Interviews
LOVECOLOR Talks Dream Collaborations, Industry Battles, and Their Explosive Debut
Ryan Carnes and Vanessa Silberman of LOVECOLOR join us to discuss their music, their origins, collaborations, playing live, and more.

Picture sound as a neon creature slithering under flickering marquee signs—restless, hungry, squinting through the half-lit corners of your favourite late-night venue. That’s where LOVECOLOR has landed with their self-titled debut album: hovering somewhere between glossy alt-pop stardom and a secret warehouse gig scrawled on a sticky note. This self-titled album doesn’t just shimmer; it lingers in your peripheral vision like an apparition decked in velvet and sweat, whispering sweet nothings about Madonna, The 1975, and Phantogram while you try to figure out which decade you’ve slipped into.
The beat strikes hard and soft at the same time—massive yet subdued—like a skyscraper made of pillow stuffing. Vanessa Silberman’s voice arrives almost covertly, something you sense rather than see at first until it swells and coils around the synths. No cheap fireworks, no obvious pyrotechnics. Everything is so cool and poised it might make you question the tempo of your own heartbeat. It’s like stepping back into a New York that’s wearing chipped nail polish and a sly grin when the city’s sky was hazier, its phone booths abundant, and its clubs a murkier kind of glamorous.
LOVECOLOR’s origin story feels like a midnight conversation between a seasoned DIY hustler and a film-world shapeshifter. Silberman, a touring workhorse who’s engineered for industry giants, and Ryan Carnes, an actor-musician with a taste for unexpected roles, have converged to produce a sharp, acidic take on pop music that acknowledges shifting industry values while refusing to kneel before the algorithm gods. The result is a sound both forward-looking and oddly time-warped, a dance floor daydream that resists classification.
They’ve been sonic anthropologists from the start, sifting through aesthetic sediment, pocketing fragments of sound and style, and then pressing them together until something unexpectedly elegant emerges. It’s a process that turns the familiar bizarre and the alien inviting, the kind of creative mischief that makes you want to lean in and listen harder.
In the conversation that follows, LOVECOLOR speaks on what fuels their alchemy: the influences they’ve absorbed, the methods that guide their craft, and the secret routes they’re charting through a musical labyrinth that grows more complex by the minute.
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
LOVECOLOR: “As a band, we’d love to collaborate with a variety of artists. We love both harder rock and full-on pop. Collaborating with Ryan Tedder, Jamie Hince (The Kills), Joshua Carter (Phantogram), Mutt Lange, Richard Patrick (Filter), Dr. Luke, Max Martin, or Howard Benson would be incredible.
“We’re also huge fashion fans and would love to work with brands like AllSaints and Zara. Additionally, as health food enthusiasts, collaborating with Whole Foods and Sprouts would be a dream, especially since we know we can consistently get healthy food from them while on the road.”
Who are your biggest influences?
“LOVECOLOR has a wide range of influences, spanning from ’90s type rock (Seattle grunge bands like Nirvana as well as Silverchair, Helmet) to ’80s new wave and current indie as well dark pop (Depeche Mode, M83, CHVRCHES, Phantogram), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and even classic rock (Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones) to modern producers (Dr. Luke, Max Martin).”
If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be?
“These days, the message from the music industry can feel conflicting for emerging artists. There’s such a focus on numbers and metrics that creativity, originality, and work ethic sometimes get overshadowed. We’re in a dual age now where bands and artists need to see themselves as brands. We’re grateful for mainstream artists committed to being themselves—Chappell Roan is a great example.
“We wish there were better ways for bands to be fairly compensated, especially for streams and live shows for bands coming up. Something like an indie band union could help. In the end, though, it’s up to us to take control of the industry, educate ourselves, and shape it into what we want it to be. We need to define our own path and stay true to our vision, even if it means stepping outside the norm.”
What is the music scene like where you’re based?
“New York has an incredible, thriving music scene, particularly in Brooklyn. There are so many great venues, Baby’s All Right, Sultan Room, Our Wicked Lady, TV Eye, and The Broadway, to name a few. The Brooklyn music scene is one of the reasons Vanessa is based there now. Before the pandemic, she spent a lot of time in the scene, touring, playing shows, meeting bands, and recording. It’s a very community-driven environment.”
Share one thing about the band that has never before been revealed.
“LOVECOLOR does not drink. We’re not sober from addiction. It’s just by choice. Both Vanessa and Ryan, ironically, both were this way before the band started and just happened to not drink alcohol and prefer the clarity of sobriety and a healthy lifestyle.”
Which act would you want to tour with?
“There are a number of acts that we’d love to tour with, so it’s very hard to narrow it down to one! Here are some of them, in no particular order… Depeche Mode, Phantogram, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Chvrches, St. Vincent, The 1975, Sleigh Bells, Kesha, Chappell Roan, Taylor Swift, Foo Fighters, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Nickelback, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Muse, Sleep Token, Alt-J, Metric, Duran Duran, Silversun Pickups, and Radiohead.”
What is the story behind the LOVECOLOR name?
“The overall process of coming up with a name took a very long time and was quite painstaking, as I’m sure it is for some bands. You don’t realize just how many bands and artists are out there making music until you start doing Spotify and social media searches to ensure that a name isn’t already taken! It was very important to us to come up with something unique. We didn’t want there to be another ‘one of us’ out there. Some artists and bands are ok with that, you know. You can find three, four, or five projects of the same name sometimes. We didn’t want that.
“Initially, we came up with a name that we loved right away, that felt very personal and also something we thought sounded really cool and looked really cool written out. However, after some digging, we found a guy on Facebook who was creating music under that name, so we bailed on that one. Fairly soon after that, Ryan proposed another name that Vanessa really responded to and that she thought was the one. Ryan wasn’t satisfied though and was convinced that we would be able to come up with something even better… but, alas, we didn’t.
“LOVECOLOR was that name, and we ended up circling back around after several months of digging and debating and settled on that. The name was directly inspired by an Alt-J (one of Ryan’s favourite bands) lyric — ‘Love is the warmest color’ — that he’s always thought was very smart and beautifully profound. So from that, LOVECOLOR was born.”

LOVECOLOR in the studio, self-portrait
How would you describe your creative process?
“Our creative process is very collaborative, and also pretty similar with every song. Vanessa writes a demo — sometimes very rough with maybe just a melody and a beat, a sample and pieces of a verse and/or chorus. Sometimes there isn’t even a hook or bridge yet, sometimes there is. Other times, as in the case of ‘Hearts On Fire,’ the demo will be extremely developed, the hook will already be there, and it’s just a matter of fine-tuning.
“After Vanessa writes the demo, no matter how rough or how refined, she sends it off to Ryan for him to listen and give input. From that point, we make the choice if we’re vibing with it enough to build it out, or if we want to set it aside and move on. That’s when the collaboration really starts.
“Ryan will take what Vanessa has created and start making production, arrangement, writing suggestions, etc. That might look like re-writing some drum parts, coming up with a lead line, suggesting harmonies, adding BG vocals, or finding ways to create more dimension by layering additional instrumentation or coming up with some fun ear candy.
“In the process, we bounce a lot of ideas off of each other. Sometimes the ideas don’t work at all, and sometimes they work out really well. Regardless, we’re always willing to try each other’s suggestions to see how they pan out. The two main rules are: there are no bad ideas, and the best idea always wins.”
What’s the best show you’ve ever played?
“So far, we both agree that our favourite show we’ve ever played was our first LA show. We’re still a fairly new band, and though we’ve done a number of tours, we don’t have an extensive history of shows to compare. That said, we played a showcase for We Found New Music at Hotel Ziggy, and everything just went exceptionally well. The sound in the venue was really dialled in, we could hear ourselves extremely well (which every musician knows is not always the case), tons of our friends turned up to the show, the room was jam-packed, and the energy was very high.
“The crowd was super engaged and having a great time, and that makes all the difference. It’s very difficult to play dead rooms. There’s no give and take, no energy exchange, no reciprocity. Live music is a very communal thing, and what the crowd is giving back definitely makes a huge difference in the overall tenor and the experience we have on stage. That night, everything was clicking.”
Along those same lines, do you take advantage of technology and email riffs and parts back and forth, or do you get together in a room in a more traditional sense and write together?
“We do both. However, we definitely choose to take great advantage of technology. We live on opposite coasts, so unfortunately, though we’d love and much prefer to do all of our writing and recording together in the same room, we aren’t often afforded that luxury. As a result, yes, we send a LOT of emails and voice memos, trading ideas and making suggestions during the writing process. Ryan travels, typically once every few months, to Vanessa, so they can work in her studio together, and that’s always a huge treat. We really relish those times when we get to be together and create together. There’s no substitute for being in the same place at the same time so that we can try production ideas, re-write parts, track vocals, guitars, drums, etc in real-time and implement the things that work.”
Do you have any rituals before you hit the stage? If so, what are they?
“We both do have rituals before we go out. We both like to hit the stage with some food in our stomachs, but not very much. And we like to have enough fuel, but not so much that we feel lethargic or distracted. Either on the way to the venue or after we’ve loaded in, depending on timing, Vanessa heads out to the car to do vocal warm-ups, which is almost a meditation in some ways and Ryan tries to be as anti-social as possible and hide from everyone.
“Jokes aside, that’s not too far from the truth. Sometimes it’s not possible to completely disappear if there are friends or family there who need to be greeted or taken care of. When it is possible, though, Ryan likes to keep to himself and, at the very least, he always sneaks away for five or ten minutes before our set time to meditate and get still, which is a very important aspect of preparation for him.”
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