Tampa, FL-based pop punk/indie rock collective Automatic Loveletter features drummer Daniel Currier, bassist Wayne Miller, guitarists Jacob Fatoorechi and James Falson and lead vocalist/guitarist Juliet Simms. Simms has lent her formidable voice to records by All Time Low, Cartel, Secondhand Serenade and Lovehatehero. The group’s debut EP, Recover, was released in 2007. In February of 2009 the band released their second, self-titled EP, containing songs which are set appear on the full length The Ghosts We Carry Home — produced by Matt Squire (Panic at the Disco, Boys Like Girls), the release of which has been set back due to the band’s parting ways with Epic. They are currently in the process of signing with a new label.
The band was first called Stars and Scars and recorded its first rock song together in December of 2005, naming the song after the band but written by lead singer Juliet Simms. They also recorded “Tin Lizzy”, written by Juliet’s brother, producer and lead singer of Win Win Winter Tommy Simms. During this time they also recorded a joke Southern Rock song called “The Devil”, which Daniel wrote and sang lead vocals on.
Juliet also acoustically laid down all of the songs she had been writing over the last three years for consideration for her first major label album. Automatic Loveletter began recording their album with producer Matt Squire (Panic at the Disco, Boys Like Girls, All Time Low, Cute is What We Aim For). “He challenged me and I challenged him,” Simms said. “I felt very comfortable and that’s when the best of me comes out. The entire time was playful and fun and that’s what rock n roll’s about to me — having a good time.” Simms took her massive songbook to Squire and together they narrowed down the right tunes and crafted them to fit together, sometimes taking songs in entirely new directions. “The Answer,” for instance, was originally a ballad, but became one of the more upbeat numbers on the album. Daniel Currier and current lead guitarist Joe Nelson (one of the tightest shredding guitarists in the scene today) both played on the album, Sean Noll (bass) officially joining just before some of their first tours together and big brother Tommy occasionally touring with the band to play rhythm guitar in larger venues and outdoor concerts filling up the sound and the stage. Automatic Loveletter played the Bamboozle 2008 Right and Left and are scheduled for the 2008 Vans Warped Tour. “A lot of [the songs] are based on heartbreak, depression, obsession,” Simms says. “The lyrics go in all different directions because I never stop writing.” It is exactly her propensity for relationship epics that inspired the name Automatic Loveletter, although it’s not that literally defined. “I like dichotomies and anachronisms in my songs, artwork even my clothes, Automatic Loveletter fits in perfectly because it doesn’t fit.” “Paramore is the female-fronted draw of the day here at Bamboozle Left, but Automatic Loveletter’s Juliet Simms (pictured, right) more than held her own on the Nokia Ticket Rush stage. Clad in an obligatory black hoodie and strumming an acoustic guitar, she wailed her way through a frenetic half-hour set split by a solo acoustic ballad. Get this band on a main stage and she’ll be receiving automatic love letters by the truckload.” LA Times
The band will be releasing their first full-length studio album, with an as yet unreleased name, June 8th, 2010 (RCA Label Group).| |
