LORNE BEHRMAN
(Bio, 2024)

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

Some of your worst times can be your best times. Punk singer-songwriter Lorne Behrman explores this on his visceral and vulnerable sophomore album, Blue Love, out February 9th, on Spaghetty Town Records. This 11-song collection recalls Bob Dylan as produced by Phil Spector in 1970s CBGBs on a full moon. It is a series of New York City vignettes haunted by shadows but guided by light. Blue Love will be preceded by the anthemic single, “The Blue Goes On Forever.”

“This album is about experiencing pain and joy at the same time—like finding new love when everything in your life feels like it’s falling apart,” the NYC-based artist says. “That’s the beautiful secret of life: there are some great times in shitty times.”

Previously, Lorne issued a critically-acclaimed EP and debut album that have garnered accolades and features in Classic Rock Magazine, Vive Le Rock Magazine, Metronome, Glide Magazine, New Noise, Goldmine, and taste-making punk mag Razorcake. Lorne has played shows with Richard Lloyd (Television), Jeremy & the Harlequins, Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Jonny Polonsky, Adam Masterson, Lulu Lewis, and Diane Gentile, among many others.

The stories on Blue Love are literate and lacerating, recalling the street poetics of Lou Reed, Jim Carroll, Jesse Malin, Patti Smith, Hubert Selby Jr., and Tom Waits. The songs feature stark and fluid guitar playing in the spirit of Television, The Stooges’ James Williamson, Johnny Thunders, and Robert Quine with Lou Reed. The album’s first single, “The Blue Goes On Forever,” explores an ill-fated romantic relationship where both parties are co-dependent and emotionally unstable. The single—the yacht-punk future classic, “Barbara”—is a cinematic portrayal of an achingly beautiful junkie romance à la Jerry Schatzberg’s 1971 gritty New York classic, Panic In Needle Park. The song’s warm and emotionally evocative video is directed by and stars the creative team of Dave Tierney (frontman of The Sweet Things) and Scarlett Thiele.

The New York Dolls-y, “The Bellevue Song,” is a hilarious and campy rocker about falling in love while in a mental hospital. “Ferris Wheels” melds 1970s KISS cowbell rock with poetic relationship insights. The dying-love reverie, “Meet Me On The Moon,” replete with teardrop slide guitar, is about hoping for a pause to take in one last nice moment before a breakup. The closing track, “Love In Desperate Times,” is an elegantly-adorned ballad that is a snapshot of Lorne’s life a few years ago. “That is about a time in my life when I was really struggling. I was worried about paying bills, and making rent, but I was also finding my way as a single father and feeling like my daughter was my purpose for living,” Lorne details.

Blue Love was produced and mixed by Matt Chiaravalle (Warren Zevon, Courtney Love, Debbie Harry, Joe Bonamassa), and features Ray Mazza on drums (Distefano Mazza, Apollo’s Ghost), Matt Dougherty on bass (Distefano Mazza), Steve Mosto on keyboards and backing vocals (Almost Brothers), and Danielle McCullough on backing vocals.

Before his solo career, 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 previously in The New York Dolls-y roots-punk band The Sweet Things who toured nationally and in the UK, and in 2019 released the critically acclaimed debut, In Borrowed Shoes, On Borrowed Time (Spaghetty Town Records).

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