LORNE BEHRMAN
(Bio, 2021)

“Real blood and guts rock and roll that bleeds with soul and redemption.” – Jesse Malin, 2021

A lone shadow on the wall, an endless night, an empty whiskey bottle, Cheap Trick’s “The Flame” on repeat (a desperate choice for desperate times), and an indulgent recitation of a litany of pain: substance abuse, sexual trauma, financial struggles, loneliness, and career disappointment.

This was a dark milestone—that feeling of wanting to end it all, but being too chicken shit to actually do it. In some circles, this is called a bottom. For punk rock n’ roll guitarist/songwriter Lorne Behrman (who previously played in The Dimestore Haloes, L.E.S. Stitches, The Dead Tricks and The Sweet Things), this was one of those late-in-the-game galvanizing moments that either break you or make you. Today, he gets up from it all and steps forward with the visceral and vulnerable debut solo EP, When I Hit The Floor, out October 15, 2021 on Spaghetty Town Records. These are songs of redemption and reclamation. They may be personal, but their messages are universal.

The four-song collection is a series of New York City vignettes haunted by shadows but guided by light. The words here are literate and lacerating, recalling the street poetics of Lou Reed, Richard Hell, Television, Jesse Malin, and Joseph Arthur. The vocals have a beat punk-poet cadence with talk-sung melodies set against finely etched songcraft. The songs are essentialized like a Ramones song without excessive musical baggage, but also featuring stark and fluid guitar playing in the spirit of The Stooges’ James Williamson, Johnny Thunders, and Lou Reed and Richard Hell axeman Robert Quine.

“I moved to New York in 1997—I wanted to walk the streets Jim Carroll and Lou Reed sang about. The City seemed like a paradise of wounded romantics, black leather, and knishes. I immediately felt at home,” Lorne says with a good-natured laugh. He continues: “There is a weird mix of cynicism and hopefulness here—like you can burn all your bridges in one enclave, and then reinvent yourself in another part of town. That feeling of a second chance runs through my songs, like you may be banned from this bar, but they don’t care about that down the block.”

When I Hit The Floor bangs open with the anthemic title track. Rocking but reflective, the song’s intimate storyteller narrative is offset by tough-but-catchy riffage. Lorne grapples with the perils of self-mythologizing on the crunching classic rock track, “I Won’t Fade Away,” replete with a twisted Robert Quine-esque guitar solo.

The ominous “Sandcastles” finds him confronting sexual trauma with the chilling opening line: “What was done to me was done to you, I know/You’re just the messenger, I know.” The track comes off as a murder ballad with spooky Farfisa organ, and offers forth a nuanced narrative of sexual abuse cycles: hurting people hurt others. When I Hit The Floor concludes with a soulful ballad of salvation, “Oh Lord, Give Me Time,” featuring gospel-informed Hammond B3 playing and gorgeously weary female backing vocals. Here, Lorne gets as close to a come-to-Jesus-moment as a Jewish NYC rock n’ roller can.

The album’s raw but polished production aesthetic is courtesy of producer Matt Chiaravalle (Warren Zevon, Joe Bonamassa, Spacehog). “Matt played in the East Village rock n’ roll scene as a respected musician, and he produced my old band, L.E.S. Stitches, as well as other punk-influenced artists around town. He then went on to produce songwriter artists,” Lorne says. “I see myself living between these worlds, so he felt like the perfect pick to capture the attitude of my music and the sentiment of my songs. Matt also has a great sense of humor, and that made me feel at ease when singing about some painful things from my past.”

When I Hit The Floor was mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Joe Lambert. Lorne played all the guitars, wrote all the songs, and sang all the leads, joining him are drummer Hector Lopez (Alejandro Escovedo/The Sweet Things), keyboardist Rob Clores (Jesse Malin, Black Crowes, Alejandro Escovedo), and singer Dana Athens (Jane Lee Hooker). Wyldlife bassist Spencer Alexander designed the EP artwork, and it is a subtly playful homage to the cover of Don Henley’s first solo album, I Can’t Stand Still.

Previously, Lorne played guitar in The Dimestore Haloes who "should have been huge,” once gushed taste-making Beantown alt-weekly The Boston Phoenix, and L.E.S. Stitches, vets of The Warped Tour who made a performance cameo in Spike Lee’s Summer Of Sam. His band The Dead Tricks worked with Goldfinger’s John Feldmann, and he was most recently in The New York Dolls-y roots-punk band The Sweet Things. That band became East Village NYC darlings, and toured nationally and in the UK, releasing a brace of singles and a critically acclaimed debut, In Borrowed Shoes, On Borrowed Time on Spaghetty Town Records (2019). Up next, Lorne is working on his debut album, and planning live performances.

###