BLOODCAT LOVE

"The antic sultriness of Bloodcat Love, with their suspended hooks and gravelly crooning shot through with guitar-riff gold" - Flavorpill Los Angeles
“I think there were 3 defining moments in my life as far as music goes,” says Myles Hendrik. “One would be hearing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band. Two would be seeing the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and pretty much simultaneously being handed a copy of Naked Lunch” number three. Therein is the thesis behind the formation of Bloodcat Love.
Raised in the suburbs of Auckland, New Zealand, Hendrik, BCL’s lead howler and mastermind, started playing music at the tender age of 8. By his early 20’s he was finding inspiration from American bands and writers. He was also finding an intense desire to join their ranks. Intrigued by urban bohemian and underground rock, he dove headfirst into songwriting. The years following would bring alternating shifts between various successful local rock outfits - one was nearly inked to a deal with Universal New Zealand - and writing the vein of his beloved Beatnik bards. Yet, on a large island, on an opposite hemisphere from the culture he admired so much, Hendrik’s desires still felt unfulfilled. He longed for America. The territory felt more available, more sprawling not only in its geography but also in its artistic idea. The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, Television, Richard Hell, New Wave, No Wave, and all that was subterranean New York felt more like home than anything around him. It was closer to everything that had moved him to create.
In 2003, a year after his arrival in the U.S., Hendrik met Nicholas Oja, a Swede who had also recently arrived in Los Angeles at the behest of a U.S. record label. Having shared similar passions, he’d tenured in 11 different outfits in his home country and would add two more upon his arrival. The two spent several conversations discussing influences, cultural leanings, and what they saw for the future. Soon, they were listening to a rough set of demos Hendrik had been toying with at home. The tracks were basic, but very catchy. Hendrik was nodding to post-punk and writing pop songs that were as musical as they were literary. Almost immediately, the two found themselves recording as members of a burgeoning music project.
Fixated on creating a full outfit and making this new group the central focus of their musical careers, the duo spent the following months in search of remaining players and fine-tuning the roughs Hendrik has started on his own (where Oja, who had previously tenured on upright instruments, insisted on joining Bloodcat Love as a drummer, the group’s rotating line-up eventually forced him back to the bass). Another friend, Chris Cester of Aussie retro rock outfit Jet, was one of many who heard the demos and instantly volunteered his own band to help finish the missing parts. So pleased with the collaborative process and it’s outcome was Cester that, he offered, should Hendrik and Oja find permanent live players, that the bands tour together.
Days to the moment the offer was made, fate stepped in. Dion Lunadon an old pal of Hendrik’s had called to tell him that he too would be leaving New Zealand for The States. Upon his arrival Lunadon (formerly of The D-4) also found himself enjoying the demos and instantly offered to step up on guitar. The phone rang again. This time it was Claudia Rossi, who had spent years honing her skills behind a drum kit and collecting enough force and delivery to rival most male counterparts. She too fell in love with the recordings. Bloodcat Love’s line-up was complete.
After months of focus and steady collaboration BCL played a handful of prominent local shows. So strong were their initial performances that BCL quickly built an instant following and gained avid approval from Jet's management. With that the foursome set out on a set of select dates with their headliner friends. Diving head first into a world where they would play to sold out houses and avid fanatics of the sound they so long admired, the band manifested an indelible stage presence. Never one to shy away from stripping down whilst at the mic or dousing himself in any available liquids, Hendrik was a firebrand from the outset. Now he’d made a science of the sound and a spectacle out of his performance. Rossi had always beaten the skins with as much intent and energy as they could take, but now she was a true dynamo. She looked on from behind the kit with a sneering joy. The combination of Oja's rolling bass picks and Lunadon's pure melodies gelled the string section in it's own, ineffable way. The spectacle, the sound, the band had syncopated, set itself and come out reborn. They had found their synergy and were a force to be reckoned with.
BCL's post-tour, triumphant return home found them so well received that various L.A. luminaries, such as Autolux, Giant Drag and Dead Meadow, extended invitations for one-off dates. To round out 2006, LA Weekly’s annual ‘Welcome To Indieland’ top local bands feature raved about “Catchy guitar lines, baritone pop vocals and adhesive retro-soaked melodies distilled into tracks so danceable, they immediately feel like a guilty pleasure.”
In 2007, the band - with new guitar players Joshua Mancuso and Mitch McIvor [cousin of the Cester brothers of Jet] replacing Lunadon and Marty Cornish now on the skins - can be found as the tightest of brotherhoods. Rapturous reviews to recent shows with The Horrors and She Wants Revenge have firmly cemented them as an enclave, an artist collective, spending their days rehearsing and thinking of new ways to evolve while paying homage to those that were their inspiration. Their sound is straight to the core of rock n’ roll. The music, a mixture of DC5 covering Lou Reed, the lyrics a Martin Rev meets Kerouac musing. With every new height BCL aims to create a sound that’s infectious, fun, intelligent and uplifting. They want to break the cycle of banal rock lyricism and sonic passivity and reinject something new into its veins.
"The likes of Bowie and Lou Reed made me feel alive...hopeful...made me feel good about life...made me wanna dance and express...” Hendrik posits. Fitted well into their toe tappin’ shoes, it’s Bloodcat Love’s turn to carry the torch.
“One of the best L.A. indie bands of '06" - L.A. Weekly
"The singer of Bloodcat Love is extremely talented" - Rolling Stone
"If you like your rock dirty and sleazy with a knifefight sense of urgency check Bloodcat Love out." - Amateur Chemist
"After a flurry of dates over the summer and fall, including a support slot on Jet’s tour, the retro-tinged dark-pop-rock outfit is now preparing its much-anticipated EP. Tracks like “Viva Modula,” full of catchy riffs and near-guilt-inducing danceability, and the glibly titled “Yeah Yeah Sweet,” which boasts surfy guitar layered over relentlessly groovy bass lines, have already broken through and gotten heavy airplay on Indie 103. Live, their appeal is immediate: Drums thunder with just enough power to inspire booty-shaking, guitar hooks weasel instantly into memory, and vocals are low and sexy in that singer-who-can-pull-off-wearing-a-neckerchief kind of way." - LA Times
"I forgot who said it, but it definitely is true that rock and roll can soothe the soul. And, if you need any proof, you just need these two words: Bloodcat Love. Channeling the likes of Tom Petty and Lenny Kravitz, Bloodcat Love knows how to rock, and they rock hard. But, the band doesn't rock so hard that they alienate listeners - Bloodcat Love knows how to serve up suave rock anthems with class. It's all the simple formula of guitar, bass, drums and vocals, but the band mixes that old school rock with the new school rock (circa the Strokes and Libertines) so well that they make music that even your Dad will like. They may be classified as Indie, but there is nothing that should stop this band from going mainstream." - URB Magazine [Review]
"Bloodcat Love @ Spaceland... Make eyes at other young fashionable hipsters tonight at Spaceland with Bloodcat Love and a heathly consumption of alcohol. Someone will definitely get laid." - In Flight At Night
"Nightranger faves Bloodcat Love literally oozed throughout the room (singer Myles Hendrick performed much of the blinding set slithering around female fans in the crowd)." - LA Weekly
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