Five Minutes: Love and a .38

Love and a .38, who will be performing at the music festival Saturday, are no strangers to the Sunset Strip. The hard rock band's first gig was at the Viper Room and since then it's played at numerous venues along the boulevard including the Roxy and the Key Club. 

Los Angeles-based Love and a .38, whose four members came together in fall 2008, completed their self-titled debut album this year, working with Grammy Award-winning engineer Shawn Sullivan. Patch caught up with drummer Danny Excess to talk about the band's musical inspirations and its upcoming performance at the Sunset Strip Music Festival.

West Hollywood Patch: How do band members come up with the songs? What's the process like?

Danny Excess: Usually, writing consists of a band member bringing in a song idea, [and] then the whole band will play with it until we either kill each other, or it becomes a finished product. 

Patch: Does Love and a .38 have a message, and if so, what is it?

Excess: [Our song "In the End" says] A war is coming from inside, I will not live to just survive. From where I stand until the world's end, the Gods fall from the skies when I arrive. 

A lot of our lyrics parallel fights or a struggle, but are kind of supposed to be motivational in an aggressive way. We aren't trying to put out any kind of message, but we try to write songs that you would listen to to get pumped up to do something.

Patch: Tell us about your first gig.

Excess: We were fortunate enough to play our first show at The Viper Room on the world famous Sunset Strip. We worked really hard to get a good-sized crowd there. We played shows all over L.A., eventually returning to the Viper Room, then on to venues such as the Key Club and The Roxy.

Patch: Over the past two years, how have your gigs and tours progressed along with your fan base?

Excess: Every show gets bigger and better. As the shows get bigger, we start to see familiar faces in the crowd, which is awesome! We have had the opportunity to meet a ton of really cool people at the shows, and we try to get to know all of them. On May 8, we had an album release show at the Roxy Theatre, which is like a second home to us.  The crowd was unbelievable. 

Since releasing the album, we have started gaining a lot of fans all over the U.S. and in other countries. Right now, we are focusing on playing more out of town gigs and getting our name out there. We love our fans and everyone that continues to support our band.

Patch: Who does the band draw its musical influences from?

Excess: Each member in the band has slightly different influences. For the most part, the music we write is influenced by bands such as AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Backyard Babies, The Cult, Hellacopters, Aerosmith, Billy Idol, Dead Boys, etc. 

Patch: How would you describe your sound?

Excess: Loud, energetic and rock 'n' roll.    

Patch: What's in store for the future for Love and a .38?

Excess: We definitely want to get out and tour as much as possible.  We really want to expand our fan base as much as possible.

Love and a .38 will perform Saturday at the Cat Club at 8:20 p.m. To purchase tickets to the Sunset Strip Music Festival, click here. Learn more about Love and a .38 here.