Lavalove

LAVALOVE have never asked for permission – crashing the party has always seemed more fun. That instinct showed up early: After graduating from high school in 2018, Tealarose Coy traveled up the 5 from her Orange County hometown to Los Angeles to start college, studying guitar while studiously teaching herself how to record, produce and mix from scratch.

“If I wanted something to exist, I realized I had to do it myself,” she says, a mindset that shaped her writing from its earliest days. Drawing inspiration from cult indie touchstones like Mac DeMarco and the ever-present pull of Southern California’s surf culture, Lavalove took form as something loose, instinctive, and immediately joyous.

But as the songs grew louder, more meaningful and more confident, they began demanding to leap off her laptop, out of her dorm room and onto local stages. They needed more volume and voices, an approach that came into focus on Love Sick, the 2023 debut LP that introduced Lavalove as a bonafide band while proving the project had already outgrown its original frame.

That momentum carries straight into TAN LINES, their second album for Pure Noise Records. Produced by Anton DeLost (State Champs, The Warning), Tan Lines is an album about getting out: of bad jobs, bad relationships, and bad moods that burn off in late nights with friends and early mornings at the beach. Melding surf rock, garage grit, indie sheen and psych-pop shimmer, the album bridges eras and impulses – even those one might not expect, like the sunburned swagger of Coy’s all-time favorite band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the take-no-shit attitude driving modern hitmakers like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. The result is a fearless, forward-looking album built on confidence and, most importantly, community.

“One of the big themes of this album is friendship,” Coy says, noting the powerhouse band lineup – herself, alongside Edith Aldaz, Calhoun Diamond Fenner, Carla Pensalfine, Correy Masillamoney and Ash Ross – and key songwriting collaborators Sydney Roten, Joel Ferber, Jayden Seeley and Curtis Peoples. “At the same time, I’ve always loved how feminine this band is; there’s a lot of power there.”
That strength turns escapism into an antidote in all its forms – whether the group is throwing a middle finger to capitalism and the patriarchy on “Tan Lines” and “Messing With the Man,” respectively; tearing through local nightlife (“Go-Go Boots,” a two-minute sugar rush that doubles as a guided tour of SoCal’s brightest bars); nurturing new love on the album-opening “Hopelessly Devoted”; or maybe even burying it (first single “Sniffing Around,” which spins a did-she-or-didn’t-she murder story with an ambiguous smirk).

It’s all underscored by effortless melodies that could’ve slipped out of any decade without sounding dated and a devil-may-care moxie powered by the joy and energy of an endless summer. Importantly, Tan Lines doesn’t find Lavalove whitewashing life’s heaviness; instead, they choose to confront it with a drink in their hands and chosen family by their side.

“I always heard that depression can’t get you if you don’t stop moving,” Coy says with a laugh. “So why would I want to sit there and make a sad song? That’d bum me out.”

Latest Release

News & Updates