THE LOVESONG may not be a household name when it comes to local bands, but its members have been actively involved with the Hong Kong underground music scene for the past ten years.
The band started in 1999 as personal side project by Ben Tse, who was playing bass in the band Uncle Joe. At the time he was unable to find any permanent members, so he enlisted the help of some old friends for the occasional show, including Whence He Came guitarist Ephraim Bano. Without a solid line up, Ben decided to focus his time on Uncle Joe instead, but still writing material for THE LOVESONG on the side.
2005 saw the independent release of THE LOVESONG's first EP, a collection of songs that Ben had written between 1999 and 2005, recorded at the studio where he worked as a part-time engineer. Originally limited to 50 copies, the EP was met with much enthusiasm and support, selling out in a matter of days without any promotion or performances. To Ben's surprise, it even managed to get raving reviews from a number of popular local magazines, such as BC and Esquire.
In reponse to the interest, and the selling out of numerous reprints of the EP, Ben decided to try to make THE LOVESONG a live band again, especially since his brother Nic and Suhail Stephen (vocalist/guitarist of the legendary Think Up A Clear Sky), had both returned from overseas. With Nic on bass and Suhail on drums, the band finally had a solid line up.
They played their first show in October 2005, and have been hard at work ever since, playing to different crowds across Hong Kong, as well as being involved with both a 3" CD series (released by Lona Records) and a Chinese compilation CD entitled 'Emo Rocks China', which features bands from Beijing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xian and Hunan.
In April 2007, the band was honoured to be chosen to represent Hong Kong at China's largest outdoor rock festival - Midi Festival, but due to the short notice given to the band, they were unable to make arrangements in time for the performance.
A south east asian summer tour is currently being planned across Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia with their good friends Buddhistson (Japan) and Tookoo (Beijing).
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