The Lürxx

Interview: The Lürxx

May 31, 2024 — Leave a comment

The Lürxx are a self-proclaimed “nature warrior rock” band that have traversed the scene from England to Hollywood. Having been together in some form or fashion since 1990, Xavi and Sabú are basically twins by this point, sharing their love of music and a common goal: to make the world a better place.

I had the chance to speak with the duo about their start, the many transformations the band has gone through, their inspirations, and much more!

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Mostly Music: First and foremost, how did the band come together?

Xavi: Basically, the two of us, Xavi and Sabú, have been in a band together since we were 13 years old! We met at school in 1990 and started our first band, The Collegemates, influenced by early Beatles and 50s rock ‘n’ roll.

When we were 15, we sought out “dirtier” music. The Rolling Stones led us to the blues, and The Collegemates turned into Bloody Blues, the band we performed our first ever gig with! We explored more of the 1960s London scene and discovered bands like The Who and Small Faces. Through the latter, we really got into mod in 1993.

Through the very underground mod scene that existed in the mid-90s, we then discovered power pop bands like the Chords and Purple Hearts. Parallelly, we also started listening to a lot of classic 1970s punk rock. Out of this melange of influences rose our third band, Speed, whose sound we described as “Maximum Rhythm ‘n’ ModPunkBlues” in an allusion to The Who’s iconic Marquee Club poster. With Speed, we released a single on an underground punk label based near London. We thought “London’s where it’s at!” and as soon as we turned 18, we dropped out of school and moved there! This move did not go well: The explosion of Brit Pop had actually led to quite a lot of interest in 60s-influenced music but we were a) loath to jump on a trend, and b) moving on musically.

We had dabbled in Guns ‘n’ Roses and Nirvana before, but now we seriously got into that heavier stuff. Speed turned into Black Lürxx (thanxx Nikki Sixx for the umlaut and the double-x!) Success did not come our way because NO ONE was interested in that kind of music in London in 1995… So we copied our heroes and moved out to Los Angeles… 

MM: How did y’all land on “The Lürxx” as the name to stick with?

Xavi: We had this fascination with the German word “Lurch” (= newt). We thought it sounded hilarious and we used to do this weird dance while we were saying “Lurch” over and over again (the “Lurchtanz”) and it just cracked us up (yeah, admittedly we were not often sober during these times…). And we were HUGE fans of Nikki Sixx and the Crüe. And “Lürxx” is basically a merger of all that. Originally, we added the “Black” to make it more dark and mysterious. Our mascots were black newts, and we still do a lot of jokes around the newt-thing, like that we call our newsletter the newtsletter and stuff like that! We thought it was cool to have such a mysterious band name with a word that no one would be able to place. Remarkably few people ask us about it, though! Over the course of time we realized how much sense it makes for us to have a newt in the band name, with newts being amphibians, the connection of life in the water and life on land, and with all life coming out of the water… it fits really well with our whole anti-speciesist, “we’re all one” philosophy. But none of that was intended!

MM: So y’all unintentionally ended up with quite an appropriate name! I can’t imagine having the wherewithal to just…move to LA. What was that like?

Xavi: Weirdly, it didn’t feel scary to us. That might have just been because we were 18 and had the biggest fuck-you attitude ever and were drinking quite heavily, but even taking all that into account, it seems insane looking back at it, how unimpressed we were. We literally just went like “right, London sucks, all our heroes went to LA to make it, we should do that, too.” Then we sold almost all our stuff, spent two months living in our rehearsal room (January / February, no heating, no warm water…) to save money, borrowed some money, and bought plane tickets to LA.

We didn’t even tell our parents we were gonna go there, because we were like “We’re 18, we don’t have to tell you anything!” But we also didn’t hide it, so eventually our moms got hip to it. Safe to say they were NOT happy. But Sabú’s mom, who always supported us, actually agreed to drive us to the airport. We remember that on the ride to the airport, we listened to Mötley Crüe’s “Danger”… We knew close to nothing about what LA in 1996 was like. All our knowledge came from the rock biographies and interviews we had read, so our information was about 10 years off. We even thought that Hollywood was by the sea. It looked like it in the Doors movie. That’s how clueless we were!! We arrived with our guitars, a rucksack, and $1000. To make the money stretch as far as possible, we decided to not book ourselves into a motel; instead, we stayed on the streets for the first two weeks, sleeping on a building site on Sunset Strip. Since we were in the States on a tourist visa (which we threw away), we had no official papers, so we couldn’t buy a car or easily get an apartment. That was nothing we had thought about beforehand. Luckily, we eventually found a landlord who was corrupt enough to not care about papers as long as he got the rent in cash every month. Even though the first months in LA were super tough, we absolutely LOVED it! We were so pleased with ourselves – we were totally living the dream! In fall, we managed to set our life up a little better, found a drummer, recorded a demo, and then in February 1997, we had our first gig in Hollywood, at the Coconut Teaszer. Dreams do come true!

MM: That sounds so scary! But I admire the bravery and determination. How was that first show? And, taking that further, what do you love about playing live?

Sabú: At the time, we had this guy, Leon, live in our little shoe box of an apartment. He helped us pay some of the rent, ’cause he needed a place after his girlfriend kicked him out. He was originally from New York, and one of his past bands had opened for the New York Dolls. He was friends with Arthur Kane and we ended up having a very strange conversation with Arthur in his run-down little West Hollywood apartment, but anyways – Leon was at that show and critiqued us and he told us afterwards that we seemed a little nervous but that it had gone well. We were quite satisfied with the performance – we, of course, did not want to admit that it was our first time, we were always too cool for that, we didn’t wanna seem like beginners. That added a ton of extra, unnecessary stress, but we apparently felt we accomplished that that night. In hindsight, it was super dumb of us to always pretend to be more knowledgeable and experienced than we were, because we could have gotten much more support from people had we admitted that we needed it…

This is gonna sound a bit like we’re dicks, but honestly: [what we like about shows] is the attention! The cheers, the lights, being the centre of attention! And we like the dressing up, putting on the make-up, the full-on stage gear. Getting into this full-on persona is a feel-good moment, really good for self-love and mental health! We also like connecting to the audience and to pass on positive energy – we get that a lot after shows, that people come up to us and say that we made them feel better, and that’s really great!! One dude once told us “you radiate happiness!” and that was beautiful. It’s also fun to confront random people with our weird lyrics and to give them something to think about.

MM: Did you guys always have a similar vision as to what the band would be, or are there contrasting influences in there as well? 

Xavi: The two of us are basically twins – we’ve been so close since we were 13 that we feel like we’re a two-headed monster: each has its own head and thoughts, but more or less we are always heading in the same direction. Our vision for the band, actually for all our bands, was always fully aligned. We never had artistic disagreements. Amazing, actually, come to think of it! Our taste in music outside of the band is not always entirely aligned (Sabú sometimes likes to listen to classical music, for example, and I don’t), but these different tastes just flow into the band harmoniously and merge into a thing that we are both 100% behind. It just leads to our songwriting being versatile.

MM: In regard to your songwriting, what is your process? Where do you draw most of your inspiration from? (I know y’all support a few causes, and I’m sure a lot of it comes from there, but I still like to get an artist’s answer.)

Xavi: We draw most of our inspiration from conversations we have about stuff. For example, we’ll see on IG that Nikki Sixx took pictures at a local rodeo and thought it was really cool. We get pissed off about that because it’s no fun for the stressed-out animals being exploited for entertainment there. I remember a story I saw on Facebook about a Mustang sanctuary. We get the idea to write a song about mustangs for people like Nikki, who maybe just never had the chance to reflect on what it means for these horses to lose their freedom. And then we write the song (this will be our next release!).

And a lot of really great ideas actually start out as jokes, just us goofing around and then all of a sudden we’re like “wait, this is actually awesome!”

Because we have been creating together for so long, we have this incredibly natural way of working together. It’s the twin-thing. We just kind of vibe together and bring out the best in each other. Generally, you can maybe say that I’m the guy for the big picture, and Sabú is the guy for the details. I will often bring in a chunk of something, a riff or a picking pattern or even something resembling a song already, and Sabú will listen and then dig in and say “can you try this here” or “can you take this melody up instead of down there” or “this run is nice but can you vary it when you repeat it” and then we take it from there. Also, I only ever write with my guitar in hand – I say the songs are in my guitar – whereas Sabú will also sing stuff into his phone and compose in his head. He says the songs are inside of him.

MM: Still on the songwriting topic, how did “You’re Badass” come into being? I really, really dug it, so I need the story behind it! 

Sabú: We’re not a love song band. We’re a bug song and fish song and slug song band. A Lürxx love song is a weird thing. But in late 2022, things went a bit differently.

My mum accompanied me as I was exploring the rural outskirts of Hannover, Germany, with the idea of moving there, which didn’t happen. What put me off most was that I felt like I was zapped back into the nineties. Most restaurants didn’t have a vegan option, getting a coffee with dairy alternative was close to impossible, and every time it WAS possible, it was a huge topic. My mum struggled to understand what I was going on about. I felt I was being pushed in the “impatient and radical” corner when I just tried to continue with my normal habits.

Not long after the trip to Germany, we participated in a songwriting workshop offered by The Songwriting Academy, London. One thing that really annoyed us about this workshop was how focused on love songs everyone was. Can’t people write songs about other topics?! Somehow, though, the Germany trip and the songwriting workshop bonded in my brain and a morbid wish to write a rebel love song emerged. I couldn’t quite convince Xavi of the idea.

We were listening a lot to the first few Van Halen albums at that time. Inspired by Eddie’s awesome rhythm playing, Xavi one night came up with a massively driving rhythm guitar I absolutely adored! Some other night we were joking around while Xavi made dinner. At some point we burst out into a spontaneous Latino vocal jam, followed by an awesome boomy beat. We often do these kinds of things. We have a bit of a background with Latino music. We used to live in Catalonia.

Since I didn’t manage to get Xavi into gear about wanting to write a love song with me, I just started writing lyrics myself. Again inspired by Van Halen, I started out with some funny, joky “I’m hot for teacher” lines. And texted them to Xavi. That was it. He instantly loved them and helped me work them out further. I asked Xavi if he could imagine using his awesome rhythm guitar for the love song. He forgot about my question and some days later had the idea to use his awesome rhythm guitar for the love song. Yesssssss!!!! It fit just perfectly for the verses!

I felt that our Latino thingy would be a great musical counterpart to the verses we had. Xavi was a bit puzzled but trusted me and went into “el corazón me duele….!” I interrupted him. No, I do think we should change the lyrics…. And we exchanged “el corazón me duele todo el día y toda la noche!” to “you offer no excuses for your values and your convictions!” Then we had the idea to sing “you’re badass!” to the boomy beat that had spontaneously burst out after “el corazón.”

Now we had our song!!! By now, Xavi was totally into it, and he started experimenting with his vocal delivery. Again, we had just listened to a lot of early Van Halen, and Xavi was getting inspired by David Lee Roth and wanted to close the song with a cocky, flirty spoken part, so he started to just freestyle some funny pick-up lines. I was roaring with laughter when he first said: “hey, what you got underneath that placard you’re holdin’? Wanna go on a march together?”

“You’re Badass” is a milestone song for the Lürxx, because it’s the first song we’ve recorded in collaboration with [Sixx A.M. singer/record producer/mixer] James Michael. Before we started recording, James gave our home studio a little check through by listening to the sound quality we achieve. He gave us green light for all the electric instruments but sprang into action with an amazing gift for recording vocals and acoustic instruments: a microphone bursting with music history! We still can’t quite believe it, but he gifted us the microphone that was used for recording The Heroin Diaries soundtrack in 2007. 

MM: That’s quite a journey you had to go on to end up with “You’re Badass.” But I love it! That’s a great story!

So while we’re on the subject of equipment, what do you guys typically use? I feel like most musicians have a brand – or particular instrument – that they swear by. I could be wrong. 

Xavi: We both love Floyd Roses – all our guitars absolutely must have floating bridges!! The three guitars we currently have are a Schecter, a Steve Vai signature Ibanez, and a Jackson. We swap these amongst ourselves – like true twins, we share everything. Xavi plays a Taylor acoustic guitar, which he adores, and Sabú plays a selection of plastic recorders – sounds trashy, but they’re actually pretty good! His soprano recorder is actually Xavi’s ancient and apparently indestructible recorder from primary school! 

Our recording mic for vocals is probably our most exciting piece of equipment: the mic James Michael gifted to us.

Generally,  because we try to be as sustainable as possible,  we try to buy all our equipment second hand. 

MM: What are the band’s plans for 2024? Maybe a new album…? [I ask hopefully, haha]

Xavi: You’re in luck – we have quite a few releases planned for 2024!

At the moment, we are working on two songs with James Michael, “Mustang” and “The Streets Are Paved With Stars.”

“Mustang” – a song about mustangs having the right to roam free! – is earmarked for release in late June, and our autobiographical Hollywood-anthem “The Streets Are Paved With Stars” for late July. Also in summer, we will release these two songs together with “Weeds” and “Badass” on CD as an actual physical EP!

As we go into fall, we’ll be recording another bunch of songs with James – as long as he doesn’t lose interest, we’ll keep going – there is absolutely no shortage of songs! The next two songs after the summer EP will probably be the punky “We Got It All”, a song we mostly wrote when we were 16, and “Salmon (New Self),” which uses the picture of salmon migration as a metaphor for starting anew in the middle of life.

We’ll also parallelly work on an acoustic project with two producers we know in London. That acoustic project will be a three-song EP that takes the listener on a journey of self-discovery and bonding with nature. 

So loads to look forward to!

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The Lürxx hit the ground running and haven’t stopped! With so much on the horizon, be sure to follow the band on their socials and your favorite streaming service to ensure you don’t miss anything.

In the meantime, you can check out the latest singles, “You’re Badass” and “We Are The Weeds.” For those who enjoy “You’re Badass” as much as I did, there is an e-book series available that takes a more in-depth look into the creation and meaning behind the track.