Friend Slash Lover

Have you ever imagined a brighter future for music, in which genre-defying sounds meet savvy, intelligent wordplay? Los Angeles’ FRIEND SLASH LOVER has seen it. With a fresh, creative approach to pop, as heard on their debut EP As American as Ones and Zeros, FRIEND SLASH LOVER is ready to share their vision with the world. Friend Slash Lover is the brainchild of renaissance man Josh Mintz, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the group. Mintz took to music early in life, playing fife in a ...

Have you ever imagined a brighter future for music, in which genre-defying sounds meet savvy, intelligent wordplay? Los Angeles’ FRIEND SLASH LOVER has seen it. With a fresh, creative approach to pop, as heard on their debut EP As American as Ones and Zeros, FRIEND SLASH LOVER is ready to share their vision with the world. Friend Slash Lover is the brainchild of renaissance man Josh Mintz, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the group. Mintz took to music early in life, playing fife in a drum corps marching band since the age of 8. He displayed a natural talent, winning state and national championships, as well as composing for the instrument. It was his interest in visual arts, however, that would take him to Rhode Island School of Design some years later, where he befriended OBEY artist Shepard Fairey, with whom he’d later help wheat paste those iconic posters alongside Josh’s own “Submit” button designs on the streets of San Diego. At school, he continued to pursue his natural inclination toward musical composition, synthesizing his two passions by contributing four of his electronic pieces to an installation at the school, where they played on a constant loop. Mintz would compile dozens of electronic songs he recorded on four-track, “releasing” them as albums to friends, and even getting airplay through the local radio station. “That was pretty amazing, considering it was basically noise,” says Josh. Flash forward a few years later to Los Angeles – Mintz has turned his interest in visuals into a full-fledged career, working as a creative director, getting his work into local galleries and living in a Hollywood art complex owned by artist Ed Ruscha, but he remains creatively restless. He calls upon a musician friend to teach him guitar. The friend tunes Josh’s guitar to an unusual open tuning – but once he leaves, Josh quickly writes four songs, deciding not to tune the guitar back to standard. “I still don’t know how to play normal chords,” he confesses. But it would inform his entire approach to music as one who wasn’t interested in playing by the rules. “I like to approach music completely by sound, rather than on a technical level,” he says. “The important thing is, how does the song sound? You can write a song on anything.” With this off-kilter musical background in place, Mintz turned to his own word-based art for inspiration. Strumming droning, chordal patterns in his room, he turned to the mirrors on which he had etched sarcastic, playful catchphrases: “I brake for guilty consciences,” “Where have I been all my life?,” “As American as ones and zeros” – and began to flesh them out into full-fledged songs, eventually building an impressive catalog of material that was inspired in equal parts by Sigur Ros, Nirvana and post-modern sensibility. “Songwriting is the greatest part of the ‘being in a band’ thing,” says Josh. “Sadly, that’s only 1% of the whole process.” Armed with this ever-expanding new songbook, Josh started to work on the other 99% of the process, putting out an ad for a bass player. Frank Day was the only one to respond – but he was the perfect candidate. “I wanted someone who could write melodic lines like Andy Rourke from the Smiths. At this point, I think Frank is better,” boasts Josh. As a successful doctor with a knack for organization, Frank brought a sense of much-needed order to Mintz’s artistic impulses. Adding keyboardist Matteo Natale, the band began exploring rock territory, fleshing out the acoustic beginnings of Mintz’s songs with electronic sounds and textures. Financing themselves, they entered the studio to record a three-song demo – but upon completion, Josh was more than dissatisfied with the results, even though his bandmates disagreed. “When I considered it, I realized the things I was unhappy with came from me: the guitar sound, the voice,” says Josh. “I needed an entirely new method.” Natale departed the band – and the country – after a rocky gig, Friend Slash Lover seemed to have prematurely ended. Forgoing the band democracy of the past, Mintz took it upon himself as the project’s sole decision-maker to craft a new record. Informing bassist Day he was going to “try an experiment,” Josh enlisted producer Jim Roach and mixer Thomas Flowers to start from scratch. With the encouragement of his roommate, a fellow artist, he began to move away from the more traditional rock sound of the ill-fated demo, and more towards eerie, stripped-down sonic settings in which the material could truly shine. The result is As American as Ones and Zeros, an EP that is truly one for our times. Kicking off with the EP’s title track, a raucous yet intricate meditation on saving ourselves from technology with technology, Mintz turns his own mirrors on his audience. “People want a pill to cure them of their woes/It’s as American as ones and zeros,” he crows in the song’s refrain, reflecting modern pathos in a succinct, three-minute epic. Later, “Disasteroid” playfully toys with another present-day paranoia: global warming. “I was inspired by an old George Carlin sketch,” says Josh. “where he pointed out how arrogant it is to say we’re ‘killing the planet,’ when in fact, we’re only killing ourselves.” Careening through skillful wordplay, defining Earth itself as an “asteroid,” Mintz teases us with the threat of “warming” in the chorus: “It’s getting warmer in here/a little more every year/but there is nothing to fear/because the world will still be here/after all.” Elsewhere, Josh shows off his dynamic range as a songwriter with the acoustic-dominated ballad “Breakin Up.” Highlighted by whispering feedback and plaintive piano lines, the song came together in a single day. “It’s my favorite recording so far,” says Josh. “I moved away from the wordplay of the other songs to just create an emotional track that’s full of space.” So far, the response to this new set of songs has been phenomenal – the band has already filmed a professional music video for “Disasteroid,” a free gift from a fan and friend looking to break into filmmaking. “He asked if he could shoot a video. I agreed, figuring he was just going to bring a hand-held camera to my house,” says Josh. “Next thing I know, I have my own dressing room and we’re shooting in the Hollywood Hills with thirty extras.” On the set, extras and crew posted internet updates and pictures – bringing even more exposure to this rising talent. “I already had an offer for another free video,” says Mintz. What’s next? Mintz plans to further his ambitions both as an artist and musician simultaneously in the “awesome creative outlet” of Friend Slash Lover. He’s planning an art show to coincide with As American’s record release, having the music feed back into the art just as the art originally fed into the music. He wants to integrate his own filmmaking into the band, and he’s never short on songs – “I’ve already got the next five records mapped out.” Fueled by seemingly unlimited creativity and borderless integration of all forms of artistic expression, FRIEND SLASH LOVER is clearly a band to watch for years to come.