You may have been scrolling through Instagram or X when you came across tens of thousands of fans going absolutely crazy pouring out their love and joy for a band called Lovejoy. You may have especially seen them the past couple of days as they released their promotional single, “Normal People Things” which reached the top of both Apple Music’s “Antidote” and Spotify’s “Rock This” playlists. After seeing all of this hype for some random British band, you may be asking yourself who this Lovejoy is and why their fans go so crazy for them.

Lovejoy is an indie rock band formed in early 2021 by Will Gold, Joe Goldsmith, Ash Kabosu, and Mark Boardman in Brighton, UK. The band’s sound recalls that of bands like The Killers and Los Campesinos! In the span of two and a half years, they have released 3 EP’s and 3 singles, with one single coming sometime before the end of this year. They have a respectable following, having around two and a half million listening on Spotify. But what’s Lovejoy’s story? How did they come to be one of the fastest growing indie rock bands in the world? It all starts sometime in late 2020…

The concept for the band struck frontman Will Gold sometime around 2020. Gold had previous experience with the music industry, as he has released solo music projects since 2019. He also stated he once played bass for a local folk band, where he met Lovejoy’s lead guitarist Joe Goldsmith. Gold first invited now ex-member and band friend Benedict Lovejoy to the band. The two originally planned on naming the band “Hang the DJ” before the name was changed to its current name Lovejoy. After recruiting the band’s first member, Will then asked his friend Joe Goldsmith if he would like to join the band, to which Goldsmith accepted. Bassist Ash Kabosu was approached by Gold at a burger joint after noticing a bass guitar on his back, and Gold inquired if he would like to join the band. Kabosu accepted the proposal, and “Hang the DJ” was then fully formed. 

Benedict Lovejoy decided to leave the band before the release of their debut EP. To give credit to him, the band was renamed to Lovejoy. It is now March of 2021, and Lovejoy still did not have a drummer. Lovejoy decided it would be best to hire a drummer off of a freelance website to drum for the tracks of their EP. The drummer was none other than Mark Boardman. After witnessing Mark’s drumming expertise in the studio, Lovejoy asked Boardman if he would like to permanently join the band, to which he agreed to join.

Lovejoy’s 4-piece EP, Are You Alright?, released in April of 2021, instantly garnered a rather large following, mostly thanks to Will Gold’s previous following from being a content creator. The EP itself was of good quality. All elements of the tracks including Gold’s jerky rhythm guitar, Mark’s excellently executed drumming, Ash’s complex bass riffs, and brass gave the EP a unique sound. Now with the EP’s success, Lovejoy knew they had to keep on carrying on with music releases, which they did in September 2021.

For Lovejoy’s next EP, Pebble Brain, the band took a lighter approach to the songs. The EP itself has a feel-good and hyped-up aura to it, with the opening track sounding upbeat and ecstatic as Gold insults his ex’s new partner. Lovejoy would continue the upbeat sound until their 4th track, which is sort of a dew point of the album as Gold speaks about the mysterious nature of love. The final track feels like a sort of credits song to Pebble Brain which perfectly complements and completes the EP while giving a sort of bittersweet emotion as the song dissolves into a spiral of madness before experiencing an abrupt end.

In the span of October 2021 to September 2022, Lovejoy would be mostly radio silent besides releasing two song covers. The first cover is of Los Campesinos’ “Knee Deep at ATP”, which is a melancholic tale of a man falling in love with a girl at a music festival only to learn she already has a partner. The second cover is of Crywank’s “Privately Owned Spiral Galaxy”. What’s interesting about this release is that the band’s sound clearly takes a shift and becomes somewhat heavier than previous releases.

After a long period of practicing, Lovejoy played their first official gig at Brighton’s famous “Hope & Ruin” venue. The band had previously played three gigs under different pseudonyms in order to get a feel of playing live to an audience. Lovejoy would have around three more tours before their next music release. During this time, the venues they played at rose exponentially in size. from playing at The Hope & Ruin in Brighton to Klub Stodola in Poland, which has space to hold around 2000 audience members.

In February, Lovejoy released a new single, “Call Me What You Like,” which showed the true shift into Lovejoy’s current sound. This single sparked a new era for the band, one where they are ready to go out into the world and make themselves known. The song received an abundance of praise and a great amount of radio play. Today, it’s one of Lovejoy’s most popular songs.

Just three months after the release of the wildly successful “Call Me What You Like,” and as Lovejoy commenced their North American “Across the Pond” tour, The Wake Up & It’s Over EP was released in May 2023. It was met with positive feedback from both fans and critics alike. The EP itself was punchy and explosive, it was definitely made to play live. From the rumble of heavy bass in “Portrait of a Blank Slate,” to the discordant ending of “It’s Golden Hour Somewhere,” it’s clear that the EP was well produced, and blows all their previous releases out of the water. The tracks recall multiple sounds of bands such as Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, and The Cure.

Lovejoy would go on to play at a multitude of music festivals over the summer, including but not limited to Governor’s Ball, Lollapalooza, TRNSMT, Shaky Knees, Glastonbury, and Isle of Wight. They would also go on their European Wake Up & It’s Over soon after. Lovejoy also has another North American tour this December, known as the “Road to 100” tour. For music releases, the band released their new single last week, as you may have seen from the swarm of fans proclaiming their enjoyment of the song. The band has also announced that they plan on releasing another song before the end of this year.

Lovejoy is an indie rock band from the south coast of England. Over two and a half years, they have released 3 EP’s and have garnered millions of listeners. What will come from Lovejoy in the following years? We can only speculate. However, if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that Lovejoy have secured their place in music history.