Mike Love

Singer/songwriter Mike Love developed his multi-faceted sound due to his lifelong passion for performance, stepping on-stage for the first time at age 16 and never looking back. Over the course of his early years, Love was involved with several bands and played solo gigs often, honing his craft through rigorous gigging and an openness to new ideas. His first solo recordings materialized in 2012 with the release of The Change I'm Seeking, the first look at Love's genre-bending approach that mixed roots reggae, acoustic singer/songwriter fare, tightly arranged adult pop, and other wide-ranging styles.

Mike Love was born in Oahu, Hawaii, and grew up with a love for both his island surroundings and music. He dabbled with various instruments and songwriting as a teenager, writing dozens of songs before he produced one he liked. In his teens and twenties he played in several bands, gigging locally with Melodious Solutions and singing for the large group Dubkonscious. In 2008, he took up a weekly residence at a local pub, playing solo for hours and trying out a variety of approaches to performance such as live looping, playing multiple instruments, and jumping between genres and vocal styles. These elements would grow to inform his solo recordings, which often collected a wide range of influences to convey messages of hope, change, or political disquiet.

Love's solo debut, The Change I'm Seeking, brought his sound to more listeners, helped out in no small part by several widely viewed videos. After some touring in support of the album, he returned in 2015 with Love Will Find a Way. Seven tracks recorded around the same time that didn't make the album were issued on companion piece Love Overflowing the next year. The singer assembled a large band to fill out his songs both live and in the studio, and began work on a third full-length. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi