Fab Friday! Featuring Breedlove!

Why hello there little weapons! It's Fab Friday! Where every Friday (well almost every Friday) we give you a dose of fab by interviewing or covering a person that truly embodies everything Fab! This morning we have none other than Breedlove! For those of you who may not know that much about Breedlove, read on to catch up!

SPWW: So, Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Breedlove: My name is Breedlove, I'm a singer/songwriter/performance artist who has been living and working in New York City for the last ten years.  I was born in San Francisco to two performers, my mom was a popular cabaret singer in the '70s and '80s and still has a strong following, my dad sang with my mom and is also a well known actor in the Bay Area. I spent the first 5 years of my life on tour with them, living mostly in hotels or the houses of nightclub owners (one in Texas actually had a pool in the living room) until a truant officer came to our door and told them they had to put me in school.

I was born into Dirty Fucking Showbiz.. In fact, it's all I know really. If I'm not schlepping a heavy suitcase of costumes and music to a venue to put on a show half the audience isn't paying attention to, I'm not really living. The glamour of the unglamourous side of showbiz is what interests me most...the body odor and safety pins and blood stains.

Living and performing in NYC I've met the friends I always dreamed I'd meet. I can honestly say I'm now living the life of my childhood dreams.

SPWW: What does it mean to "Dress to Depress"?

Breedlove:  Dress to depress means what it says; wear what makes you feel the worst about yourself and makes others feel depressed just looking at you. You can also substitute "depress" with "amuse" because I often make myself laugh when I catch my reflection in a shop window and see how ridiculous I look. That's how I decide how effective an outfit is, by how sad, amused, or even scared I am to wear it (I guess scared of being pulled off the street, thrown in a white van, and locked in a mental hospital). My favorite thing to do is go someplace fancy in an ill-fitting sweatsuit or an outfit consisting of clothing made for children. People get really freaked out and that's the point. The best part is, it's very inexpensive, in fact, the cheaper the better.

SPWW: What are some items of clothing that you consider to be "Must Haves"? You know some people say, you HAVE TO HAVE a certain pair of shoes or a black dress...

Breedlove: I'm "infamous" for a tank top I had airbrushed with a giant picture of my face (see latfh.com and the fashion "Don'ts" page of the February issue of Glamour magazine). I'm having it reproduced and will eventually be selling them at my shows, and I can't imagine a more important garment for people to own. But until those are available, I'd say a pair of sweatpants from a discount store...the more ill-fitting the better. In fact, I'm going shopping for a pair today!

SPWW: Justin talked about your band in the NME feature and said, "If you heard them and didn’t know who they were you’d be positive it was 1977."  What inspires your music, and if you were to pick a genre for it what would that be?


Breedlove: My music is inspired by pretty much every genre of the 1970's, top 40 rock and pop from the era, folk, soul, disco, glam, metal, prog, experimental, and art rock. My performance aesthetic is very theatrical, so I call the whole thing Rock 'N Roll Cabaret.

SPWW: You have a supremely catchy song called "Love on the Telephone" that is currently our ringtone.  What are your thoughts on Telephone lovin'? And did Lady Gaga and Beyonce steal your concept?

Breedlove: I wrote Love on the Telephone in 2006 while house sitting for my friend Maria who co-wrote the Jennifer Lopez hit Waiting for Tonight (I think there's magical songwriting energy in her apartment). I was watching TV late at night because I couldn't sleep, and there were all these ads on for various phone dating lines. I just got the hook spinning over and over in my head, and the first verse wrote itself pretty quickly. I sat on it for a few years then finished it in 2008 in order to perform it at The Anna Copa Cabanna show.

People often assume it's about phone sex, which is fine, but I wrote it about a reclusive man who has made a New Years resolution to start meeting women, and figures out a way to do so while laying in bed in his pajamas. It's set in a time before cell phones and the Internet, where party lines and the like could be a legitimate method for meeting new people, not just to talk dirty.

When the Gaga/Beyonce track came out a bunch of people contacted me saying they heard similarities. When you have a group of friends as creative and tight as we all are, you get inspired by each other on a moment to moment basis. If my tune inspired them in any way it's an honor because our songs sound completely different, and I LOVE theirs and the video they made for it. At the end of the day, where my friends and our artistic visions are concerned, I'm of the mentality that whats mine is ours.

SPWW: Do you have any projects your currently working on? What's next for Breedlove?

Breedlove: I'm continuing the long but thrilling process of recording my first album. The tracks on myspace are just a preview, I do have more completed and am currently working on a few that I'm very excited about. It's already been over a year since I started, and I'm letting it take as long as it needs to because I don't believe in rushing the natural flow of creative energy. In a lot of ways what I'm creating right now is an aural collage, and I'm still gathering scraps of sounds and ideas. I had the album mapped out at the start, but new songs keep writing themselves and pushing to the front of the line, so even I haven't a clue what the finished album will look like.

There's a chance i could be doing a little touring soon. It's kind of a magical time right now, every day I get some more exciting news about myself or my friends. I like waking up every day and being surprised by all the good news.
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 Thanks again to Breedlove for giving us the opportunity to interview him.  For more info on Breedlove and to check out his fucking amazing tunes, visit his Myspace AND be sure to follow him on Twitter!