Get Back Loretta

What do you do when your band is on the brink of making it big? Apparently, you quit. That's what Steven Bradford did, but you won't see him regretting the decision. After a tour with Underoath and a mention in Alternative Press magazine, Bradford left Waiting for Autumn and formed Get Back Loretta.

Going in a completely different musical direction than his previous band, Get Back Loretta is a classy piano-rock ensemble, but not in the way you're thinking. They are not piano rock in the sense that Something Corporate or Waking Ashland are, but rather they play a much more traditional style influenced more by bands like The Beatles than by Jimmy Eat World. You can hear the 1960s and 1970s resonating through some of these songs, with classical guitar riffs becoming apparent in songs such as the catchy number "Caught in the Middle," or in the bluesy "Nobody Knows."

It is this vintage influence that makes Get Back Loretta so refreshing. It has allowed them to add more soul and jazz to their music, letting it exceed expectations one would normally have for piano rock. Bradford's vocals soar powerfully on tracks like the opener, "Ninety Five," and he hits a delicate falsetto over beautiful instrumentation on the wonderful "As I Lay" (which, by the way, has a tune eerily similar to the first half of Gatsby's American Dream's "A Manifesto of Tangible Wealth"). The album closes with the charming acoustic folk ballad "Pretty Song," which shows that even stripped of the backup support found on other songs, the songwriting is impeccable.

This EP is more than impressive. It manages to transcend any expectations, and the variety in music held within these six songs is astounding. This is an EP everyone should hear, and will find a nice place on my end-of-year list.

--
Band Website: http://www.getbackloretta.com
Band MP3s: http://www.myspace.com/getbackloretta - AbsolutePunk.net

Get Back Loretta is a band that wear it's influences on their sleeves, as many among you will instantaneously recognize a nod towards a certain Liverpudlian foursome, with the band’s name referencing a McCartney penned lyric from the ever popular song “Get Back”. Get Back Loretta offer up an invigorating revisiting of 60’s/70’s pop music, infusing it with lashes of bluesy guitar, soulful rhythms, and vocals that Lennon and co. would have been far from ashamed of.



Lead singer (Bass/Acoustic guitar) Steven Bradford decided to form Get Back Loretta after a stint with the popularly burgeoning screamo tykes Waiting For Autumn, after a split over creative differences. Such a disbanding was hardly astonishing in hindsight, especially considering the entirely different sound and approach of his new outfit, Get Back Loretta. On their debut EP, Get Back Loretta have sought to create a purely infectious, hook-laden record of the poppiest proportions and have succeeded in generating a collection of songs that are surrounded by a sense of musical history, this is what pop music used to, and should sound like.



The songs on show are mid-tempo, cheery little ditties that urge listeners to tap their feet and bob their heads, without ever being fully engaged, and this is where the band tends to fall short. They never entice the listener into the tracks and tend to give off an ambience of background music, albeit extremely attractive, well composed background music. Musically, Get Back Loretta offer little that hasn’t been done before, and are guilty of paying tribute too often and failing to “push the envelope”, instead they settle for a comfortable, streamlined sound reminiscent of Ben Fold’s Five or even a toned down Hot Hot Heat.



Despite their shortcomings, Get Back Loretta have formed an album loaded with pop promise, resplendent in its simplistic, contagious rhythms and melodious, appealing vocals. Don’t be fooled, Get Back Loretta are no Beatles, but they’re certainly headed in the right direction, and considering pop music nowadays is generally un-listenable trite, perhaps it has finally found a saviour, fit to don the fab four’s steadily rusting crowns.



--Rhys Duggan
- Decoymusic.com

Get Back Loretta are a band that wear their influences on their sleeves, as many among you will instantaneously recognize a nod towards a certain Liverpudlian foursome, with the band’s name referencing a McCartney penned lyric from the ever popular song “Get Back”. Get Back Loretta offer up an invigorating revisiting of 60’s/70’s pop music, infusing it with lashes of bluesy guitar, soulful rhythms, and vocals that Lennon and co. would have been far from ashamed of.



Lead singer (Bass/Acoustic guitar) Steven Bradford decided to form Get Back Loretta after a stint with the popularly burgeoning screamo tykes Waiting For Autumn, after a split over creative differences. Such a disbanding was hardly astonishing in hindsight, especially considering the entirely different sound and approach of his new outfit, Get Back Loretta. On their debut EP, Get Back Loretta have sought to create a purely infectious, hook-laden record of the poppiest proportions and have succeeded in generating a collection of songs that are surrounded by a sense of musical history, this is what pop music used to, and should sound like.



The songs on show are mid-tempo, cheery little ditties that urge listeners to tap their feet and bob their heads, without ever being fully engaged, and this is where the band tends to fall short. They never entice the listener into the tracks and tend to give off an ambience of background music, albeit extremely attractive, well composed background music. Musically, Get Back Loretta offer little that hasn’t been done before, and are guilty of paying tribute too often and failing to “push the envelope”, instead they settle for a comfortable, streamlined sound reminiscent of Ben Fold’s Five or even a toned down Hot Hot Heat.



Despite their shortcomings, Get Back Loretta have formed an album loaded with pop promise, resplendent in its simplistic, contagious rhythms and melodious, appealing vocals. Don’t be fooled, Get Back Loretta are no Beatles, but they’re certainly headed in the right direction, and considering pop music nowadays is generally un-listenable trite, perhaps it has finally found a saviour, fit to don the fab four’s steadily rusting crowns.



--Rhys Duggan
- San Diego City Beat

By Scott Johnson

In a musical landscape where a fusion of distinctive styles can spell success with a diverse array of fans, Get Back Loretta's jazzy-funk pseudo-rock is certain to attract fans with various musical tastes. The fact that their main influences include such rock superstars as the Beatles and Radiohead doesn’t hurt either. Get Back Loretta, a San Diego band recently signed by Pacific Records, has a very polished, versatile sound, ranging from the power-keyboard pop of “Caught in the Middle” and “Ninety-Five” to the contemplative, lonely “As I Lay”. The cutely titled “Pretty Song”, which sounds like it was written during a particularly enjoyable picnic, has surprising depth. The EP shows off so many of Get Back Loretta’s skills, from confident vocals that know what they’re doing to mature lyrics to a propensity for tightly constructed guitar riffs, that it is difficult to predict which direction the band will take in their forthcoming full-length album. Get Back Loretta is an enjoyable band with a boatload of potential on the local San Diego music scene, and their enthusiasm and promise shines through on this short, six-song E.P.
- The Scene (UCSD Publication)

Get Back Loretta - We thought we had discovered the best unknown band in San Diego – that was until we heard Get Back Loretta. A white boy piano-funk hybrid that sounds like a strange cross between Rocky Horror Picture Show, Queen and Ben Folds, catchy enough for ClearChannel and sassy enough for the kids just learning the joys of white belts and art-mullets. Yeah, this debut is that kind of good. Best out-of-nowhere goodness we’ve heard. They are nominated for “Best New Artist” in the upcoming San Diego Music Awards…pretty impressive for a band that’s only been together for one year.

- Fox 6, San Diego

review: over the wall, get back loretta
Current mood: sore
Category: Music

11 songs, 33 minutes... sort of a whizzbang of music that's expected from the ramones. except with get back loretta it's, like, serious.

every song on here is of a catchy, funky, upbeat commercial persuasion. commercial, not just in the sense of, "packaged and ready to be taken to market," but rather, "packaged and ready to help market," or, even further, "packaged and ready to help companies purvey their wares."

this is the kind of music that won't stay confined to a local niche very long. within each song there are at least two distractingly catchy riffs and you only need to hear one of them to know that get back loretta's chili is spicy. expect to hear their music soon in the background of ubiquitous WB-esque teen dramas because, while gbl will benefit from having their music on the show, the show will also greatly benefit from gbl being on there. that is the point that needs to be made clear: USING THIS MUSIC WILL ENHANCE ANY PROJECT YOU UNDERTAKE.

do we need to be reminded of a certain song by the 5,6,7,8's that is now synonymous with vonage phone service? now imagine an entire album - not just one song that is so absolutely terrible in a cute, quirky foreign way, but a really good album - that can have its tracks parsed and played behind everything from tampax to target. that is what we're dealing with people... and over the wall could very well be dealing with this tomorrow.

it's not just that the songs are terribly catchy, but they even allude to legitimate musical/poetic knowledge completely aside from their expansive grasp of pop sensibilities. from girlface: "quiver runs a vertical that causes a head change, keeps me from breathing out." steven bradford preciously and politely describes an orgasm... not since people euphemised (not a word) the act by calling it "the small death" has it had such a harmless, dainty quality.

gotta believe is also a very self-aware song, not to mention the future theme song for the trailer of san diego: the movie. it's a regurgitated st. elmo's fire with lots of post- (or pre-) collegiate angsty youngsters learning about life!! and other stuuufff!! one of the friends will obviously be a suicidal coke fiend... the other friends will then come and rehabilitate him/her to...

"you're taking the back seat, you give up on actions, you gotta believe, but somebody asks you, they get a reaction, you wanna believe."

and the audience gets a rush and the heroism and epicness of the song just kicks you out of chair into action. this song is gbl's bid to revive the now-blandly existing arena rock genre. thank you u2, retire now, you're done. coldplay, you're still here? angels and airwaveswtfdieplzthx. it's time to get back for effin' loretta!

despite the overt beatles homage in their name, the only songs that tinge with any actual beatles' musical influence are mr. brown and it's not over and still, those are pre-hashish-and-ravi-shankar-beatles situations. true to beatles form though, the rest of the album does favor catchy melody before harmony or lyrics, but that's an awfully broad conceptual idea to attribute to four british dudes in all of history.

gbl is guaranteed fame. they're extremely formulaic in what they do - verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge/outro (maybe) and maybe another chorus - but it's a damn good formula. when has that song form let anyone down? it would be interesting to see what happened if the songs ever breached the four-minute range; how the songs would develop (in particular, the bridges), how their talents would temper. maybe that's for a more adult contemporary crowd though (says the man from the band that just recorded a six-song ep that is over30minuteswww.myspace.com/causingproblems).

be excited that san diego has a new golden child that isn't jumping on board a musical fadwagon and coattailing into success. be excited when their riffs become pervasive in media of all shapes and sizes, including the st. elmo's fire remake. be excited for 33 awesome minutes of life, spent listening to their album. hell, at 33 minutes, there's plenty of time to listen to it again.

- andy killion


- Freelance by Andy Killion