!

Let’s talk about your new single, ‘Game Of Love’. How did the track come to life?

‘Game of Love’ was one of those rare tracks that seemed to just write itself, it flowed out so easily once we had the initial idea, it was like we were uncovering a finished song, rather than creating it! Both the lyrics and production were 95% done within a couple of hours, and we loved it right from the start, it felt super strong. The imagery in the lyrics speaks of our throwaway culture and how that is seeping into how we approach relationships too – so often giving up when something is broken rather than trying to fix it. The shimmery 80’s synths, guitars, and electronic drum production give the song so much energy and character, and we found the perfect key that would allow me to sing it with power and vulnerability. 

Sonically, ‘Game of Love’ is a little different to your previous releases — more pop-forward and incredibly catchy. Are you wanting to branch out even further with this sound or see where the wind takes you?

When we hit on the sonic in ‘Game of Love,’ it spurred a lot more creativity in a similar vein as we all loved the tempo and style so much, it just sounded like LOWES! In that respect, we can probably expect some of our future releases to be cohesive in terms of production and energy. But we are the type of artists who will write music 7 days a week, and we get a lot of variety in our output, so it’s ever-evolving, and the inspiration comes from a lot of different places. The dance collaborations were just that, half us, and half the other artist, but perhaps for the first time, Game of Love felt 100% honest and authentic to us.

We absolutely love the music video to the single too, which was directed by the amazing Taisia Deeva. Did you guys reach out to her? How did this dream team come to life?

Taisia is indeed an amazing director, and she had such a clear vision for the Game of Love music video. Various pitches came in, but when we saw her treatment, it really stood out, and we knew we had found what we were looking for. Having seen her previous work with Paul Kalkbrenner, Imanbek, Dynoro and more, we were so excited to get to work on our own video.

The video also looked like a ton of fun to make. What was the creative process like? Any favourite moments from the shoot?

Without exaggeration, I would say it was probably one of the best weeks of my life! 20-hour days in amazing locations surrounded by 30, 40, even 50 creative people all doing their part in creating this big piece was such a buzz! We were based in Paris for the shoot, and it was great to get to know the wonderful crew and production team. Everything went really smoothly until the very last shot, 5 hours before our flight home. The shot was being filmed on a rollercoaster at 3 am in an empty funfair… my cart had just set off, and then the ride just stopped working! It was equal parts scary and fun cause I was stranded on a rollercoaster, but it also meant I got to stay an extra couple of days to reshoot the scene! 

Any dream collaborators you’d love to work with in the future?

Ah, we would love to work with Taisia again for sure and the WANDA production team if it comes to music videos! But musically, we would love to work with Disclosure, Nia Archives, Bicep, Sigur Ros, George Fitzgerald, Greg Kurstin, Inflo, Jamie Hartman, Georgia, Jack Antonoff… the list goes on and on!

What can we expect from LOWES for the rest of 2023? 

We’re hoping to have a busy year on the road playing as many shows as possible, alongside lots of new music, of course! Perhaps a couple of select collaborations, but the focus this year is firmly on LOWES itself, looking forward to it!

Check out LOWES’ brand new music video for their latest single, ‘Game of Love’ here or below.