Lydia Loveless

Firebrand alt-country singer Lydia Loveless combines the honky tonk sound and style of classic country stars like Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline with the no-quarter attitude and spunk of punk rock divas such as Exene Cervenka and Carla Bozulich. Lydia Loveless was born in Coschocton, Ohio in 1990; she was raised on a farm, but her father was also a music fan who booked bands at a local bar, and Lydia became accustomed early on to seeing bands play and discovering an out-of-town act asleep on the living-room floor in the morning. By the time Loveless was 13, she had taken up songwriting and was doing shows with local bands, playing a combination of rootsy country and punk-influenced rock & roll. After relocating to Columbus, Ohio, Loveless fronted a pop/rock band with her sisters called Carson Drew, but the combo broke up not long after the release of their 2006 album, Under the Table, and Loveless began concentrating on her solo career, forming a backing band with her dad on drums. In 2010, Loveless self-released her first solo album, The Only Man, which earned her rave reviews from the alt-country music media, and as she began work on a follow-up EP, she was contacted by respected insurgent country label Bloodshot Records, which promptly signed Loveless to a record deal. At the label's behest, Loveless expanded the EP to an album, and her first Bloodshot release, Indestructible Machine, was released in September 2011. After the album arrived in stores, Loveless and her band hit the road hard, touring extensively in the United States, Canada, and Europe. In 2013, Loveless began writing material for a third album, but shortly after the sessions for the full-length were completed, Loveless had a burst of inspiration that led to her writing and recording a hard-rocking five-song EP about the ups and downs of relationships. Titled Boy Crazy, the EP was released as a stopgap in late 2013, while the album, the confident and eclectic Somewhere Else, appeared in February 2014.