 | LFO Want You to Want Them
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In early 1999, the guys in LFO were three Boston kids who'd been working for two years with former Backstreet Boys/'NSYNC guru Lou Pearlman's star-making machine to no avail. By the end of the year, they were one of the top pop groups in the U.S., thanks to "Summer Girls" — an infectious tune about a teenage crush, Abercrombie & Fitch and Chinese food. It was the kind of hit that no amount of show-biz plotting can create, taking off on radio and hitting the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 before the group had even recorded an album.
After delivering LFO and charting again with "Girl on TV," the group took time off to ponder their success and look to the future. Two years later, LFO are back with Life Is Good, an album that finds them pushing their musical boundaries and working with unexpected collaborators such as De La Soul, M.O.P. and Kelis, while still offering up plenty of pop hooks. Singer Rich Cronin told Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen about his post-fame freak-out, being in love with a famous actress and the downside of writing big hits.
MTV: Did you deal with some of the stress of success by writing songs about your personal life? Like, did your girlfriend really do a donut on your lawn and flip you the finger, like you sing in "Every Other Time"?Rich Cronin: Yeah, definitely. On "Gravity" I was really feeling like I was kind of spinning out of control. That line, "All I feel is gravity holding me down," really described how it seemed for a while. Everything I write is either directly or indirectly about something that happened to me. I'll enhance it, like that [situation in "Every Other Time"] didn't exactly happen, but something similar to it did. And then the rest of the song is, like, describing things that maybe didn't happen but convey the feeling of how being in a relationship is so crazy, so unpredictable. MTV: Did you approach recording this album differently than your first one? Cronin: We had total creative control. I spent months writing song after song after song. I probably wrote close to 60 songs. The first album, we only had a month to record. This time, we had more than eight months. Very rarely does an artist get total creative control like that, especially in this day and age. We're lucky we had a hit with our first album. A lot of executives want it done, they give it one shot, and if it doesn't sell they move on to the next thing. But if you look at all the great artists — Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen — it was [several] albums until they had a hit. If you don't get a hit now, you're not likely to have a second album MTV: So much of the press on you, especially in the teen magazines, has focused on your personal life, especially your relationship with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Does it ever feel like people focus more on that than your music? Cronin: That never really upset me. At first I was like, "Wow, they actually care about that?" or "Wow, I met this girl and she actually likes me and we're dating." I think that just comes with the territory. If you're at a point where people actually give a crap about who you're dating, that's pretty cool. Obviously, you want people to focus on the music and take you seriously, but as my father would say, "Any press is good press as long as they spell your name right."MTV: Did you worry when you put this album together that LFO may be perceived as a novelty act because "Summer Girls" was such a quirky, out-of-the-blue hit? Did you want to come out and make sure people know you're more than that? Cronin: That was my main focus on this album. I was thinking about it the whole time. "Summer Girls" was just one song. It's just a fun song, but it got overanalyzed. It was a huge song, and I'm happy about that. Nothing I could do will top "Summer Girls." No matter what we did after it ... we'll always be known as the group who sings that song. Maybe it's gonna be our signature song, I don't know. MTV: So was the success of "Summer Girls" sort of a double-edged sword, then? Cronin: I'm not mad about "Summer Girls." I love "Summer Girls." I'm glad I wrote it, and I'm glad it did what it did. But I would love it if people wouldn't focus on that one thing all the time. People were like, "Oh, you really hate Chinese food?" Yeah, yeah, dude. But I never thought in my wildest dreams I'd write a song that would become so huge that it would stick with people like that. Most of the time with a song, two years later, nobody remembers [it]. MTV: How did that overnight success affect you? Cronin: It affects your life in a positive way, obviously, but I'm a very paranoid person. I get a lot of anxiety. The minute I had a big hit, my first response was, "Well, how do I keep it as a hit? What if our next song isn't a hit?" Instead of being happy and enjoying the moment, the success made me very, very nervous. Instead of just jumping around and having parties, I was really quiet. I didn't want to lose what I had worked all my life to get. It's fun when you're trying to get it, and it's a big chase. Then the question was, "All right, you did it. Now what? Now you've got to keep it." I knew how to chase it. I didn't know how to keep it. ... Does lightning strike twice? You never know. MTV: The new album and single haven't shot to the top of the charts, but they're beginning to pick up steam. How do you feel about the way the new music has been received? Cronin: I'm pleased with the response to the single. There was no setup on the album, we just dropped it because we wanted to get it out there. That was a choice I made. Most groups do five weeks set up before they even drop an album. As soon as we finished, I said, "Drop it. I just want it in the marketplace. We've been away for a while, I want it out there." It's a choice I made, so I can't expect gigantic sales right now. But I'm hoping for a steady build, to work hard, and most of all, just to concentrate on the single. ###
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